Chapter Text
When Ellie approaches the gate, emerging from the trees and stumbling past the stumps she’s not sure if she’ll be shot on sight or not. She is covered in dried blood and dirt, clearly injured - but the torn sleeve and the bite mark peeking out from her shoulder would be cause enough on a good day to put her down.
“We got a straggler,” she hears from the watchtower. She doesn’t lift her head, stopped about ten metres from the gate.
She supposes they only see the bite when they come out. Her eyes flicking up as she watches two guards yell back and forth until Maria emerges.
“It’s fine, she’s immune,” Maria tells them to their disbelief. “Ellie,” Maria says carefully as she approaches Ellie, leaning down a bit to look into Ellie’s lowered eyes. “Are you okay?”
Ellie doesn’t respond, unmoving as Maria hugs her.
“I can vouch for her,” Maria bites back at them, “Lower your weapons.”
At some point Ellie is ushered forward, Maria guiding her with one arm around Ellie’s shoulders and the other held up trying to calm others down.
“Ellie, let’s get you to the clinic,” she murmurs, eyes glancing around.
“No, I need to see Dina,” Ellie insists, her voice brittle and hoarse.
“You should get checked out before you bother that girl,” Maria tells her.
“No,” Ellie says, eyes flashing up to meet Maria’s.
“Okay, whatever you want,” Maria tells her as they continue through the town.
--
Maria leads her to a small two-story house, not far from where Ellie used to live. There is a small fence that Maria holds open for her, as she leads her up to the house. They were followed by a crowd that stops at the gate.
Ellie falters in the yard, halfway to the door.
Maria knocks for her, and then walks back toward the gate.
It takes a moment, but Dina emerges. She’s beautiful, her hair longer, several strands framing her face, fallen from her ponytail.
Dina’s eyes narrow when she sees Ellie.
“Fuck you,” Dina spits out, breathing heavily. She falters, her hands clench and unclench, unsure and feeling.
Ellie drops to her knees, her hands trembling at her sides.
Dina’s eyes are restless, scanning every visible inch of the half-starved girl in front of her. She looks up dangerously at the town members who linger at the fence line, most of their guns are lowered but their fingers still hover too close to the trigger for comfort.
“She’s immune, you don’t have to worry about her turning,” Maria continues to argue, clearly placing herself between the crowd and Ellie.
Dina presses her lips together, forcing herself to take a calming breath while her heart feels like it’s shattered in her chest. “Please leave,” she manages to get out, eyes on the crowd behind Ellie.
The crowd begins to disperse, Dina watches a rattling breath eerily like a sob wrack through Ellie’s body. Ellie slowly begins to struggle to her feet, her head tucked so far down her chin does not move from her chest as she turns away from Dina and walks toward the gate.
“Not you, Ell,” Dina says warningly. Ellie stops but does not turn back.
Dina slowly takes another breath, turning her back on Ellie and entering her home with the door open behind her. “Come on,” she calls over her shoulder as she makes her way to the kitchen to retrieve her first aid kit.
When she returns she sees Ellie lingering in the doorway, her hands fidgeting at her sides. She sees it then. Her left hand. Stumps bloodied and painful. Dina closes her eyes and takes another deep steadying breath.
“Follow me.” Dina leads her to the bathroom, taking them through the lounge room on the way. Dina is unsure if Ellie notices the photo frame of a younger and brighter Ellie with Joel at the stables in the corner, but she knows Ellie wouldn’t have said anything if she had.
They enter the bathroom, Dina gesturing for Ellie to lean back on the counter but Ellie is either too out of it or too afraid to look at Dina so the gesture goes over her head. For the first time in a long time, Dina reaches out and touches Ellie. Her heart beating so loudly in her ears she feels like it is going to jump out of her throat. This is real. Ellie is here. Ellie is alive. Ellie is here.
Dina doesn’t know how she feels, but there’s something twisting her gut and burning her from the inside. Dina grips Ellie’s arms, all lean muscle and nothing else, and she pushes Ellie against the counter. Ellie follows, she seems to barely notice as Dina takes her pack off her shoulders and peers at Ellie’s lowered face.
“One step at a time,” Dina mumbles to herself quietly.
