Archive of Our Own

Ellie’s dreams were fast-paced and rapid-fire, and came to her in a series of flashes. She couldn’t keep up with what was happening because she never got to see the beginning or the end.

She was cold, and then hot, and back to cold in no time at all.

She was in the forest, where it was humid and smelled like pine and bugs, but when she turned around, she was in the smoldering steak house full of pain and ash. Then she would blink, and it was fall, and she was seeing a monkey for the first time, from the front seat of Bill’s shitty truck instead of Callus’ saddle.

She was scared, and happy, and laughing until she felt like she was going to run out of air.

But she was also crying.

She was crying so hard that her chest hurt.

Her cheeks had rivers of hot tears sliding down and pooling in the dip of her collarbones, and nobody was there to wipe them away. Her sleeves were too soaked to hold any more of them. Her head was spinning, and her stomach was churning, and all she wanted was Joel.

Joel would know what to do.

He always knew how to make her feel better.

He would put his hands on her face, and make her breathe with him, and would murmur something comforting like, “You’re okay, kiddo.” And she’d believe him, because Joel never lied to her. He didn’t tell her it was going to be okay unless he knew for sure it was going to be o-fucking-kay.

But Joel wasn’t here, and nothing was okay.

She was spinning, and falling, and the landscape changed with every twist and tumble. She was in her dorm room back in Boston, and then the musty tunnels beneath KC, except Henry and Sam weren’t there because they were already dead. And once she realized that, it changed back to that moldy room, and she watched as Henry cried and pointed the still-smoking gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

Ellie didn’t even scream this time.

“I’ve got you, baby girl,” someone said over all the images in her brain; her dream that was driving 100mph and changing as soon as she started following the plot. The voice sounded like Joel, but maybe it was just her mind playing tricks on her. Joel couldn’t possibly be talking to her, because he was bleeding out on a dirty mattress in Colorado.

She realized, suddenly, that she wasn’t dreaming anymore.

She was awake, but she couldn’t open her eyes.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” Joel said, a bit more clearly this time as he picked her up. She felt her body moving, her arms hanging lifelessly over his, her head tucked into his chest. It was hard to hear him over the sirens, and the yelling, and the chaos... but she trusted him.

She wanted to open her eyes; she needed to open her eyes.

Wake up.

Wake up.

WAKE UP.

Ellie gasped and opened her eyes, clenching her fists and feeling like her heart was going to burst out of her chest. She didn’t know where she was or what was happening to her. Everything was moving quickly in front of her eyes, trees and sky whizzing past.

She was just about to start panicking, but then Joel’s voice washed over her from the front seat of the car. “You’re okay.” Ellie gasped, turning her head to look at him. “You’re okay... you’re with me. We’re okay.”

Relief washed over her as her head pounded.

“Where—” she didn’t finish the question, because the answer didn’t matter. They were in a car, and not with the fireflies. The last thing she remembered was... fuck, what was the last thing she could remember? She felt like she had been dreaming for days. For weeks. For months. She had a million questions to ask, but for some reason, the first one that came out was, “What time is it?”

She wasn’t sure why it mattered. She couldn’t even remember what day it was.

Joel cleared his throat. “Around four, I reckon.”

“In the morning?”

“No.”

“Oh,” Ellie said dumbly, pushing up on her elbows, but her stomach instantly recoiled at the change in position. Her throat filled with saliva, and her head started spinning as her throat constricted. She turned her head to the side and retched once, her stomach cramping and convulsing.

“Easy.” Joel’s voice was full of concern and... something else. Something she couldn’t put her finger on when she was about to throw up. She could feel his eyes looking at her in the rearview mirror, even with hers still squeezed tightly shut. “The drugs are still wearin’ off.”

The drugs? What drugs?

“I’m gonna be sick,” she moaned painfully.

Joel hit the brakes, urgently but not hard enough to send her flying into the front seat. Ellie opened her eyes, fumbling for the door handle in the unfamiliar car as Joel jumped out and ripped the door open for her. She rolled over onto her stomach and just barely stuck her head out of the car before she puked, right there in the middle of the road.

It mainly was spit and bile, and it hurt more than it had any right to.

Is this what dying felt like?

Joel cursed, gathering up her sweaty hair into one of his hands and gently laying the other on her back, his thumb rubbing circles between her shoulder blades as she coughed and dry heaved. She wished she had something in her stomach to throw up, but she was hollow inside.

