Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ellie wakes up throwing up.

She tastes the dirty floodwater of the bus depot coming out of her stomach and then she’s choking on more, violent coughs racking her body. Oh, god, is it in her lungs? It feels like it’s in her lungs. She remembers trying to hold her breath until Joel got to her but her lungs burned so much and her head hurt and she just－she couldn’t. She hopes he isn’t mad at her.

There are hands moving her onto her side, holding her still as she coughs, but they don’t feel familiar. Something stings on her arm and she jerks at it, but the hands hold her in place.

Where’s Joel?

She tries to say his name, but she’s coughing too hard.

“Easy, calm down,” an unfamiliar voice says. “Can I get a sedative, please? The kid shouldn’t be awake for this.”

Oh, fuck.

She comes up swinging, still coughing but with her knife in hand.

What the fuck?

There’s a guy standing over her in scrubs, like the nurses used to wear at school. More bloody now though. She got him deep across his arm and they’ve all backed away. Good. No one’s touching her anymore.

“Who the hell are you?” she demands.

He clamps his hand down over the cut. “Ah, fuck.”

A woman steps closer to her. She has a syringe in her hand.

“You put that anywhere near me and I put this in your throat,” Ellie threatens.

The woman steps back.

The man shakes his head at the woman and she puts the syringe back on the counter. “We’re Fireflies,” he says. “You’re Ellie, right?”

“We made it?” She inhales, slow, and hears the rattle in her lungs. “Where’s Joel?”

The guy stares at her. “The smuggler? Downstairs. Marlene’s waiting for him to wake up.”

“Okay.” She wipes her sleeve under her nose. At least that explains why Joel isn’t here. “Sorry about the, uh, stabbing thing. But I don’t need any needles.” She shivers. She’s soaked and her mouth tastes like vomit and floodwater. “Can I um. Can I have some water while we wait for them?”

“Sure,” the guy says. “We’ll… we’ll all just take a minute, I think. Can one of you go let Marlene know she’s awake?”

Ellie notices the one who was holding the syringe leaves.

Good.

They don’t get her water, but they leave her alone in the room. At least now that she’s not choking on her own lungs or slightly terrified she’s been kidnapped again, she can look around. She’s never been in a hospital before.

It looks different from what she expected. Darker, more worn. Some of the lights in the roof are out.

She slips off the exam table and when her feet touch the floor, she realizes she’s barefoot. What the hell?

She looks down. Not only is she missing her socks and shoes, but she’s down two shirts, too, to just the tank top she had underneath them. She finds them, eventually, in a pile on the floor. They’ve been cut off her, and she feels exposed. She’s never had her arm out this much. She covers it with her hand without thinking as she searches the room.

They’ve left her backpack on the floor next to a door marked “Exit”. She immediately takes out her water bottle and rinses her mouth out, spitting it out into a probably broken sink, then chugs a bunch of it. Ugh, her mouth tastes so gross.

Wait. Why is Joel’s bag there too? That’s weird, but she doesn’t have answers and she’s too antsy to try and come up with one. She paces instead, back and forth in the small room.

She wants to see Joel.

When the door opens, her heart jumps － but it’s Marlene. And she’s happy to see Marlene, happy she’s still fucking alive, but she’s starting to get worried. Where the hell is he? He wouldn’t leave her, so why is it taking so long for him to get here? Was he hurt worse than they’re telling her?

“Oh, Ellie,” Marlene says. “You did so good.”

She doesn’t say anything. She did a lot. It wasn’t all good.

“Come over here and sit down with me,” Marlene says. She looks… sad.

“I missed you,” Ellie says, sitting in one of the hard plastic chairs. “Are you okay?”

“Just fine,” Marlene says. “Ellie, we need to talk.”

They can make a vaccine. It’s… it’s the best news she’s ever heard. They can do it, and they can help people. Everything that’s happened to her, it was worth it. She presses her hands under her legs so Marlene can’t see how much they’re shaking. She did it. They did it.

She almost doesn’t hear it the first time.

“Re-remove it?” she says uncertainly. “The stuff in my brain?”

Marlene nods.

“Is it gonna hurt?”

“No,” Marlene says, soft. There are tears in her eyes. “They’ll put you to sleep first.”

She goes very still. “Will I wake up?”

“No.”

She stops breathing.

Then she nods, standing up. She crosses the room, over to the counter. There’s a glass container of cotton balls on it, that she picks up, weighing it in her hand.

It shatters nicely against the wall when she throws it as hard as she can.

She inhales shakily. “I want to see Joel.”

“Ellie, we don’t have time.”

“No, I don’t have time,” she shouts. Her heart is beating in her head like it’s about to explode and she can barely hear over it. “You guys have all the fucking time in the world now. So I think I should get to say goodbye before you kill me. Seems kind of fair, doesn’t it?”

She expects an argument. But Marlene just nods.

“I’ll get him,” she says. “If it’ll make it easier for you.”

Ellie backs over to the bags in the corner. She can see inside Joel’s a bit and it looks like all his stuff is still there. “If anyone walks in here with a needle, I’m gonna shoot them. In the leg. Maybe.”

“I’d expect nothing less,” Marlene says and she almost sounds proud.

As soon as the door closes, Ellie grabs a handgun out of Joel’s bag and shoves it into her waistband. She was serious. If she has to die for them, they have to let her say goodbye. He didn’t get to say goodbye to Sarah. She’s not doing that to him. She might not be his daughter, but they’re － well, they’re something. He deserves to say goodbye this time.

Joel throws the door open so hard it leaves a hole in the wall. “Ellie?”

“Joel.”

She breaks and throws herself at him. Distantly, she hears the door click shut, but she’s got her face shoved into Joel’s shoulder and she’s trying not to cry.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he says, holding her tight. “Everything’s okay now.”

“Did they tell you?”

He goes still.

She pulls away, wiping her face. “Okay,” she says. “I － I’m sorry you won’t get to teach me to swim. Or to play guitar. You’re gonna go back to Jackson, right? So you’ll be with Tommy?”

“Ellie,” Joel says softly.

“No.” She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. “I need to know you’re gonna be okay, man. So please tell me you’re gonna go back to Jackson and you’re gonna be with your brother and you won’t be alone.”

“Ellie, I can’t.”

“Please.” She can’t look at him. “I’m scared, Joel. Please.”

He catches her hands and lowers them from her face. “Do you remember what I said earlier? On the roof?”

She shakes her head. “No. I have to do this.”

“You don’t. They can find someone else.”

“No one else can,” she says. “It’s just me. I’m it, I’m the only fucking option. If I don’t do this, then nothing changes and we － you’re all fucked. I can do it. Marlene said they’d put me to sleep first, so it won’t hurt. It’ll just be scary for a little bit and then it’ll be over and everything will be okay.”

Joel puts his hands on her face and gently makes her look at him. “Ellie. Baby girl, you don’t have to do this.”

“I have to,” she repeats, but her voice shakes. “I have to. I － I don’t want to, but I have to.”

It feels like a betrayal. She feels like a coward.

She can’t. She can’t do that. This is what she’s spent the last year fighting for. They can make a vaccine. They can make it so no one ever has to worry about being bitten again. Joel, all of Jackson, the whole world could be safe again.

All she has to do is go to sleep.

“I don’t want to die,” she says and it tastes like poison.

Joel closes his eyes for a moment. “Okay,” he says. “Get your things and we’ll go.”

She should say no. She should say goodbye. There isn’t much time.

She wants him to teach her how to swim.

She picks her backpack up.

They run at first, until an alarm starts going off and they hear shouting. Then they have to sneak, because Ellie really doesn’t want to have to hurt anyone. She’s already hurting everyone.