Dina cleans Ellie up, eyes scanning and cataloguing every inch of her. Sunken cheeks, deep scratches on her face, a half open and half sewn laceration on the side of Ellie’s neck, the torn left sleeve of shirt hanging over a new bite mark on Ellie’s left shoulder that looks completely untreated.
Ellie hisses as she moves with Dina to shrug off her short-sleeve denim shirt, so deeply sun bleached and covered in dry blood it barely reminds Dina of their travels through Seattle. With view of Ellie’s right bandaged shoulder, bleed peeking through the dirty cloth, and Ellie heavily favouring her right side, Dina cuts the bottom of her dirt brown singlet and rips the front of the shirt.
Ellie has a jagged scar on the right side of her abdomen, a motley of bruises across her torso, several deep and dark, others yellowing and vibrant.
Ellie is somehow thinner than she looked, gaunt and a shell of her former self. When Dina presses her palms solidly and searchingly against Ellie’s ribs to check for breaks, Ellie’s eyes snap up to meet Dina’s. They are unrelentingly remorseful and full of pain. Dina looks away quickly, looking down and seeing her bracelet from so long ago still wrapped around Ellie’s right wrist.
A knock at the doorway startles Dina but Ellie doesn’t seem to notice, too focused on watching her, now that she has given herself permission. Maria smiles gently at Dina, “I’ve brought some fresh clothes and what the clinic could spare. I’m here if or when you need me. Do you want me to…?” Maria trails off, eyes flickering between Ellie and Dina and gestures upstairs towards JJ’s room.
Dina nods, thankful but unable to speak. She tries to refocus, biting her lip as she listens to Maria collecting JJ and leaving quietly.
Ellie looks down and as her lips begin to tremble, Dina turns and runs her shower. Feeling the change in water temperature carefully for a happy medium. She turns back and bends down to slowly remove Ellie’s boots and her tattered jeans. Once Ellie is completely bare, trembling from either the cold or from fear, Dina slips her own shoes off and leads them into the shower. Ellie smells deeply of dust and of iron.
Dina is dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and drenched within seconds, her clothes feel heavy on her frame. Ellie is naked and raw in more ways than one yet Dina somehow feels more vulnerable.
Ellie’s hands are clasped together, twisting, and curling in front of her stomach as she breathes unevenly. Dina slowly washes Ellie’s body, watching as the water changes from a dark rust to clear again. Ellie’s bruises seem to only get brighter in the half-lit bathroom. Dirt washing away to reveal scrapes and small cuts along Ellie’s torso. Dina ignores the healing bite on Ellie’s right calf. Dina takes her time washing Ellie’s hair, it is longer now – just resting on Ellie’s shoulders. When she finishes, running her fingers across Ellie’s scalp and through her hair one more time, Dina is standing behind Ellie. Her front is mere inches from Ellie’s back, and she allows herself to rest her head against the back of Ellie’s neck. Dina’s lips brush the back of Ellie’s neck, both women shudder at the contact.
Dina sighs and steps back, turning the water off and reaching for a towel to wrap around Ellie’s trembling body. “One moment,” she murmurs as she reaches for a towel for herself and leaves. She returns a minute later in fresh clothes, her wet hair now in a fresh ponytail, water droplets still sliding down her neck.
Ellie has not moved.
Dina disinfects and dresses Ellie’s wounds as the timid girl sits on the edge of the bathtub. Dina ignores Ellie’s left hand until she cannot any longer. She holds it gently, surveying the unevenness of the stumps and how tender the skin looks. It is only then that she notices the last bite, the fourth bite… although who knows what order Ellie was torn apart in. It wraps around the side of Ellie’s hand, deep crescent marks along her palm and the back of her hand. Dina does not want to think about how many extra chances Ellie got to return to her. How many times Dina could have lost Ellie before now, or the potential reality where she never met her.
She helps Ellie into the clothes Maria brought – soft, dark grey pyjama pants that would have been Ellie’s size before but now hang off her frame, coupled by a soft, white t-shirt and, after a brief pause, a large grey zip hoodie because Ellie wouldn’t stop shaking. Dina leads her to the couch, getting Ellie to sit up so Dina can slowly brush the knots out of her hair. Dina can almost hear Ellie thinking, knowing that the other girl is longing for her to say something, but also revelling in the affection she’s receiving. Dina brushes Ellie’s hair longer than she needs to, they both know this.