“Easy, now. You’re okay,” Joel soothed as she sobbed, his hand heavy on her back. “You’re alright. It’s just the meds,” he continued as she heaved against her will. She couldn’t stop. She was hanging halfway out of the car with her fingers gripped tight in the doorframe, sucking in ragged breaths as Joel’s hand lingered on her back. “That’s it, just breathe, honey.”

She opened her blurry eyes, her vision swimming with tears as it focused on Joel’s boots against the pavement. She stared at them as she caught her breath, her eyes flicking over the worn, brown leather and trying to figure out why they looked... wrong.

Everything was still confusing in her brain.

She coughed one last time, listened as Joel muttered more gentle words at her, using more names she wasn’t sure she deserved to hear, when it finally clicked.

“Joel.” Her voice was wet and heavy.

“Shh, I’ve got you,” he hushed, rubbing circles on her back.

“Joel,” she said sharply, the same way she does when he can’t hear her.

His hand stilled on her back. “What is it?”

“There’s blood on your boots.”

The silence that followed was so deafening that she almost thought he didn’t hear her. She craned her neck up to look at him, squinting against the sun and realizing he had that far-off look on his face. That look he gets sometimes, when he goes somewhere in his head that she wasn’t invited to.

He was looking at her, but it almost felt like he was looking right through her.

“... Joel?”

“Yeah,” he said, snapping back into awareness. “Yeah, I’ve got you. Come on, let’s get you up.”

Ellie looked at him for one second, and then two, and then accepted the hand he offered. She twisted on the backseat until she was sitting sideways out of the car, her legs propped on the frame, and her bare toes wiggling in the breeze. She looked down at the hospital gown she was wearing, noticing for the first time that it wasn’t her regular clothes.

“Dude... what the fuck am I wearing?”

“Ellie.” Joel sighed, but his tone was weird. She looked up to meet his gaze, the sun bright and painful behind him. She squinted, bringing her palm up to shield her eyes. He took a step to his right, blocking the sun from her face with his body, and she sighed in relief. “We, uhh...”

Ellie waited for him to finish his sentence, but when it was apparent he wasn’t going to, she grunted out, “Huh?”

Joel sighed again, long and heavy.

He brought a hand up to scratch awkwardly at his beard, and that’s when she noticed his knuckles were covered in dried blood, just like his boots. She stared at the crusty redness long enough that he finally looked down, realized what she was looking at, and quickly dropped his hand to his side.

Something bad had happened.

She was suddenly full of dread, her anxiety creeping in around her shoulders and threatening to take over her chest. She swallowed roughly, her throat sore and dry, and her hands shaking against her knees. She looked up at him as she asked quietly, “Do you have any water?”

“Fuck,” he cursed, bracing his arm on the open door. Another wave of... something washed over his face; a look she was too tired and confused to try to understand. “I’m sorry... we ain’t got none.”

“What the hell?” Ellie squinted at him, his words not making sense. “Why not?”

He always made sure they had enough water.

“We left in a hurry.” He dropped his hand from the door and stuffed it in his pocket instead. He was fidgeting, she realized, and he never fidgeted. He usually told her off for it. If her head didn’t feel like it was underwater, she might have deepened her voice and grumbled in her best Texan accent, Quit fidgetin’, dammit!

“Joel... what’s going on?”

“We have to keep moving,” he said instead of answering, pulling his hand out of his pocket and hooking his thumb in his belt. “We’ll stop in the next town and find some water, and...” he trailed off, looking down at where her skinny, knobbly knees were hanging out of the car. “And we’ll find you something to wear, okay, kiddo?”

She was too tired to fight him or to keep asking questions, so she just nodded.

“Good.” He nodded, always more at ease once they had a plan. “Do you think you can lie back down?”

“I guess.”

A moment of silence passed between them, and she made no effort to move.

“Come on, now,” Joel urged softly, stepping into her space and helping her twist her body back into the car. She looked up at him, and he frowned. He gently pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes, giving her that look he does when he wants to say something but won’t. “Lie on back,” he whispered, nodding toward the seat beside her. “It won’t be too much longer.”