“Through here,” Joel says.

She slips through and watches him jam a pipe into the door handles.

“Buy us some time,” he says.

She nods and steps back as she turns. Something stabs into her foot and she gasps, stumbling forward.

“Ellie.” Joel grabs her arm. “You okay?”

She groans. “Ah, fuck. Glass.”

“Can you walk?”

“Uh…” She leans on him so she can pull the shard out of her foot. It’s deep and her fingers are immediately covered in blood, but she chucks it aside and wipes them on her jeans. “Ow. Fuck. Probably?”

Joel looks past her. “Shit, no, look.”

The floor all the way down sparkles in the moonlight with broken shards.

“Alright,” he says. “I’m gonna － gonna pick you up. Elevator, then we’re out of here.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Joel boosts her up onto things a lot, but he’s never picked her up like this. She feels like a little kid, even though she doesn’t remember anyone carrying her this way when she was little.

They make it to the elevator before people start shooting at them.

She ducks her head instinctively as Joel rounds the elevator doors, slamming the button to close them.

“I gotcha,” he says, breathing hard. “We’re getting out of here.”

She nods, her fist clenched in his shirt.

“Keep your eyes closed.”

She’s seen worse. She’s done worse. But she doesn’t want to see any of their faces and how they might look at her, so she presses her face against his shoulder.

The thing dings and Joel shifts, hitting another button as they leave the elevator.

“You can’t save her.”

Marlene?

Ellie’s head jerks up.

“Ellie?” Marlene sounds like surprised, like she didn’t expect Ellie to be awake. Did she think Joel, like, smacked her over the head and dragged her out or something?

Joel lets her legs drop to the ground, carefully, and then pushes her behind him.

“She don’t want to,” he says. There’s a gun in his hand, pointed at Marlene.

There’s also a gun in Marlene’s hand, pointed at Joel.

Ellie would really like it if people she cared about stopped pointing guns at each other.

“Even if you get out of here, what then?” Marlene asks, but she’s only looking at Joel. “How long before she's torn to pieces by a pack of clickers? That is if she hasn't been raped and murdered first.”

“Hey, off-limits,” Ellie snaps.

Joel shoves her further back behind him. “Ellie, shut up.”

“No!” She pushes back against his arm. Marlene’s not going to shoot her. If nothing for nothing, she’s too valuable. If she bleeds out on a garage floor, they wouldn’t be able to use her brain fungus shit. “You don’t know! You weren’t there. You don’t know what I’ve been through, so that one’s off-limits. Don’t talk about me like that.”

They wouldn’t have even been at the university if they weren’t looking for the Fireflies. So Marlene doesn’t get to use that to make Joel feel guilty.

“Ellie,” Marlene says, clearly startled. She drops the gun to her side. “I－”

“Off-limits,” she repeats.

Marlene swallows, nods. “Then I’m going to remind you that you know what the right thing to do here is. I’m sorry it has to be this, I am. But there is no other option.”

Ellie lets Joel push her behind him. For a moment, she rests her forehead against his backpack.

“He can still walk away,” Marlene says.

Ellie nods to herself and stands up. Then she steps out from behind Joel, limping away too fast for him to grab her. “I’m not stupid,” she says, and turns the gun she stole from his bag towards herself. “Neither are you.”

“Ellie,” Joel says, alarmed. “Put that down right now.”

She wipes her face with her free hand. “I’m sorry. I tried.” She doesn’t even know who she’s apologizing to. Joel, Marlene, or herself. “I really tried.”

“Ellie, don’t,” Marlene says and then she tosses her gun across the floor, away from them both. “Okay? Don’t. Point that at me.”

“I don’t want to.”

She means it in more ways than one. She doesn’t want to point the gun at Marlene. She doesn’t want to hurt herself. She doesn’t want to die. She doesn’t want to take the vaccine away. She doesn’t want this to be her choice.

She doesn’t want any of this.

Marlene closes her eyes, half-turning away. “Your mom would be so fucking proud of you,” she says, and then she throws something at Joel. He catches it by instinct. “Go. Fast.”

Joel keeps his gun pointed at her as he goes over to Ellie. Then he yanks the gun out of her hand and shoves it into his waistband.

“Gimme your arm.”

She leans on him until they make it to one of the trucks. Joel opens the passenger’s side door and helps her in.

“Joel,” Marlene says behind them. “Wait a second.”

“Stay here.” He slams the door.

What the hell?

Ellie twists, then tries to see in the mirror, but they’re in a weird spot she can’t see. She can’t hear, either, just the vague sounds of their voices.

And then there’s a gunshot.

Her heart stops.

A moment later, Joel opens the driver’s side door and climbs in.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.” He takes his bag off and passes it to her, then puts the keys in the ignition. “Get something out of there to wrap your foot up.”

“What happened?”

He looks in the rear view mirror. “She warned me about a few places they have people set up that we should avoid.”

The truck starts, and a minute later, they’re on the road.

“And?” Ellie prompts when he doesn't say more.

“And then she asked me to say goodbye to you,” Joel says. “Because when the Fireflies realized she let you get away, they would kill her.”

“Oh.” Ellie hugs his backpack against her chest. “I didn’t mean…”

“So I shot her.”

“What?”

“No, shit, no,” Joel says, glancing at her. “She’s still alive. And she’s got a better chance of stayin’ that way if they think it’s my fault you’re gone.”

Ellie starts to dig into his bag to find something to stop her foot from bleeding all over the place. “But they’ll come after us.”

After you, she thinks.

“Better to have someone who cares about them not findin’ you in charge, then.” He looks away from the road for a moment, and she thinks he’s checking to make sure she’s gotten herself patched up until she sees the anger on his face. “And don’t you ever point a gun at yourself again.”

She slumps down in the seat, crossing her arms over her chest. She’s cold and wet and exhausted and he doesn’t get it. He won’t get it. Marlene said he could walk away, but he wouldn’t have.

She isn’t going to let him get himself killed for her. Not ever.

He pulls into a parking lot outside a store a couple hours later and makes her let him take care of her foot properly. She also really needs a new shirt because having her arm out is making her feel really weird. He finds her a sweatshirt in one of the cars.

She puts it on and then she stops being able to breathe.

“I fucked up,” she says, getting out of the truck because she really, really needs to pace right now. “Joel － Joel, I fucked up. We need to go back. I can still fix this. It can still be okay.”

“No,” he says, and that’s it.

“I’m sorry, I messed up. I shouldn’t have run away. They can make a vaccine. That’s more important than me. I need to go back.”

Then she really can’t breathe and the next thing she knows, she’s on the ground.

“There you go. Keep breathin’,” Joel says. His hand is on her back and she thinks she might have missed a couple minutes there when she couldn’t breathe and everything was fuzzy.

She curls into herself, wrapping her arms around her knees. Her chest hurts. Drowning hurts, apparently. “I don’t want to die.”

“I know, baby,” he says. “I know.”

Chapter Text

Something is going on. Ellie notices as soon as she walks into the house. Tommy and Joel have the same weird look on their faces, and she lasts exactly thirty seconds before she needs to know why.

“Okay, what’s up?” she asks, tossing her jacket on the couch.

Joel glances at Tommy, then steps forward. “We got a visitor in town today.”

“Okay?”

He holds something out to her.

She takes it with numb fingers. “Firefly.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

She can’t get out more than that.

Joel sighs. “We’re… we’re not really sure yet. He claims to be here peacefully, but he refuses to talk to anyone but you. You don’t have to if you don't want to.”

She turns the pendant over. She hasn’t seen one of these in a while now, besides Riley’s. “We can talk.”

Joel does not like it, like at all, but he knows she can’t ignore this.