“I’m sorry,” Ellie all but whimpers. Her voice is deeper, scratchier than before as it breaks the silence between them.
Dina falters. She puts the brush down.
“Good.”
A moment passes.
“You should be really fucking sorry,” Dina says quietly.
Ellie is a bundle of raw nerve endings, her lips forming the beginning of words but not fully shaping them.
“I know,” Ellie breathes out.
Nothing else is said. For now. Dina disappears and brings back a pillow for Ellie, and helps her to lie on her better side, Ellie’s back against the back of the couch. Dina kneels, looking into Ellie’s tired eyes and reaches out to trail her fingertips down the side of Ellie’s face, crossing the deep scratch marks and rubbing her thumb softly against Ellie’s cheek as she cups Ellie’s jaw.
Ellie’s eyes are struggling to stay open, while Dina’s are tearing up. Dina leans in and presses a soft kiss on Ellie’s forehead before standing to walk away. When she returns to cover Ellie with a soft blanket, the other girl is asleep.
--
Dina sits in the armchair across from the couch for a long time, just watching Ellie breathing. Ellie is real, Ellie is alive, Ellie is here.
Dina wrestles with her anger. She feels like she is boiling.
Ellie walked out on her and on JJ. On their son. On Dina’s son. On their son.
They had escaped the hell hole that was Seattle, the hell that was losing Jesse and almost losing their lives to Abby. And the whole time, piece by piece, Ellie was still slipping away from her.
--
She remembers the night that Ellie returned to her, their second day in Seattle, that wretched city. The way Ellie said, “I made her talk.”
How broken and fractured she was.
How fragile she sounded when she said she was scared to lose Dina.
How she had replied good, and how long she held Ellie afterwards.
--
Dina thinks about the farmhouse, about the quiet life they had started to build together.
As much as she wanted Ellie to be okay, to heal, she knew that Ellie wasn’t okay.
Ellie’s PTSD and her fear were rotting her from the inside out. They had many moments of happiness together but Ellie’s panic attacks did not fade in frequency or severity over time.
The day that Tommy came was inevitable, in some shape or form.
Dina hated Tommy for so long after that day.
--
“I love you-”, Ellie had started to say.
“So, prove it,” Dina said, “Stay.”
It was a plea.
“I can’t.”
And Ellie left her.
--
Tommy might never stop hating himself. It took him a long time to show up at Dina’s house when she moved back to Jackson. He sat on the porch outside quietly for a long time before Dina noticed.
“I’m so sorry, Dina,” Tommy had said. “I let my rage consume me, but Joel would have never wanted Ellie to risk herself for this. I am a broken man and it was cruel of me to say what I did to her. I don’t care about getting even anymore, I just want Ellie to return.”
It took him a long time to get through those words, crying and taking deep breaths to try to keep his voice some semblance of even. Dina just watched him with tired eyes.
They had looked at each other for a long time, and without speaking they went their separate ways that night. The weeks following Tommy slowly stopped drinking, spent more time at Joel’s grave, started reading, doing manual labour to help in the community again, and eventually made his way back to Maria’s side.
--
At some point, when the light starts to shift in the room with the setting sun, Dina goes through Ellie’s pack. A bow, two arrows, a cracked machete, a pistol with one bullet, and her rifle. Empty. No food, only blood-soaked bandages, two burnt matches and half a bottle of murky water.
And, of course, her journal.
Dina flips through it, she knows she cannot stop herself so she doesn’t try.
Drawings she recognises slowly fade into new ones, repeated drawings of her and of JJ. So many drawings of JJ.
“Still in this fucking basement. The batteries in my flashlight are almost done. The dark is fucking with me. I keep seeing him. Smelling iron. I miss Dina. I miss Potato. What am I doing here?”
She consumes every word.
Feeling each broken line of poetry deeply in her chest.
“would it have been better if I’d stayed?
Swallow up the regret sad shame,
Given them what’s left of me? Was it mine to give?
Do I still have it to give?
Can I offer the scraps now?
Gristle and bone chewed up and rotting.
Or will it make them sick;
Corrode their insides, cripple poison them?