He closed the door to the back seat and got behind the wheel, their eyes meeting in the rearview mirror. She had a million questions on the tip of her tongue, her mind racing with everything she wanted to know. They were supposed to be with the fireflies, and now she was in the back of a car in a hospital gown.

None of it made any fucking sense.

What the fuck had happened?

Why was Joel covered in blood?

Why was he being so fucking weird?

“You’re okay.” He must have noticed her panic settling in, because he met her eyes in the mirror as he assured her. He put the car in gear and started driving, jolting her backward with the movement. She braced her hand on the seat in front of her, the other wrapped around her still-lurching stomach. “Those meds they gave you... well, they’re a real bitch to come down from.”

“What meds?”

Joel swallowed roughly and looked like he didn’t want to answer. A moment or two passed before he said quietly, “They had to put you to sleep to run some tests.”

“What tests?”

“Ellie...” Joel sighed, gripping the wheel tightly. “Let’s talk about it later, when you’re feeling better. I’m just tellin’ you that stuff they gave you, it’ll make you real tired for a while. Sometimes it can make your stomach sick. You should try to rest while you can.”

“But... I want to talk about it now,” she insisted, even though her stomach was still queasy and her thoughts were moving syrupy slow in her head. Her body was begging to rest, to sleep, to close her eyes against the rocking of the car, but her brain needed to know what had happened.

“Lie down, Ellie,” he said, but there was no bite to it.

He almost sounded like he was pleading with her.

“Joel,” she said weakly, gnawing on her bottom lip. She was suddenly close to tears. She felt so weird and untethered from reality. How many drugs did they give her? Is that why she had so many strange dreams? Why weren’t they with the fireflies? Why was Joel covered in blood?!

“Joel, I’m...” really fucking scared.

“I know, baby,” he said, his voice low and soft.

And that’s what finally did it for her—that name.

That soft name that nobody ever called her.

He had called her that after Silver Lake, when she was the one covered in blood, but she hadn’t heard it since. She wasn’t sure what she did to deserve it now, but it made her feel warm like the sun. She finally moved to lie down on the seat, resting her head in the crook of her elbow and not looking away from his eyes in the mirror.

She curled her legs up and brought her hand up to her mouth, biting down on the nail of her thumb. “You’ll wake me when we get to the next town?”

“I will.”

“Promise?”

“I promise,” Joel said, meeting her eyes in the mirror again.

Joel wouldn’t lie to her, so she finally let her eyes close.

When Ellie woke up the next time, the car was no longer moving.

It took her a second to realize she was awake, and another second to notice the gentle fingers pressed against her forehead. She blinked her eyes open, confused and disoriented, and realized Joel was above her. His thumb swept over her hairline once more before moving, resting it on top of the car instead.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said quietly. “How you feelin’?”

She pushed up onto her elbows and waited until everything stopped spinning before sitting the rest of the way up. They had pulled off the highway and stopped in front of an overgrown building; a weathered sign out front read Welcome Center in dusty, yellow lettering. There were vending machines turned over on their side, and a few broken-down cars scattered throughout the parking lot.

The sun was much lower in the sky than it had been the last time she opened her eyes, and the breeze that swept through the car sent a wave of goosebumps over her skin. Joel had the backseat door propped open, his forearms resting on the roof as she got her senses back to her.

She swallowed roughly, her mouth dry and sour, and tried not to grimace at the way her stomach felt like it was somehow full of rocks, and completely empty at the same time.

“Where are we?” she finally asked, her voice rough.

Joel took a step back from the car. “Just over the Idaho border. This place looks pretty picked over, but there might be some supplies in the gift shop. It’s worth checking out.”

“Okay,” she said with a nod. “I can help.”

“No.” Joel quickly shook his head. “Stay here. Let me clear the building.”

“But—”

“No,” he snapped, but his face instantly softened. She scowled at him as he added, “You’re not in any shape to be clearing any buildings.”

She scoffed. “I’ve done a lot worse than clear buildings before.”

Joel sighed and shook his head, avoiding her eyes by looking at something off in the distance. He scratched awkwardly at his beard and then rubbed the back of his neck. The longer the silence stretched between them, the more she wanted to scream.

She had done more than clear a fucking building when she kept him alive back in Colorado. She was just about to remind him of that when he turned toward her with one of those hard-to-read expressions on his face. His eyebrows were furrowed, his mouth turned down; he seemed to be choosing his words carefully in his head.