She’s not going to let something happen to him because she was too chickenshit to talk to one of them.

The Firefly doesn’t look hurt or anything, at least. Not really. A black eye, because they probably knocked him out. All things considered, that’s fair, Ellie thinks. It’s obviously not something they normally do in Jackson, but, you know. Firefly.

“Okay.” She grabs a chair and pulls it in front of him, sits down so they’re eye to eye. “I’m here. Talk.”

The Firefly is young, probably Ellie’s age. No, younger, probably, she realizes. They must be desperate. He would probably be tall standing. He sits taller than her already, and his legs are long. Taller than her isn't saying much, obviously, but still. It makes him look older, at first glance, but his face still has traces of baby fat roundness and he's skinny in that way that says he probably hasn't been this tall that long.

Did she look this young when the Fireflies asked her to die?

“There’s a letter in my bag,” he says. “For you. Only for you. It’s from Marlene.”

Huh. Ellie kind of thought Marlene would be dead by now. It’s been three years, and so far, no one has come after them, but she didn’t think it would last that long. She thought eventually someone would figure out Marlene let them go and kill her for it. She never knew, exactly, how to feel about that. It’s weird worrying about someone who was gonna let you die.

“Where’s his bag?” she asks Joel.

He picks it up off the floor in the corner of the room and hands it to her.

“Front pocket,” the Firefly says.

She finds the envelope and tosses the bag to the side. Her name is written on the back of the envelope. She tears it open and scans it quickly, then reads it another time more slowly.

“Ellie?” Joel says.

She stands up abruptly, the chair legs scraping loudly in the too-quiet room. Her pulse beats in her ears so hard she can barely hear over it.

She shoves the letter into his hand, goes outside and throws up.

Joel knows her well enough to give her some time to pull herself together before following her outside. By the time he does, she’s sitting on a bench a couple hundred yards from the house they’re keeping the Firefly in.

“Okay,” he says, sitting down next to her. “I’m gonna remind you that you don’t have to do anythin’ you don’t want to, because I think you need to hear that.”

“I know,” she says. “Marlene never lied to me. She didn’t tell me things sometimes, but she didn’t lie to me.”

He rests his hands on his knees and she sneaks her hand into his. It’s not a thing they do a lot, but she needs something grounding her right now.

“Might not be her,” Joel says reluctantly. “All you got is a letter. Anyone could have written it.”

She shrugs. “I don’t think it’s a trick or anything. They took some of my blood. I remember that.”

“No.” Joel sighs. “Me neither.”

“So,” she says. “They think they can make a vaccine without killing me. I just gotta let them stick a big needle in my brain and take a piece out. The people who were gonna kill me and weren’t gonna tell me first until I stabbed one of them.”

“Seems to be about the state of things.” Joel’s thumb rubs her knuckles. The calluses on her skin are a little rough, and it's a familiar sensation, one that helps calm her more than almost anything. “I can tell you that you’re not allowed to if you want.”

She snorts and leans against him. “When has that ever worked?”

* * * 

Ellie is a lot more calm when she comes back into the house. She sits across from the Firefly again.

“First up, this isn’t a thing where we’re gonna torture you or something. Joel, stop glaring at him.”

He’s behind her, but she can practically feel the glare radiating from him.

The Firefly nods slowly.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

They both know she already knows. They took his Firefly pendant, and they all have their names on them. It’s kind of a dumb idea, really.

“Isaac,” he says after a long moment.

“Okay.” She leans forward. “You already know I’m Ellie. That's Joel, and that's Tommy. I’m going to make it very clear here that no one is going to hurt you unless you attack one of us first. Do you understand?”

He stares at her. Fuck, she feels weird looking at someone not even her age and doing this. She expected someone older, not a kid with scared eyes. He’s so freaked out his dark skin has lost all its warmth. He looks like he’s about to puke.

God, what the hell, Marlene?

“So,” she says. “If I cut those ropes off, are we gonna be cool?”

“I’m just trying to help,” he says. “She said I could help.”

Ellie smiles, even though it’s not really funny. “Yeah, they said that to me too.” She stands up and crosses to him, slipping the blade of her knife under one of the ropes around his wrist. “Did they tell you that you’d probably die for it? I’m curious. I don’t think I got the usual sales pitch.”

“I knew I might,” he says, eyes on her hands.

She’s careful not to nick him. She’s not fucking with him. They don’t do things that way, not when there are alternatives.

“Yeah. I didn’t. Want me to do the other one?”

He shakes his head, but doesn’t move until she sits again and puts her knife away. Only then does he start working at the knot on his other wrist.

“I think it actually would have been easier if they’d told me from the start,” she says. “I could have gotten used to the idea that way. But instead they told me I was…” Special, rings in her head, and she swallows, thickly. Not that. “Important. Except I’m not. What’s in my brain is important.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Isaac asks hoarsely.

“Okay, fucking for real, dude, you’re just giving yourself rope burn.” She stands up again and he flinches, but she ignores it and cuts the knot. It was just his hands tied. He’s severely outnumbered here. He was never a real threat.

Then she looks him in the eye, a little too close, because she’s not fucking with him, but she is so pissed she can barely speak. It burns like fire in her stomach. Marlene shouldn’t have asked him to do this. Riley shouldn’t have been a Firefly, he shouldn’t be risking his life to come here, and they shouldn’t have asked Ellie to die for the cure. They were all just kids. It isn’t fair. They were all too young.

“I want to know if you understand that neither of us are important to them. Not enough to make our lives matter. Both of us are a means to an end.”

She hears Joel inhale sharply behind her, but she ignores him. They both know it’s true, anyways. That's why he saved her.

She backs up, because she’s seriously freaking the kid out now. “Why did they send you and not someone else?”

He looks around the room. Tommy’s behind him, making the same face Joel probably is. It’s not really helping put the kid at ease. “She was worried about what other people might do. They don’t know I’m here. Only Marlene.”

Ellie nods slowly. So Marlene thinks the other Fireflies would do something stupid if they knew where she was. Something that could put Ellie in danger. This isn’t just a request, then－it’s a warning.

“Joel and Tommy are going to ask you a lot of questions. They’re not gonna hurt you. We’ll get you some food and some water and if you’re hurt, we’ll help you take care of it. But in return you’re gonna answer every fucking thing they ask. Do you understand?”

“No,” he says, too honestly. That’s fine.

“Hey, did she tell you about me?” Ellie asks. “Like when you were a kid or whatever.”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t know her. I turned sixteen last year and ran away from school before they made me join the military.”

So he is younger than her. That's just fucking great.

“Sounds familiar. You look like her, a little, you know.” She recognized the name on the pendant, but it’s pretty common. She knows someone at school with the same last name, even. But his eyes are the same as Marlene’s. “It’ll be a lot faster for everyone if you talk to us.”

He will, probably sooner than later. He has orders. If there's one thing the Fireflies know how to do, it's follow orders.

Ellie thinks she might be sick again.

She starts to leave.

“Where are you going?” the Firefly asks, panic in his voice.

“To decide if I trust you guys enough to shove a needle in my fucking brain.” She turns to look at Joel. “Sorry, I － can you－”

“I got you,” he says, and she knows that to be true more than she knows anything else in the world.

She needs to think.

* * *

It’s late by the time Joel comes home. She thought about making dinner, but she lost her appetite hours ago and it hasn’t returned. Joel turns the lamp next to the couch on － God, she hadn’t even noticed it got dark － and sits down next to her.

She immediately presses in against his side until he puts his arm around her.

“Tell me my options,” she says, resting her head against his shoulder. She’s had one solid crying fit, broke the ugly vase they both hated that someone gave them last year, and had either two short panic attacks or one long one, depending on how you looked at it. She’s thought herself into circles and all she wants now is for him to make things make sense.