I could be in the woods
Buried for the insects to clean,
Left for the insects to clean,
Until the iron smell is gone,
Until I’m bleached and beautiful brittle;
Ready to display.”
A soft drawing of Dina and JJ is below her words. A smile curling Dina’s lips as she holds JJ.
Dina feels sick to her stomach. Her shaking hands put the journal away as the words rattle around her head, “gristle and bone chewed up and rotting… will it make them sick; corrode their insides, poison them?”
“Jesus Christ, Ellie,” Dina whispers.
--
At some point there is a quiet knock on her front door. She stands stiffly, unsure how long she has watched Ellie but the sky has darkened and she turns on a lamp for Ellie as she goes. She doesn’t want to leave her in the dark.
Before Dina reaches the front door, Maria lets herself in. Dina falls into Maria’s arms. “She’s so small,” Dina says quietly. Dina looks up eventually and sees Tommy standing outside the doorway, holding a sleeping JJ to his chest.
She smiles and takes JJ carefully, Tommy placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“Can I see her?” Tommy asks.
Dina nods her head towards the lounge room, and Tommy slips away as Dina makes her way to the kitchen with Maria. She cradles JJ close to her as Maria unpacks several bags.
“I’ve brought you some food, have you eaten?” Maria asks.
They talk for some time, mainly around the topic they are both thinking about.
Maria tells her that Ellie needs to eat when she wakes up as she likely hasn’t for some time, and to stick with soups until Dina knows Ellie can keep something solid down. She offers to take care of JJ for a few days but Dina can’t bear to let him go when she feels this vulnerable.
“Thank you for today,” Dina says to Maria as she’s putting her coat on to leave. Tommy has made his way back to them, looking more settled now that he’s seen Ellie.
Maria looks at Dina carefully, before saying, “You know I can take Ellie off your hands. She doesn’t need to stay here.”
“She does,” Dina says quietly.
Maria nods, and she and Tommy leave.
--
Dina puts JJ in his crib to sleep and returns to her post watching Ellie. At several points throughout the night Ellie begins to stir, she sweats, mumbling in her sleep, her face scrunching up as she whimpers. Each time Dina strokes her hair until she calms.
Eventually Dina goes upstairs and falls asleep, she leaves a lamp on and Ollie, one of JJ’s toys, next to Ellie so she won’t be alone.
--
Dina wakes to JJ talking to himself. She changes and dresses him, takes him downstairs to breakfast before it really hits her that Ellie is downstairs.
Peering into the lounge room she sees that Ellie is still sleeping, the taller girl was exhausted. Dina feeds JJ, bouncing him on her hip afterwards as she munches on some toast trying to calm her stomach.
--
At some point in the morning, Jesse’s mother Susan drops by to pick up JJ. She was meant to be taking care of him today while Dina had a shift at the clinic.
Apparently, her shifts for the next week have been covered.
--
Around 2pm Dina realises that Ellie is awake. She definitely wasn’t an hour before, but this time when Dina walks past she realises Ellie’s eyes are open. She is curled up on her side, clutching Ollie now, her face wet with tears and her breathing irregular.
She’s on the verge of a panic attack.
Dina sits on the ground beside the couch, her legs curled up beneath her as she looks at Ellie. Ellie lets out a sob as she sees her. She shuts her eyes, tears leaking out as Dina gently wipes her cheeks.
Dina takes Ellie’s right hand, fingers brushing delicately over her bracelet, as she places Ellie’s hand on her chest above her heart. “Breathe with me,” she says softly.
For a moment it seems like Ellie didn’t hear her, was too gone to understand, but slowly she begins to calm. Her hurried and irregular breaths slow.
“I… am so sorry,” Ellie says eventually. Dina watches her, waiting for something she doesn’t know she wants.
“I didn’t do it,” she whimpers. “I could have, I found her, I made her fight me, but… but… when the moment came and I held her under the water I realised it didn’t matter.”
“I lost everything to get to a fight where I didn’t really know if I wanted to kill her or I wanted her to kill me.” Ellie’s voice is scratchy.
“She just wanted to protect that boy.” It seems to break on every third word.
“I let her go.” Ellie doesn’t open her eyes.
“I couldn’t do it.”