His tone was gentle when he finally began speaking. “Listen to me... I don’t— I don’t need you steppin’ on nothing, or getting more hurt than you already are, okay? We don’t have the— the resources if you get hurt. I don’t know what’s in there, and you’re not dressed appropriately, you understand?”

She glared down at her bare toes, crossing her arms over her chest.

Why did they have to take her fucking shoes?

“Ellie,” Joel said, his voice soft as he crouched to be eye level with her. Her eyes burned with tears, and she knew he could see them. He rested his hands on either side of the seat, gently boxing her in and tapping his thumbs on the cushion. “Let me sweep the building, and then... we can look for supplies together, okay?”

Ellie chewed on her cheek for a moment before jerkily nodding her head. “Fine.”

He nodded and pushed off his thighs, groaning a bit as he went. He dug around in the front seat before offering her something in the palm of his hand. She looked down at it, and something like relief washed over her when she realized it was her knife.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

She assumed it was gone, with her clothes.

The moment her fingers wrapped around the folded steel, she felt considerably less naked and vulnerable. She felt more like herself, even if she couldn’t remember the last few hours of her life. She squeezed the handle until her knuckles turned white, so fucking glad to have it back in her hand.

“They...” Joel started, sounding remorseful, his tone laced with pain. “They took the rest. I was barely able to get this out. I’m sorry.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat, thinking about the rest of her belongings that would be gone forever. Her comics, her pun books, her Walkman, and Riley’s firefly pendant. All just... gone. Forgotten, thrown out, burned. Left behind to mold and rot and become part of the earth.

Her eyes filled with tears, and she pressed the heels of her hands roughly into them.

She sniffled her nose, looking up at Joel.

His face was filled with something she could only describe as pain.

“I’m really sorry, kid,” he whispered, and she knew he meant it. “You stay here, and holler if you see anything.” Ellie nodded half-heartedly, her eyes blurry and burning as she looked down at the knife in her hand. “Ellie,” he said, making her look up. His eyes were serious as he repeated slowly, “You holler if you see anything.”

“I will.”

“Alright.” He looked at her for another long moment before grabbing his pistol from the front seat and heading toward the building. She watched him go, watched him listen at the front door, and peer around corners, before finally disappearing inside.

And then she was alone.

The rest stop was tucked off the highway and surrounded by thick, tall trees and overgrown grass. The asphalt of the parking lot was split and cratered, with weeds and vegetation bursting up through the cracks. Everything was quiet except for the bugs chirping in the forest and her uneven breaths.

She looked down at her knife, the only thing left in this world that she owned, and more tears pooled in her eyes. She couldn’t remember what happened at the hospital, but it must have been bad if Joel left without her things. He knows how important they are to her.

She must not have been the cure the fireflies were looking for.

She must have failed again.

She wasn’t able to save the world, just like she wasn’t able to save Riley.

Or Sam.

Or Henry.

Or Tess.

She tucked the knife under her thigh and brought her hands up to her face, letting herself cry into them while Joel wasn’t around to see it. She felt pathetic crying about the things in her pack, but they were hers. They were Riley’s. They were everything that proved she had a real life before all of this happened.

And now they were all gone.

She knew that none of it really mattered, and that she should feel lucky to be alive—but it was hard to see it that way. She had spent countless hours flipping through those pun books with Riley, and now she’d never see them again. She’d never see their highlights or notes, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

It felt like a part of her had died, all over again.

She didn’t know how long she sat there feeling sorry for herself, but she heard Joel’s footsteps coming toward her and knew she had to get herself together. She sniffled her nose again, wiping furiously at her eyes and slapping at her cheeks to hopefully bring some color back into them.

Maybe Joel would be too focused on clearing the area and wouldn’t notice she was crying.

“They aren’t perfect, but they’ll do for now,” Joel said, handing her a pile of mismatched clothing he must have found inside. She reached out to take them, pointedly avoiding his eyes so he wouldn’t see she was crying. He hesitated, and she braced herself, but then he passed her the clothes and said nothing.

“Thanks,” she whispered, looking at the brittle flip-flops and musty blue sweats in her hands. They still had faded price tags attached to them. She looked down at the blobby, brown image on the front of the hoodie, the graphic cracked and weathered from the sun, before looking up at Joel. “Is that supposed to be... a potato?”