“Alright. One. You say no, we tell him to fuck off and send him back to them.” Joel starts rubbing her back, the same soothing way he does when she has nightmares. “Two, we go back down there and hear them out.”

She nods. “No option three, huh?”

“Not really, kiddo.”

“If I say no, nothing changes.” She exhales. “What happens if I say yes?”

Joel’s a little tense, but he’s pretending he’s calm. “We’d, uh. Have to tell some more people about you. We’d take a group. Meet up in a neutral place. We’d hear what they have to say and what’s different now. Then… that’s up to you.”

“Yeah.” She closes her eyes. “That’s the part that sucks.”

* * *

One of the stranger parts of all this is actually convincing people she’s immune. She burned her scar off a few years ago － it hurt like a bitch, but made life a lot easier － and she’s not really looking to get bit again. It wouldn’t do anything, obviously, but it still hurts and being that close to an infected isn’t a great idea in general. Immune or not, they can still injure her, and she doesn't want to risk someone else getting infected, either.

They have to go outside of Jackson until they find somewhere with a bunch of spores, and then she sits in a room without a gas mask and watches people realize she’s not turning.

One of them cries.

It’s awkward.

She ends up spending more time with the Firefly kid than she expected. Joel, Tommy, and Maria are planning things, like a lot, and they’d include her if she wanted, but she doesn’t want. She trusts Joel and he’ll tell her what she needs to know. That part isn’t the part she’s worrying about. And she knows what it’s like to have people lock you in a room alone for days and days.

At least they aren’t chaining him to a wall. She’s still got a scar from that.

“Do you ever feel guilty?” Isaac asks one day.

He looks like he expects her to get angry.

“Oh, shit yeah,” she says instead. “Go fish. Marlene told me that I could save the world and I said no. I was scared and selfish and I said no and god, I feel so fucking guilty. Like all the time. Got any threes?”

He shakes his head.

She picks up a card. “The first time someone died because of an infected bite here, someone I knew, I cried so hard that Joel made me take two straight shots of whiskey.”

“Just two?”

“Dude, you are like seven feet tall.” She gestures at herself. “Look at me. Joel still hides things from me on the top of the fridge.”

He laughs. “Okay, that’s fair. Any fives?”

“Fucking right it is. Go fish.”

He frowns at the card he picks up. She’s totally gonna teach him how to play poker next. He’s gonna be awful at it. It’ll be fun. “You still scared?”

“Yeah,” she admits. “Like no offence, but you could be lying out your ass and it could still kill me. My… people could get hurt because of this. Also like have you ever really thought about the idea of someone drilling a hole into your skull and sticking a needle into your brain? Like really thought about it?”

Isaac flinches. “Sixes?”

“Nope.” She leans over and steals some of his jerky. “Wanna know what really scared me? And still scares me?”

“What?”

“That it won’t work,” she admits. “That started scaring me after, when I was thinking about going back.”

“You-”

“Yeah, I thought about going back. A lot. Don’t tell Joel. But I really did. And,” she says, and it’s the first time she’s ever said it out loud, “What scared me the most was thinking about what if I let them cut my brain open and it killed me and it still didn’t work. Because if it doesn’t work and I’m dead, there is no second chance. Tens?”

He hands a card over and she puts the last of hers down.

“Scary thought, huh?”

* * *

The night before they leave, they have everything ready and Ellie is supposed to be getting some sleep before they head out.

Of course, she can’t sleep. She tosses for a while, but she knows it’s not going to happen. She gives up, eventually, and sneaks across the hall to Joel’s room. If they’re both going to be awake, they might as well be awake together.

“Nervous?” he asks as she crawls into his bed.

She doesn’t do this as much anymore, not like the first winter in Jackson when she kept waking up panicked because she dreamt he was dying. She’s doing better now, mostly.

“Yeah,” she says, burrowing under the covers.

They told four people, which basically doubles the amount who knew before this. Three people Tommy and Maria trust, and the town doctor. That was Joel’s idea － someone who would know what the Firefly doctor was talking about, someone who would be able to tell what was happening if she decides to go through with it.

“Me too,” Joel says.

He doesn’t try to reassure her more and she’s glad. She can’t handle anyone else telling her it’s going to be okay.

“You’ve been spendin’ a lot of time with that Firefly kid,” Joel says.

Ellie makes a face he can’t see in the dark. “He’s Marlene’s nephew. Also we’re technically still holding him hostage.”

“He’s pretty close to your age.” He hesitates. “It’s uh… it’s okay if you like him, you know.”

She snorts, a lot louder than she meant to. “Trust me, he’s not my type.”

“Do you… uh… do you have a type?”

She straight up laughs. She hasn’t heard Joel sound so awkward in a long time. Maybe not ever. The first time he got her tampons, she thinks, is probably the closest.

“Girls,” she says finally, because why not. It’s Joel. She trusts him. Honestly, she doesn’t know why it’s taken her so long to tell him besides that they don’t talk about feelings a lot. “My type is girls.”

“Well, that explains some things.”

She’s still laughing. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah, like why you kept volunteerin’ to work in the canteen last spring. That little blonde girl who worked there?”

“I － no － shut up.”

Joel chuckles. “Okay.”

“Now let’s never talk about my dating life again,” she says. “Because this is mortifying.”

“Bad news, kiddo. Embarassing you is my job.”

She might actually be able to sleep tonight.

* * *

There was a lot of talk about whether to take horses or cars. Or, car, singular. Getting a car in working shape meant trading a whole fucking cow to some smugglers they work with from the nearest QZ, and that was a lot, but Joel insisted and the doctor backed him up, in case Ellie actually has stuff done to her and she’s not up for riding a horse later.

They don’t all fit, though, so it’s just going to be her and Tommy and Joel in the car. They’ll be meeting up with the others, who are travelling on horseback. The others left first, since it’ll take them longer, and to scout things out and make sure the roads are clear. Making sure the car stays working is a priority.

Ellie thought Maria could come, too, but she took charge of that group. Officially Tommy is going with her and Joel because splitting the group two-six is really uneven and it’s safer if there’s three of them.

Unofficially, Ellie pulled him aside a couple days ago and asked him to stay with the two of them. If things go south, she needs Tommy to make sure Joel is okay without her.

She needs to know Joel is going to be okay to even think about doing this. Tommy is the only person who really understands that. He's the only person she trusts to keep Joel safe if something happens to her.

Joel lets her sleep in the morning they leave.

Or, well. He’s up early, and he tells her to go back to sleep until they have to leave. She doesn’t, but she stays in bed until the last possible moment, because if she keeps her eyes shut and breathes very slowly, she can pretend she isn’t scared.

She steals one of his shirts when she gets dressed. She doesn’t do that often － they obviously don’t fit, and people sometimes get weird ideas about it if they realize. She almost broke a finger disillusioning some kid at school of one of those weird ideas once, because, seriously, fucking gross.

She really doesn’t get it, either. It’s not a weird thing. His shirts are always just soft and comforting. Like the blanket she had as a kid until it got stolen.

Joel’s at the table when she comes down, holding a paper list and scowling at it.

She thinks he might be starting to need reading glasses, but he refuses to admit it.

“Anything I should do?”

“Eat,” he says, pointing at the stove.

There’s a plate keeping warm in the oven. She sits at the table, probably a little too close to him, and makes herself eat. She’s not hungry, but she knows she needs to keep her strength up. The last thing they need is her passing out or something.

“You ready?” Joel asks as she’s washing her plate.

She puts it in the drainer and washes her hands to buy herself a moment. “If I let them do it this time, are you gonna be mad at me?”