“I thought I couldn’t forgive Joel for what he took from me… but in that moment, I knew killing her wouldn’t bring him back, and it wouldn’t have made me a person again.”
“I don’t feel real anymore.”
“You and JJ,” her voice cracks on his name, “Are the most important things in the world to me. Every step I took away from you was like choosing to lose myself more and thinking I could return.”
“I felt like I couldn’t stay at the farm and I needed to continue because I needed that pain to be put behind me. I needed the pain, the fear, the panic attacks to mean something. To not have failed Joel like I did-”
“You didn’t fail-”, Dina begins to say.
“Killing her wouldn’t have made me any better,” Ellie continues, looking at Dina again.
“I should have stayed with you. When I had some semblance of something to give you. I… I honestly didn’t think I’d make it this far. I don’t deserve to be here.”
A sob wracks through Dina’s chest.
“I should have died in Santa Barbara, from Abby, or the Rattlers, or in Seattle from Abby, or the wolves or scars… when my mask cracked with you in the sewers, or from the Fireflies, or with Riley. I can’t move past it. I should have died a million times before today.” Tears are streaming down Dina’s face, she moves her trembling hands to cradle Ellie’s face.
“I should be dead, with Riley,” Ellie says, eyes still shut, the edges of her lips curling.
“We were going to be all poetic and lose our minds together,” Ellie opens her eyes, looking at Dina pleadingly to understand. “I’m still waiting for my turn…”
Dina doesn’t break eye contact with Ellie, releasing a shuddering breath she didn’t know how long she was holding. Her lungs are screaming.
Silence.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Ellie says.
Silence.
Dina is grinding her teeth, she manages to get out, “Why did you come back?”
Ellie looks at her carefully, “I went to the farmhouse,” she says. “I needed to know you and JJ were safe.”
“We are,” Dina says bitterly, “No thanks to you.”
“I know,” Ellie replies.
“I couldn’t stay there… it hurt too much to be surrounded by… parts of you,” Dina says softening. “JJ kept looking for you…”
Dina isn’t sure if she hurts more in this moment, or the moment that Ellie left.
“I hate you,” Dina tells her. Her voice shakes on the word hate, her eyes staring at Ellie searchingly, hands cupping Ellie’s face, thumbs stroking her cheeks, one tracing over her lips.
Ellie just looks at her, defeated and battered. As she begins to open her mouth to reply, Dina leans forward and presses their lips together.
She tastes of salt.
Dina kisses her thoroughly and with purpose. Trying to quell the mounting ice and fire in her veins.
They finally part, Ellie’s eyes are shut, eyebrows scrunched together, “I-I don’t?”
Dina licks her lips and sits back, looking at Ellie with a critical eye.
After several moments, “Get up,” Dina almost barks, standing and going to the kitchen, ignoring Ellie as she follows her.
“Sit,” she says when Ellie hovers at the edge of the room, and when she places a hot bowl of soup and two slices of bread on the table, “Eat.”
Ellie obeys.
--
After she eats, Dina sends Ellie for a shower, redoes the bandages that need it and forces her to take some anti-inflammatories. Ellie looks like she’s going to protest, but each time Dina raises one eyebrow and Ellie acquiesces.
Afterwards, Dina leads Ellie back to the couch and turns on a crackling TV in front of her. She puts on a DVD, a quiet movie that used to be a favourite of theirs, volume barely audible and tucks Ellie in. “I’m not-”, Ellie begins to say but then she quiets. She stares at the photo of her and Joel in the corner until she falls asleep twenty minutes later.
--
As she sleeps Dina leaves to speak with Tommy, requesting a bed to be added to the empty downstairs room in her house and Ellie’s things from the farmhouse be brought to Dina’s house when possible. Tommy and James, Jesse’s father, manage to hit two walls when carrying in the new bed frame but Ellie doesn’t stir despite the volume.
They offer to move Ellie but Dina declines.
--
Ellie wakes around dinner, Dina making her eat again knowing Ellie won’t argue.
They sit across from each other at the dinner table, Ellie eating slowly and Dina watching her. A quiet knock interrupts them which Ellie ignores until Dina returns with JJ.
Dina can see Ellie’s hands flexing, her eyes looking at him so softly. “Finish eating,” Dina tells her before leaving to give JJ his bath.