He chuckled quietly, but his smile never reached his eyes. “Yeah, I reckon it is.”

“But... why?”

“They used to grow ‘em here,” Joel said, turning around when she crawled out of the car to give her some privacy. “Potatoes were a big thing in these parts.”

“Weird,” Ellie mumbled, ripping the price tags off the clothes.

“There wasn’t much inside the building, but... there’s a stream out back that we can fill a canteen with.” He faced away from her and filled the silence while she dressed. “It’s, uhh... quiet around here. Everything looks untouched for a while. We’re only a few hours outside of Tommy’s with the car, but if you wanted to stay the night, I think it would be safe.”

“You can turn around,” she said, balling up the hospital gown.

“Well?” Joel asked, turning and gently taking the flimsy gown from her.

“Well, what?”

Joel frowned, shifting the fabric in his hands. “Do you want to keep driving, or...?”

“Whatever,” Ellie said quietly, shrugging slightly as she tied the sweatpants as tight as they would go. They were still too big and might fall, but it was better than the weird hospital clothes she had on before, even if they didn’t smell very good. “We can do whatever you want to do.”

It only made Joel frown harder.

“Kid, I—”

“I’m really thirsty,” she said, looking away from him when her eyes started burning again. She knew she hadn’t finished crying, and there were still a lot of tears left in her, but she was trying to keep it together. Joel was quiet for a moment, and when she finally chanced a glance at him, he frowned even harder.

“Ellie,” he whispered sadly.

“What happened with the fireflies?” She couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out of her mouth.

Silence.

Joel looked at her with this torn expression on his face, his eyebrows squeezed together and his lips in a thin line, but Ellie didn’t shy away. She knew he didn’t want to talk about it, but this wasn’t up for debate anymore.

She had to know what happened.

He had to tell her.

He had to.

When he still said nothing, she finally asked, “Did you hear me?”

She wasn’t trying to be a bitch, she just genuinely didn’t know if he had heard her.

Joel sighed and looked down at the crumpled fabric in his hand before finally tossing it aside. He brought his hands up to his face, rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes, and blinked them back open. He opened his mouth, took a deep breath in like he was about to start talking, but no words followed.

“Joel,” Ellie said, trying her best to sound steady, but it came out wobbly. “You have to tell me what happened.”

“I know,” he said, nodding and avoiding her eyes. “I know I do.”

“Joel.”

“We found the fireflies.” His words came out slow and measured, but almost... too scripted, like he had rehearsed them in his head for a while. “It turns out there are other people like you. Other kids who are immune, and whatnot. But... the docs couldn’t make heads or tails of it, so they’ve stopped looking for a cure.”

Ellie felt like she was going to throw up.

She brought a hand up to her mouth, her heart racing and her stomach churning, his words playing over and over again in her head. She swallowed roughly and cleared her throat, trying to make sense of it. “But...” she choked out, her eyes blurring and her thoughts jumbled. “Why did they give me drugs?”

“What?” Joel asked, looking up at her. The question seemed to catch him off guard.

“Why did they give me drugs if they stopped looking for a cure?”

“Oh,” Joel said, avoiding her eyes again as he looked down at his boots. A beat passed, and then another. “They... had to run some tests on you.” He rested his hands on his hips for a moment before letting them drop. Fidgeting. “They put you to sleep for it, so that you wouldn’t be in any pain.”

“But... why? What kind of pain?”

“I don’t know,” Joel snapped, but the look on his face showed he instantly regretted it.

None of this made any fucking sense.

Ellie was starting to feel nauseous again, and she grabbed hold of the car door to steady herself. Joel looked like he wanted to reach out, to hold her or comfort her, but he didn’t move. Ellie’s thoughts were whirling together, her brain desperately trying to keep up.

“How many others were there?”

Joel blinked at her. “I’m not sure. I— I didn’t see them.”

“But...” Ellie trailed off, letting a huff of air out of her lungs. She brought her hands up to her face and rubbed at her eyes. None of this made any fucking sense! “If they knew they weren’t looking for a cure, why did they have to run tests on me at all?”

“I don’t know,” Joel said, shrugging slightly and avoiding her eyes again. “I’m no doctor.”

Ellie blinked at him, something in her gut gnawing at her.