“Ellie, it don’t matter what I think,” he says. “This is your choice.”

“But will you?” She clenches her hands into fists to hide how they’re shaking. “Even if… even if I’m not sure if I’ll… be okay after.”

He sighs. A moment later, he touches her shoulder, gently turning her to face her, and cups her face in his hands. “No,” he says. “I won’t be mad.”

She knows he’s lying.

But it’s okay. She can ask a lot from Joel, but she knows you can’t ask someone not to miss you.

* * *

The drive is quiet besides whatever Ellie forces Joel to play on the stereo. She brought a stack of cassettes, because neither Joel nor Tommy made music a priority, but if they’re gonna be in a car for hours, she needs music. She brought books, too, but she can’t focus enough to read them. She mostly ends up sketching from the backseat while Tommy drives.

The trip would have been around five hours the way they used to be able to drive, Joel said, but the highway between here and Salt Lake is a mess and they end up having to take a lot of back roads, and it takes longer. When they take a break to refill the tank, she heads off for a bathroom break, because, seriously, she has to pee so bad.

When that's done, she ends up leaning against the truck with Joel waiting for Tommy to finish up.

“How you holdin’ up?” he asks.

“I’m okay. How long did I sleep?”

She’s pretty sure the pattern of the fabric of the truck’s seats is pressed into her face and neither of them is telling her.

“Couple hours,” Joel says. “You wanna switch off with Tommy and sit up front with me for a bit?”

“I could drive for a while.”

She expects him to say no.

“Sure,” he agrees.

“Wait, really?”

Joel shrugs. “You’re eighteen and you know how. Don’t see why not.”

She’s honestly a little nervous at first. She hasn’t touched a car in almost four years and she’s a little rusty. But she knows what she’s doing, and once she adjusts the seat and mirrors so she can actually reach the pedals － god, Joel’s fucking tall － it comes back to her.

“Where’d you learn to drive?” Tommy asks, slumping down in the backseat.

She snorts. “Long story.”

Joel yawns. “Think you’ve got time, kiddo.”

“Well, alright. Okay, so, first of all, it happened a real long time ago so you can’t get mad at me because you didn’t even know me then.”

* * *

The others are already at the spot they chose. They had a backup plan in case that one didn’t work, but for once things have gone their way.

Ellie’s kind of glad to see that Isaac isn’t tied up again. The deal was that they wouldn’t as long as he didn’t try to run away, and she’s glad they’ve been able to keep that deal.

She sits down next to him while Joel and Tommy go to talk to the others.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey.”

“You okay?”

He shrugs. “Still technically kidnapped, but yeah, I guess.”

“The last time I got kidnapped, they wanted to eat me,” she says blandly. She doesn’t really bring that up to people, but it’s kind of funny to watch the way he flinches.

“Okay, you win,” he says.

“I do,” she agrees. “It won’t be much longer.”

“Yeah, can you talk me through that again, actually?”

“Sure.” She digs in her backpack and finds a bag of dried apricots. She’s not hungry, exactly, but it gives her something to do with her nervous energy. “Here, take a few of these. Okay, so, they’re still based out of the hospital according to you, right?”

He nods.

“Tommy’s gonna take you there. And he’s gonna be pointing a gun at you, sorry about that, but you guys hit first and ask questions later.” She’s still a little mad about the way they treated Joel. Among other things. “You’re gonna talk to them with him and tell M － tell them our conditions. I wrote a letter for you to take.”

“Right.”

“And then you’re gonna leave with him, until he gets far enough away that no one can hurt him. Then you can go wherever you want. You have your bag, right? Can I see it?”

He reaches behind him into a pile of blankets.

She nods and takes it from him, pulling it onto her lap. She checks to make sure no one’s looking, then slips the gun she stole from the supply shed in Jackson into his backpack, along with a spare magazine.

“They don’t trust you,” she says, quietly so she’s not overheard. “So don’t be stupid. But I promised you don’t get hurt. By anything. And I keep my word.”

She gives his bag back.

He stares into it for a long moment, then zips it up. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re fucking weird?”

She laughs, louder than she means to. Across the room, Joel glances over at her, his face softening.

“Yeah,” she says, grinning at Joel. “It’s come up.”

* * *

The waiting is bad. She hates the waiting.

“I kinda wish I was going, too,” she says to Joel as she paces. She’s outside, because the house they were holing up in felt way too small with so many people in it, and Joel’s with her because… Joel.

“I know, kiddo.”

“I know I couldn’t, but I wish I had something to do.” She worries at the cuticle of her thumb with her teeth. She’s made herself bleed already today on the other hand, but she can’t help it. “It’s fucking unfair, if you think about it. I’m the immune one, but all I can do is waiting or－”

She cuts herself off. Dying, she was going to say.

Joel is not the audience for jokes about her dying.

“Or more waiting,” she finishes lamely.

She’s worried about Tommy being on his own. They didn’t want to send too many people and give themselves away too early, and Tommy used to be one of them so they thought he’d have the best chance of actually making this work. Plus he knows where the hospital is, and the others don’t really trust Isaac.

Joel wouldn’t leave her alone. Obviously.

Also as far as the Fireflies know, he did kinda kidnap her last time. So, you know. She doesn’t really think they’d trust him.

She thinks they’ll say yes, though. She thinks the Fireflies would say yes to about anything she asked, if it meant getting the vaccine. Most people would. That’s why four people were immediately willing to do whatever it took to keep her safe. She’s trying really hard not to think about that too much.

But thinking that doesn’t stop her from worrying, not until she sees Tommy in the distance.

She stops pacing. “Wait, why is Isaac still with him?” She waits only until they’re close enough to hear her, and makes it a little shorter by jogging towards him. “Hey, he was supposed to go back to the Fireflies.”

“Ellie-” Tommy starts.

“No, we’re supposed to be done with the hostage thing now.”

“We are,” Tommy says firmly. “Kid followed me home.”

She stops, surprised. “What?”

Isaac shrugs. “My aunt gave me a job. I’m not done it yet.”

Then he walks into the house.

Tommy shakes his head and follows him.

Behind her, Joel snorts. “He might not be your type, kiddo, but I think you might be his.”

“Joel. Fuck all the way off.”

Chapter Text

Ellie can’t sleep. It probably doesn’t matter. They’re meeting the Fireflies in the late morning, which means they’re leaving before dawn to set up at the spot. Neutral ground, as Joel calls it. Not the hospital, Ellie said. It was the only thing she insisted on. Basically, somewhere they could really book it from if they needed to.

So she’s awake a couple hours before they leave. Joel wakes up when she starts moving around, but she whispers that she’s just going downstairs and he goes back to sleep. They're safe here. The house is secure and Tommy’s friend Jack is on watch on the front porch.

She really just means to find somewhere she can hole up alone for a little bit. She’s thinking about maybe crying for a while and seeing if that makes her feel better and she doesn’t want to worry Joel. More.

But when she steps into the little laundry room off the kitchen, she very nearly steps on Isaac.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she hisses, hopping to not fall on him.

“Shit! What are you doing?”

“Shh.” She catches herself on something － the old dryer maybe? － and finally turns on her flashlight. “Close the door.”

“I was actually asleep,” he groans, but does what she asks.

“I thought you’d be in the living room,” she says. “All the other rooms have someone in them.”

He sits up and glares at her. “So did this one.”

“Wow, you’re really not a morning person.”

“It ain’t morning!”

She kind of deflates. “Yeah. I can leave if you want. I just… I needed somewhere to think.” And, again, maybe cry, but she’s not telling him that. It's bad enough when Joel sees her crying, and she usually wants Joel there when she's crying. “This place isn’t very big for eight people.”