When she comes back downstairs, Ellie is sitting on the couch, hunched over her journal. “Did you… Did you read this?” She asks Dina quietly, her fingertips tracing tear stains on the page that Dina knows belong to her.
“Yes,” Dina replies.
“Okay,” Ellie nods, looking up to say, “That’s fair.”
Dina walks closer and holds out JJ to her, his gummy smile widening when he sees Ellie. Ellie drops her journal and falters reaching for him with doubt evident in her eyes. “What?” She murmurs looking at Dina, before changing her focus to taking a sleepy and warm JJ. She cradles him carefully, leaning back against the couch completely enamoured with him. Dina’s heart hurts looking at the sight, Ellie’s eyes are so soft and full of hope looking at him.
She puts a movie on, turning the volume up slightly this time and tries to ignore Ellie as she sits beside her to focus on Back to the Future. Dina had seen this movie before, countless times, and yet she could barely understand it right now. When the credits roll, Dina picks up a sleeping JJ from a quiet Ellie and puts him to bed.
Coming back downstairs she finds Ellie crying silently on the couch, Ellie flushes when she notices Dina returned.
“T-thank you,” Ellie says, sniffing, “I… I didn’t deserve that.”
“You did,” Dina says quietly, she takes Ellie’s hand and leads her to the now sparsely furnished spare room. A small bed with a warm blanket, and a small dim lamp that casts a glow in the room.
Dina helps Ellie take off her hoodie and sits on the bed once Ellie is lying down. Ellie looks up at her, “He’s so big.”
“And he’ll only get bigger,” Dina says with a soft smile. “He still hasn’t said his first words yet, even though he’s ‘meant to’ by this age, but I think he’s close and there’s nothing to worry about.” She looks away from Ellie, down at her hands, “He’s going to be two in three months’ time. He’s walking… and smiling and laughing and he’s so… smart, and so… beautiful.”
“He really is,” Ellie says quietly, a hand reaching out softly to touch Dina’s. The first touch she initiates and it fills Dina’s stomach with butterflies. Butterflies that burn when she sees it’s Ellie’s left hand – or what remains of it.
Ellie begins to move her hand away seeing Dina’s expression change, but Dina grabs it tightly, almost painfully and looks at Ellie. “He’s going to start talking, Ellie,” she says in a measured tone. Ellie nods, almost confused, “He’s going to start talking, and climbing, and running, and he’s going to tell stupid jokes, and ask every question under the sun, he’s going to grow, and think, and feel,” Dina’s voice cracks.
“There is so much that could be,” Dina begins, faltering, she changes, “He’s going to grow up, from a little baby into a little boy and then get bigger and bigger until he’s a man.”
“Don’t you want to see that?” Dina asks Ellie quietly, clutching her injured hand with both of hers, eyes shining.
“I do,” Ellie admits. “I do.”
“You shouldn’t have left us,” Dina says.
Ellie just looks at her. “I know.”
“I had to leave,” Dina whispered, “I couldn’t bear to be there.”
Ellie nods solemnly.
Silence.
“You’re right, you know,” Dina says, letting go of Ellie’s hands.
“What do you-” Ellie begins to ask.
“You should have died a million times before today, maybe a long time ago when you first got bit,” Dina pauses, “But you didn’t. You’re here. You just need to work out if you want to keep living.”
Ellie looks at Dina deeply.
A moment passes in their stares.
“I… do,” Ellie says softly.
“You don’t seem sure about that,” Dina says with a soft smile.
“I… I don’t know how I got here,” Ellie mutters, looking around, hands fidgeting above the covers, her right hand holding her left. “I… I didn’t see things going this way. Getting to hold him… t-to touch you…”
“Well, this is the hand that you were dealt,” Dina tells her. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Whatever you want me to do.”
Dina places her hands on top of Ellie’s, stilling them, she leans in carefully, eyes cautious, and presses her lips to Ellie’s. Ellie is completely still, eyes wide, after a moment Ellie kisses Dina back.
It is soft, chaste, and sweet. Ellie’s head is swimming.
Dina pulls back a fraction and whispers against Ellie’s lips, “I want you to try.”
She tucks Ellie in and leaves her to her thoughts.