“Look at me,” she said, watching as he took a deep breath and finally met her eyes. They stared at each other for a moment, one second turning into two, two turning into three. That voice in the back of her head that always warned her against danger or threats was screaming at her to fucking listen. “You’re... lying to me.”

“El—”

“Why are you fucking lying to me, Joel?”

“I’m not—”

“Stop!” Ellie screamed, stomping her foot. “Just stop.”

Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might burst out of her chest and land pathetically on the ground between them. Her head was spinning, and her stomach was clenching because they don’t fucking lie to each other. They had been through too much, had traveled too far, and had almost died too many fucking times to lie to each other.

She didn’t understand why he was doing this, but when he finally looked up at her, what she saw there made her pause. She was expecting him to double down on his lie and cop an attitude with her; maybe use his asshole voice and tell her to quit asking him about it.

But when she met his eyes, she realized they were glassy and full of tears. Suddenly, she felt a lot less angry. Joel was always the strong one, the rational one; the one who could look danger in the face and keep his head on straight. He didn’t cry about everything like she did, and he never complained about anything.

The fact that he was this close to crying now made her breath catch in her throat.

Her jaw ticked open, but all the words died on her tongue.

“I’m sorry,” Joel said, quiet and full of hurt. He brought his hands back up to his face, wiping at his eyes before dragging them down his jaw. He blinked to clear his vision, chewing hard on his cheek as he slowly shook his head. “You’re right. I was lyin’. I’m sorry.”

She was pretty sure she was going to throw up again.

“Why would you do that?” she whispered, her throat bobbing.

He shook his head again, his eyes full of pain and regret. The longer the silence went on, the more she felt like she was going to be sick. Without knowing what actually happened, she was forced to fill in the blanks in her head, and that never ended well for her.

She always made things worse in her head.

The way he was looking at her was so... unsettling.

It made her feel split open and raw, more vulnerable than she had ever felt in her whole damn life. She wanted to cross the gap between them and wrap her arms around him, comfort him, tell him it was going to be okay, just like he always did for her.

But her feet wouldn’t move.

If whatever happened at the fireflies was this bad—so bad that he couldn’t even put it into words—she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to hear it. She almost wanted to tell him to forget about it, that she didn’t need to know, and all that mattered was that they were safe. Together.

But the words never came.

Joel took a step toward her, and she instinctively took one back. She didn’t even know why she did it, but the hurt that washed over his face was enough to break her in half. She should apologize, shake it off, and let him comfort her if that’s what he wanted.

But she didn’t move.

“Ellie,” he pleaded, just above a whisper.

“What did you do?”

“Please,” he whispered, his voice broken.

“Joel... what did you do?” Ellie demanded, not even recognizing the sound of her voice. Everything was getting away from her. She didn’t want to be mad at him; she didn’t want to be yelling or hurting him, but it was like it was happening without her consent.

“I saved you.” The words seemed torn from his chest, devastated and raw.

“Saved me from what?”

“From them.”

“From who?” Her voice cracked with the force of her words. She felt like she was going to throw up again. Everything was happening too fast, and too slow at the same time. She wished they could go back and start over; that she could have this conversation without being mad.

“Them,” Joel repeated roughly. “The fireflies. They ain’t good people, Ellie.”

“What do you mean?” Ellie gasped, her fingers tightening around the car door. “Those people kept me alive when they should have shot me! Marlene hired you to keep me safe! Why would she do that if she wasn’t a good person?!”

Joel was shaking his head before she had even finished, taking another step toward her. “No, no, no,” he said over her words. “They were going to kill you, Ellie! Don’t you understand?!” He reached out and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her a bit with the force of it.

“What do you—” Ellie whispered, blinking furiously at him. “What do you mean?”

“They weren’t even going to ask you,” Joel said, disgusted and shaking his head. His hands were still holding her shoulders, and his fingers were trembling against her. “They weren’t even going to give you a damn choice. They were just going to cut you open and take out all the— the cordyceps until there was nothing left of you.”

“No,” Ellie said, shaking her head. “No! Fuck you. Marlene wouldn’t do that to me!”

“But she did,” Joel said firmly, his voice riddled with pain. “All of them were acting under Marlene’s orders.”

“No, no, no.” Ellie shook her head again, trying to push him away. Her hands pushed and shoved against his chest, but he was unmovable. One of his hands shifted from her shoulders to her cheek, trying to get her to look at him. “Stop! Just stop! Don’t fucking touch me!”