He sighs and moves over. “No, it’s fine. I’m awake now. You might as well stay.”

She sits across from him, then turns off her flashlight so it’s not shining in his eyes. “Did you see your aunt?”

“For a minute. She seemed okay. Happy we were there.”

Ellie nods. “Did you know she was friends with my mom? Like best friends, before I was born.”

“But she still was going to let them kill you.”

She sighs. “Yeah, it’s complicated. Joel said… he said once that he didn’t think she really had a choice, in the end.”

It was probably the most charitable thing he’s ever said about Marlene. Mostly he avoids talking about her at all, but when he does, it’s tight and controlled and angry underneath. No matter what happened, Marlene is the one who told him they needed Ellie to die for the vaccine, and she doesn't think he’ll ever forgive that.

She thinks he’s right. They had a vaccine in their hands. Marlene caring about her wasn’t going to stop that, even if she wanted it to.

Ellie is never going to ask if she wanted it to. She doesn’t want to know the answer.

“Are you gonna stay with them?” she asks. “If they make the vaccine and it makes things better?”

He’s quiet. Eventually, he says, “I don’t know. I didn’t want to join the military. They… they didn’t seem like the good guys. And Marlene is my aunt. She’s my only family left. Joining the Fireflies seemed like the right thing to do.”

She doesn’t ask what happened to his parents. She grew up in an orphanage. She knows.

“I wanted to be one, too. Like, so bad. I kinda thought it was bullshit I never got a pendant, at least. Or I did when I was younger.”

“What do you want to be now?” Isaac asks.

Ellie closes her eyes. Her eyes are adjusting, and she can see him looking at her. “Done,” she says softly. “I’m really tired, and I would like to be done.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She exhales. “Well. Guess you’re on entertain the Ellie duty for a few hours. Always an honour. What do you wanna play this time?”

She can hear the grin in Isaac’s voice. “We could trade fucked up scar stories.”

She has to muffle her laughter in her sleeve. “Oh, yeah? What do you got?”

“I’ve got this gnarly one on my stomach from when my appendix almost exploded.”

“Huh, okay, kinda cool,” she agrees. “I’ve got this one from where an infected bit me and then I didn’t turn and then I burned it off with a firepoker.”

“Do you have to win all the games?”

“Hey, do you wanna know how I got this one on my nose? Not to ruin the story, but it happened when I got kidnapped by cannibals.”

It’s stupid, it’s really stupid. It’s not like it’s fun to talk about these things. Talking about what happened that winter makes her hands shake so hard she has to shove them under her legs to stop it. But it’s kind of nice to not have to hide the really fucked up parts of her. It’s why Joel makes her feel okay.

Kidnapping someone is the weirdest way to make a friend.

The time to leave comes too fast, but she’s more settled. She can do this.

Joel looks a little worried before he sees her, but Joel always looks a little worried. She goes over and leans on him for a couple minutes until it’s time to leave. It makes them both feel better.

They’re meeting in an old warehouse in the downtown area, outside of the old QZ. The city’s pretty bad with infected, and they have to clear their way there as they go. She takes a shotgun, because, seriously, she’s a better shot than most of them at this point and she’s not sitting there watching people fight for her. Joel doesn’t even argue, so she dares anyone else to have a problem with it.

She can handle herself.

So of course, when it looks like they’re all gone and she’s reloading, a fucking runner jumps out of an alley at her and knocks her down.

“Fuck off,” she yells at it, going for her pistol.

Someone else shoots it first, and she shoves it off her. She’s expecting Joel, maybe Tommy.

She’s not expecting everyone to be staring at Isaac.

Who just shot the infected. With the gun he’s not supposed to have.

“Who gave the Firefly a gun?” Jack asks.

Ellie reaches up and takes the hand Joel offers her. “Me. You got a problem with that?”

His eyes go to her arm. “Guess not.”

“Let’s keep movin’,” Tommy says.

As they start walking again, she grabs Isaac’s arm and drags him back. “I told you not to be stupid,” she hisses.

He pulls away. “You were in trouble.”

“I can’t get infected,” she whisper-yells. “I was fine.”

“You can still get your throat ripped out,” he whisper-yells back. “Kinda defeats the purpose of all this if you’re dead, dumbass.”

“You two gonna bicker the whole way there?” Joel asks behind them, and Ellie jumps like she’s been caught doing something bad. “Isaac, why don’t you go catch up with Tommy?”

She waits until he’s too far away to hear to turn to Joel. “Why is he mad at me? I’m the one who should be mad.” She pauses. “Wait, you’re not mad at me, right? About the gun? Because that’d be a lot of people mad at me at once.”

Joel chuckles, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “If you want to hide a gun, don’t leave your bag open when you’re raidin’ the cupboards for extra snacks.”

“Ah, shit.”

“I trust you, kiddo,” Joel says simply.

She keeps that in mind when the Fireflies show up. She’s sitting on a crate in the middle of the room. Not for the dramatic effect or anything. She just needed to sit down for this. It’s kinda funny. She’s fine facing down infected these days, or raiders. But the idea of seeing the Fireflies is making her knees weak.

They brought the doctor, the one who was there last time. The one Ellie stabbed. Other than him, it’s just Marlene and two Fireflies. The Fireflies are outnumbered for now, Ellie thinks. Even without counting Isaac. She’s not sure where he falls. She thinks he isn’t either.

Marlene falters when she sees Ellie, just for a second.

“Not too close,” Joel says.

Marlene raises her hands. “We’re not going to do anything stupid, Joel.”

This is already making Ellie’s stomach hurt. Seeing Marlene makes her feel raw inside. It’s odd. She’s come to terms with Marlene being the one who told her the Fireflies needed her to die, as much as that’s possible. Maybe it’s wrong, but what still bothers her is the last conversation they had. The stuff Marlene said to Joel in the parking garage.

What David did to her is something she has to live with. She’s the one who has to have nightmares about it. She’s the one who has to remember what it felt like when he touched her.

She hates the idea of it being used to make Joel feel guilty. It isn’t fair to either of them. The bad thing that happened to her is hers. It’s not meant to be a weapon to be used against someone she loves.

“Talk to me,” Ellie says. “My brain. You talk to me about it. What changed?”

“Three years,” the doctor says. “We spent three years trying to make something from your blood. And we’re so close. If we just had a sample of your fungus, I think we could do it.”

“How much is think?” she asks.

“We’ve already managed to make the incubation period longer.”

For a moment, she can’t breathe. She presses her palms into the edge of the crate until it hurts and the pain brings her back to herself.

“Did you fucking infect people on purpose?” she asks quietly.

“Ellie, they volunteered,” Marlene says gently.

Making the incubation period longer doesn’t mean they saved anyone. It just means people died slower.

She feels sick. “We brought our own doctor. You’re gonna talk to her and if she thinks it sounds okay, I’ll do it. You give her any bullshit and I’m walking.”

They separate to a corner of the room. The Firefly doctor pulls a bunch of papers out of his bag and starts showing them to Doctor Cal, and Ellie looks away. She’s too nervous to watch that. She doesn't want to know the details, either. Whatever they did, whatever lives they ruined, she doesn't want them on her.

Marlene steps closer, and Joel’s hand drops to his gun.

Ellie kicks him. “Chill.”

“Sorry,” Marlene says. “You don’t trust me, and that’s fine. I just － Ellie, you look so much like your mom. I wish I had a picture of her for you.”

“I think we need to not talk about my mom right now,” Ellie says unsteadily. “That’s － that’s not fair.”

It ends up being more boring than she expects. She’s not really ready to talk to Marlene, Joel’s too on edge to talk much, and they’re all waiting for the doctors to finish. She sneaks her fingers into the back of Joel's shirt and pulls him closer towards her, leaning her forehead against his arm. It helps.

Doctor Cal comes back to where they’re waiting and Ellie straightens up. “First of all, I’m not an epidemiologist.”

“Hey, weird, me neither,” Ellie says. “What’s a epi-epidim－what is that?”

“Someone who studies diseases,” Doctor Cal says, which is why Ellie likes her. “What I mean is this isn’t my field of expertise. I don’t know if their vaccine will work, I really don’t.”

“It will,” the Firefly doctor says.

“Shut the fuck up, I’m talking to my patient,” Doctor Cal says. Okay, that’s why Ellie likes her. “A brain biopsy has risks. We’re going to talk about those risks. Thoroughly.” She takes a breath. “It’s your choice, Ellie.”

“You think it’ll work,” Ellie says.

Doctor Cal manages a smile. It's shaky. “I think it’s the best shot we’ve ever had.”

Ellie nods. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

* * *

Doctor Cal wasn’t lying about the thorough talking. There’s so much thorough talking that Ellie goes a little numb. She’s glad Joel’s there, because he asks all the questions she’s too out of it to ask. He even asks some questions she didn’t really want to know the answer to. Stuff about her brain bleeding and seizures, until she squeezes his hand and he stops. She has a feeling he'll be asking Doctor Cal more questions when she's not there.

Ellie only has a couple.

“Is it gonna hurt a lot?”

“You’re going to be asleep for the actual biopsy,” Doctor Cal says. “You’ll have to stay there to recover for probably a day.”

It’ll just be scary for a little bit and then it’ll be over and everything will be okay.

She doesn’t say the words out loud. It’d make Joel upset.

It’s kind of making her upset.

“That’s it?” Joel asks. “A day?”

“She’s young and strong and it’s considered minimally invasive. And I would rather her recovery be done at home.” She looks at Ellie again. “And no, it’s not going to hurt a lot. Your head will probably be sore for a while and you’re going to feel a little shitty in general for a bit, but I will make sure that your pain is as minimal as possible.”

“I can handle pain,” Ellie says. “I just want to know.”

“You’re my patient before you’re their cure,” Doctor Cal says. “I’m looking after your well-being first. Can you trust me about that?”

“Yes,” Ellie says.

“You stay with her the whole time,” Joel says. It’s not the first time he’s said it.

“Every second,” Doctor Cal promises.

And that’s all Ellie needs to hear. She lets herself check out.

Doctor Cal and the Firefly surgeon argue a lot. Loudly, at some points. Ellie isn’t there for all of it, because Doctor Cal insists that she needs to do a bunch of tests to make sure she’s ready for surgery and some of them have to be done in other rooms. Joel stays with her for those, besides the ones where no one but her is allowed in the room when the machines are on.

There’s a lot of arguments about ethics that Ellie isn’t fully following. Doctor Cal calls the Firefly surgeon a lot of names when she doesn’t think Ellie can hear and says a lot of stuff about how old Ellie was the first time she was here. Ellie tries not to listen to those too much.

The problem is that she agrees. She's not sure if even being eighteen means she's really an adult yet. FEDRA and the Fireflies think sixteen is an adult, and she used to. But now she's older than that, and sixteen seems so young. She had her second kiss at sixteen. Between fifteen and sixteen she grew an unexpected, late inch, reaching an astounding height of five foot one. At sixteen, she cut her hair and immediately regretted how it looked, got drunk for the first time, and Joel somewhat belatedly realized she should probably have a curfew.

Fourteen seems so much younger now. She was a fucking idiot at fourteen. How was she ever supposed to be able to make the choice to die for a vaccine? How was that fair?

She doesn't think it is, so she's trying not to focus on it.

But the big fight seems to be that Doctor Cal thinks the Firefly surgeon is rushing things.

“She’s not aspirating because you were too stuck up your own ass to wait eight hours,” she hears Doctor Cal kind of yell at one point.

“I vote that,” Ellie calls from the other room. The window is broken, so she doesn’t know why they keep pretending she can’t hear them. “You’re gonna have to remember she’s in charge.”

It’s almost true. Ellie is pretty sure that the person in charge is like… a little bit her, but she can't really deal with that, so Doctor Cal can be in charge. She’s keeping Ellie informed of what she needs to know. That’s good enough for her.

It also pisses off the Firefly doctor. Which is about the only funny part of all of this.

She gets to see pictures of her brain. Pictures of the fungus.

There’s not as much of it as she expected. Just a little spot on one side. Funny that something so small could cause so much trouble.

She makes Joel go away for a while before the surgery, in the period where they’re just waiting for her to have not eaten for long enough. He’s getting restless and she doesn’t need him to punch the Firefly doctor right before the dude sticks a needle in her brain. She did not suggest Tommy take him for a walk like an anxious dog, but she got close.

Maria comes in to sit with her, because none of them are leaving her alone here. Leo, the other friend of theirs they brought, is keeping watch outside her room, too. Jack’s been staying with Doctor Cal. They’re probably being paranoid, but it helps them feel better.

“I feel like I haven’t really seen you in ages,” she says, sitting on Ellie’s hospital bed. Ellie doesn’t really need to be on it yet, and she’s just sitting there in her normal clothes, but the chairs in this place suck.

“Same,” Ellie says and ducks in for a hug.

Maria squeezes her, hard. “You’re doing a really good thing, Ellie. But I don’t think you want to talk about that, huh?”

“Hell no.”

“That’s what I thought. I heard they’re going to have to shave part of your head.”

Ellie shrugs. “I guess.”

“I thought maybe, if you wanted, I could braid the rest out of the way.”

She smiles. “That’d be really nice.”

Joel comes back an hour later, looking a lot more calm. She wonders if they went and killed something or just talked. Or if they argued for a while until they both felt better. Sometimes they do that and it’s weird. Probably a sibling thing she doesn’t get.

Maria moves out of the way, letting Joel take her place. He sits on the bed, a little behind her. She could lean back against him if she wanted. She wants, but she’s going to pretend to be strong for now.

Tommy hesitates next to her bed for a moment. “Hey. We can still leave if you want, you know, right?”

“I know.” Huh. She expected that from Joel, not him. “It’s okay. It’s just a needle.”

“In your goddamn brain.”

“I’m gonna be fine,” she says, firmly. She needs to believe it. “Don’t make me nervous.”

“Don’t get her started,” Joel says. “She’ll pull out one of her pun books.”

“Oh, that is a fucking good idea!”

Joel casually kicks her backpack away.

“Hey!”

“You’ll be fine,” Tommy says, then bends down and hugs her.

Miller hugs are good hugs.

They stay for a while, mostly just talking. Not about the surgery. Jackson stuff, mostly. They’re trying to distract her, and she lets them as much as she can.

“We’ll give you some space,” Maria says eventually.

Then it’s just her and Joel. She sighs and deflates a little.

“Still good?” he asks.

She nods. "Are you?"

"Not really," he admits. "I hate this and I'm worried."

Well, that pretty much goes without saying. Joel's always worried. And she knows he's remembering all too well the last time they were in this hospital. She always expected him to hate this. But she knew he wouldn't let her do it alone and that makes her feel safe.

"But," he says. "I am real proud of you."

"I haven't even done anything yet," she protests half-heartedly. "Which, like, so why do I feel so worn out already?"

“I think hospitals just do that. They used to be worse, though. There was always beepin’ and lights on, even at night, and they smelled funny. Plus someone was always wakin’ you up to check your pulse and shit.”

“Fuck that.”

“Yeah.” He tugs, gently, on the end of her braid. “Your hair looks nice like that.”

She gives him a look and wordlessly holds up the patch of hair they left out.