Joel instantly let go as if he had been burned, and somehow—it felt worse.

She leaned over and sobbed, wrapping her arms around her stomach and gasping for air. This couldn’t be true. Marlene was there when she was born. She was friends with her mom and had promised to take care of her! She would never order them to—to cut her fucking brain out!

“She wouldn’t, she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t,” Ellie kept repeating.

Joel made a wounded noise, but still didn’t move to touch her again.

When she finally looked up at him, the tears in his eyes were back. She could barely catch her breath, her lungs aching and constricting in her chest. That never-ending sense of dread was back inside her, that feeling like everything was wrong and nothing would ever be right again.

“Do you trust me?” Joel asked, barely above a whisper.

It was that same question he had asked back in KC.

Her answer was the same, but it was so much harder this time.

When he asked her that question before, when they were under attack and their lives were on the line, she had barely even hesitated to say yes. But this time, it seemed impossible. Because trusting him meant that everything Marlene had told her was a lie.

“Joel,” Ellie sobbed, tears racing down her cheeks.

“Do you trust me, Ellie?” he repeated, his voice trembling in a way it usually didn’t. Ellie sobbed again, bringing her hands up to her face and crying into them. Joel made another pained noise, but his feet stayed planted on the ground. He wasn’t going to bridge the gap between them until she told him he could.

And that was the thing, wasn’t it?

He never pushed when it came to her.

He never made her uncomfortable.

They had spent the better part of a year together, and he had done nothing but protect her. He had kept her warm, and fed, and alive. He had cared about her, and listened to her, and laughed with her. He had pulled himself out of that basement and come to rescue her in Silver Lake, even though it nearly killed him.

He respected her boundaries, even when they didn’t make sense. Even when they were changing every few minutes, and she was yelling at him and blaming him for everything wrong in her life.

In those days after Silver Lake, when they were barricaded inside some old farm while the blizzard passed, he had cared for her in a way she never knew existed. He held her, and soothed her, and calmed her down after all of her nightmares. He cleaned her up, kept her breathing, and kept her moving until her brain started working again.

He was the only person in this world that she trusted.

He was the only person in the world who had ever loved her unconditionally.

“Yes,” she finally said, choking on her tears.

“Good,” Joel said gently, nodding his head. “That’s good, baby. I trust you, too. You know that, don’t you?” And again—the answer was easy. Of course she knew that. She hesitantly nodded, wiping furiously at her cheeks with her hands. “Okay... so, what if it was me?”

“What do you mean?” Ellie asked, her voice wobbling.

“If they wanted to take me into surgery and remove my brain,” Joel said, his hands clenched tightly into fists. “If they just... put me under anesthesia and took me to the operating room without even asking me... without letting you say goodbye to me. If it were me... would you have let them kill me?”

Ellie sobbed again, squeezing her eyes shut as she gasped for air. “I— I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.”

“I do,” Joel said, his voice low and hurt. “I know what you would do.”

“No,” Ellie cried. “You don’t know. Because I don’t know.”

“No, I know you, Ellie,” Joel said adamantly. “I know when all those fuckers in Colorado tried to stop you and hurt you, and take you— that you never gave up. You never stopped fighting. You didn’t let them win.”

“But that’s different!” Ellie screamed, her heart pounding in her chest. “I was trying to save you!”

“Exactly,” Joel insisted, nodding firmly. He seemed proud of her, like they were finally on the same page. “That’s exactly right, baby, you were trying to save me. And you did. Because that’s what we do, right? We save each other.” Joel took a hesitant step forward, but didn’t reach out. “We choose each other. Over and over again. Every time our backs are against the wall, we fight like hell. ‘Cause you and me, we’re a team, ain’t we?”

“Joel,” Ellie sobbed.

“Ellie, baby... those people were going to kill you.” He shook his head. “And I couldn’t let that happen again.”

“But maybe I was supposed to die,” Ellie cried roughly, trying to make sense of it all. “That was my purpose! That’s how I was going to save the world.”

“No.” He shook his head calmly, his eyes wet and red. His voice was steady and sure. There was no doubt in his mind as he said, “They had no way of making that vaccine, and no way of distributin’ it. They didn’t have the resources, Ellie. They were barely getting by. The things they would need to produce a vaccine on this scale—”

“You don’t know that!”