“Well, the rest of it does.”

She looks around the room. “I wish there was a clock. It’s almost time, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Joel says. He’s better at keeping track of time than she is. She tries, but she gets busy doing stuff, looks up, and an hour will just be gone.

“You’re gonna stay with me until I’m asleep, right?”

“And be there when you wake up,” he promises.

She nods. “Well. Everyone else is hugging me today. Wanna get in on the action?”

He holds her until Doctor Cal comes in and gives Ellie a hospital gown to change into.

It’s time.

* * *

Later, she’s glad that she doesn’t remember a lot of the first couple hours after she comes out of the anaesthesia. She remembers, embarrassingly, crying about something that seemed really important at the time. She thinks… she thinks it might have been about her socks. All the things in the world that she has to worry about and she cries about socks. Joel had to sit there holding her hand and gently wiping the tears off her face until he convinced her it was okay.

They are not going to talk about that later.

“Did it work?” Ellie asks groggily the first time Doctor Cal comes in to check her incision.

“Too soon to tell,” she says. “And I don’t want you to fuss about that now.”

She rests most of the day, too tired to do much more, and sleeps like a rock overnight, curled up against Joel's shoulder. By the next morning, she’s feeling a lot more human.

It makes her a little sick that it was this easy. If it works now, why couldn't they have tried this four years ago?

Doctor Cal seems pleased by her recovery, though, and she tries to focus on that.

“Is she ready to go home?” Joel asks.

The doctor looks at Ellie. “It’s up to you now. It’s going to take a while for them to make and trial the first batch. You can stay and wait, or I can clear you to go home.”

“Home,” Ellie says without hesitating. “But I’d like to talk to Marlene first.”

She kicks Joel out again for that. He doesn’t like it, but she needs to talk to Marlene alone. She has things she needs to say, and things she needs to hear, and she needs to do it on her own. Underneath the worry, he understands that.

The only thing that sucks about leaving is she doesn’t get to say goodbye to Isaac. He disappeared a while ago and she hasn’t seen him since. She hopes she didn’t get him in trouble. He did what he supposed to do, bring her back to the Fireflies. He shouldn’t be in trouble. They should probably thanking him.

They stole a bunch of pillows from the Fireflies, under orders of Doctor Cal, because Ellie isn’t supposed to lie completely flat for a little bit, but she ends up mostly just using Joel’s shoulder as a pillow in the truck. It’s a little cramped, especially with Maria joining them for the drive home, but she’s comfortable and it’s nice to have all of them there.

“Family road trip,” she mutters.

Tommy laughs harder than she expects him to. She didn’t think it was that funny.

“Even for Texas, this is a lot of guns for a road trip,” he says eventually.

She grins into Joel’s shirt. “Eh. Close enough.”

“Ellie, honey, let us know if you need to stop,” Maria says. “If you start feeling queasy or anything, we can pull over and take a break.”

She raises her hand and gives a thumbs up.

Doctor Cal wasn’t kidding about taking care of the pain. It hurt more when she got that concussion when she was fourteen. Her head is a little sore, mostly right where the new hole in her skull is, but she’s got a solid dose of some very good painkillers going through her. Also a bunch of other stuff. Antibiotics, something to make her not sick. She doesn’t remember the rest and that’s okay.

Because Doctor Cal stole a car from the Fireflies. Or, actually, not stole. Lectured the Firefly doctor until they gave her one. One of them is riding with her to bring it back, which is a bit of a bummer, but it was fun to watch her tell them off. She said she wasn’t leaving Ellie without care for days until she could catch up on horseback.

Ellie just liked watching her yell at them.

“Do you think you can see my brain right now?” she asks.

“Not findin’ out,” Joel says.

“Do you think it’s all squishy?”

“Ellie, I swear to God.”

She giggles. “Bet it is.”

“That’s why your skull is normally there.”

She makes a face, scrunching her nose up. “It grows back, right? They said it was gonna grow back.”

“Yeah, baby, it’ll grow back.”

Tommy snorts from the front seat. “Oh, kid, you are high.”

“High-larious, maybe.” She waits a second. “Get it? High… larious.”

Joel groans. “I’m gonna make the doctor sedate you again.”

* * *

She thought she would be nervous waiting. She was nervous waiting before they went back to Utah. She was nervous waiting in Utah.

But she finds she isn’t, really. She did as much as she could. She let them take a piece of her brain out, and she was willing to do that to make things better.

So it’s out of her hands now.

For a couple weeks, she’s not allowed to do anything too strenuous, but she’s feeling good enough to go over and visit the stables. She’s not allowed to actually do any work yet, but she hangs out with Tommy and the horses for a while. The walk is good for her and it’s a really nice day. It’s spring and warm and she’s alive.

“I’m home,” she calls as she walks into the house. She likes knowing where Joel is when she comes home. She likes him knowing she’s home.

“Ellie, c’mere.”

Oh, he’s closer than she thought he’d be.

She detours into the living room and finds him sitting on the couch.

“Hey, you.”

Joel stands up. He’s holding something in his hands. “Your friend came by.”

“Which one?”

He shows her what he’s holding － a white envelope. “The Firefly one. Or, ex-Firefly, apparently.”

“Wait, really?”

She didn't expect to see Isaac again. She thought he'd changed his mind and decided to stay with them. That's kinda really awesome. 

“He wants to ask Tommy if he can stay.” Joel hands her the envelope. “I didn’t open it. He said it’s the results.”

“Oh.” She looks at it. “Oh shit.”

“You don’t have to look.”

“I’m gonna find out one way or the other.” She puts the tip of her finger under the flap. “I need to tell you something first.”

“Alright,” Joel says.

“I thought about this a lot. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.” She slides her finger down the flap, tearing it open. “I’m still not ready to die for the vaccine. I tried to be. I thought, in the hospital, maybe I could. I talked to Marlene about it.”

“What did she say?”

“She thought I should do it,” Ellie says honestly. “But she wouldn’t force me.”

It hurt to hear. But she needed to know.

Joel nods slowly.

“If it didn’t work this time, I would let them take as many pieces of me as they needed to,” Ellie says. “Stuff from my bones, pieces of my skin, more of my brain, anything. I will let them keep trying, but I want them to prove it’s the only option, even if it takes years.”

The doctor was so sure it would work the first time. She wasn’t.

She’s only said it once, to Isaac, but she still has that same fear at the back of her mind. The Firefly doctor was convinced he could make a vaccine out of her brain fungus, if she let him cut her head open and take her brain out, but she saw the scan. There isn’t a lot of the cordyceps there, not really. If she dies for a vaccine and then it doesn’t work, her brain fungus dies with her. They can’t get more if she’s dead.

If the Firefly doctor was wrong, what happens after that?

She wants to live for selfish reasons, too. She wants to live because she fucking wants to live, because she wants to stay with Joel and the family they’ve made here, and she doesn’t want him to have to miss her like he misses Sarah.

But she was given the chance to do something important. She’s responsible for it, the stupid little fungus in her brain. The hope for a better world. The Fireflies see only the hope, she thinks, and she gets that. Looking to the light can blind you. But the truth is that they’re wrapped up into one. And it’s her job to protect both now. Even if people hate her for it, she has to do what she thinks is right.

She doesn’t know how to explain all that to Joel, but she thinks he gets it. Or he just trusts her. Either works.

“Does that make me a bad person?” she asks. “That I wouldn’t just die for it?”

“No, baby, it doesn’t,” Joel says, his voice soft. “It makes you the best person I know.”

She huffs to try and keep herself from tearing up. “Don’t get sappy on me now, Joel.”

She looks down at the envelope in her hand. One piece of paper. The fate of the world.

“Okay,” she says, and opens it.