“I do know that,” Joel said confidently, pointing at her. “What they were tryin’ to do would have been damn near impossible before the world went to shit, don’t you understand? They were running on fumes; on—on pipe dreams. They had no idea what it would take to make a vaccine like that.”

“And you do?” Ellie huffed.

A moment passed between them, and Joel’s face was hard to read.

“What I know,” he started slowly, taking another step toward her. “Is that there was no way in hell they were gonna kill my kid for some half-assed plan,” he said with conviction, his words coming out strong and steady. He shook his head with disgust, brushing it off as he huffed, “Ain’t no fuckin’ way.”

Ellie felt like she was going to pass out.

There was so much information to take in at once.

“So you... what?” Ellie finally asked, looking over at him. “Killed them all?”

Joel sighed, chewing on his cheek. “I did what I needed to do.”

“What does that mean?”

“Don’t you see it?” Joel asked, barely above a whisper. He took another step closer to her, their toes just inches apart. He ducked down a bit so they were eye level, not letting her look away from him. “There’s not... a single thing in this world that I wouldn’t do for you.”

“But,” Ellie protested, her jaw moving with everything she wanted to say. “But this...? How— how many people did you...?”

“Listen to me,” he said, moving like he wanted to hold her again before remembering. His hands dropped sadly to his side, his neck still lowered to be in her line of sight. He took a deep breath in, held it for a few moments, and let it slowly slide out of his lungs. “If the choice is between them and you... well, that ain’t no choice at all.”

Ellie had no fucking clue what she was supposed to do with that.

It was... overwhelming.

On some level, she knew that Joel felt that way and would make these choices. But it was one thing to think about it, and a different thing to hear him say it, now, after everything that had happened.

She felt very... torn.

She went to sleep a few hours ago, thinking she was going to save the world, and then she woke up in a car, a complete failure.

Everything she thought she knew about herself turned out to be a lie.

The person who was there at her birth lied to her and was probably dead.

Everything she had done to get here, all the people who had to die, all of the things she had to sacrifice. All of the horrible things she saw, all the men she had killed with her own hands; all of that was for... nothing.

It couldn’t all be for nothing.

But that other part of her, the part of her who has spent her entire life scared and alone, with nobody to protect her and nobody to have her back—that part of her couldn’t help but feel a bit... satisfied that somebody like Joel would choose to be that person for her.

Big, scary, asshole Joel, who didn’t give a fuck about anything or anyone, chose her.

He chooses her, time and time again.

He would walk through fire for her. He would take a bullet for her.

He would take down a whole hospital full of people for her.

She had never had anybody like that in her whole life, and no matter how complicated and confusing this entire situation was, there was a part of her that felt deeply... satisfied by the whole thing, even if that feeling of satisfaction made her feel like a terrible person.

For better or for worse, Joel was her person.

Her teammate. Her only friend.

Her family.

Ellie brought her hands up to wipe at her face, taking in one shaky breath after another. Joel stood silently in front of her, watching her but letting her decide how they would move on from here. She swallowed roughly, her throat even more sore than before.

After what felt like a lifetime, she finally looked up at him. “Okay.”

“Okay?” he repeated breathlessly, almost as if he didn’t believe it was real.

“Okay.” Ellie nodded.

Joel’s chin wobbled, his eyes glassy again. “Okay.”

“We should—” Ellie gestured to the broken-down building instead of finishing her sentence. They needed to look for supplies, to find water, and to decide whether or not they were staying the night. They had a job to do; there was always something they needed to do.

“Yeah,” Joel said, his voice full of emotion. “Can I—” She looked up at him, watching as his throat bobbed with a rough swallow. He twisted his hands in front of him before meeting her eyes again. “Can I hug you?”

Ellie’s throat burned with the question.

“Yeah,” she whispered, nodding her head. “Of course.”

Joel opened his arms, and she didn’t hesitate to lean into them. He wrapped himself around her, his hand cradling the back of her head and holding her tightly against his chest. She closed her eyes, feeling his lungs working between them and leeching every bit of comfort she could from it.

“I love you, kiddo.” He pressed a kiss into her hair.

He said it so easily, even though it was the first time out loud.

“I know,” she whispered, tears burning her eyes. “Me too.”