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“Joel Miller,” he offers and Ellie could kick his ass for giving his own name up that easily when he won’t even use a fake one, won’t even use “my daughter” for her. And he calls her behavior reckless and stupid.
The atmosphere shifts and Ellie’s skin crawls.
“Y’all act like you’ve heard of me or something,” Joel says, aiming for dismissive and amused but missing. As soon as the words leave his mouth, he glances at Ellie and she reads his sinking dread as plain as she feels her own. A stone in the pit of her stomach.
The shotgun comes out of nowhere, aimed at Joel’s knee, but Ellie reacts on instinct and knocks it away. The bullet still hits his thigh and he cries out in pain, but it’s better and she thinks, briefly, good he can recover from that.
Then, all hell breaks loose and she’s forced onto the ground, held down by two of them. She fights with all she has and it brings a bolt of satisfaction when she hears a pained grunt from the man. In the end, though, she takes a couple good kicks to her ribs and has her face pressed on the cold floor and she’s watching Joel being wrestled to the ground across the room.
There’s a click of a gun being cocked and Joel stills, watching as another man points it at her head.
“Don’t you fucking touch her,” he says, low and dangerous.
Ellie wants to beg him to keep fighting, but she already knows that he won’t, not if she’s at risk. And, god, she can’t even be pissed at him for it because she’d do the same damn thing.
He lets them force him to the ground and hold him against the glass wall, but his eyes never waver from the man with the gun on her.
(The glass isn’t clear enough to really see out of, but the outline of the snow piling up is dark behind Joel’s shoulders and it makes her stomach turn that these people have him so close to something so poisonous.)
She takes a breath. Focuses on getting them out of this.
Even with the gunshot wound, Joel could probably take out the whole room alone. And the two of them together are a death sentence. All they need is an opening.
It’s only when Abby steps forward, golf club in hand, looking at Joel like he’s prey, does the sinking realization of how fucking helpless they are begin to set in.
“Tourniquet his leg. He doesn’t get to do this quickly.” Abby’s voice is shaking with rage and Ellie feels sick.
One of the women wraps up Joel’s leg and he hides his grimace of pain at the roughness of the action.
“I’ve been waiting… a long time for this,” Abby says, swinging the golf club back and forth in front of her.
Joel’s eyes flick to Ellie before he glares up at the woman they fucking helped. “Who are you?” he asks, but it sounds almost more like a taunt than a question.
“Guess,” Abby spits and oh god Ellie thinks she knows.
But Joel doesn’t. Or at least he doesn’t show it if he does. He glances around at the others before focusing back on Abby. He’s every bit the threat he’s always been, even like this. It makes part of Ellie proud and part of her absolutely terrified.
“Why don’t you say whatever speech you got rehearsed and get this over with.”
God, Ellie’s gonna kill him for being so fucking stupid. She knows exactly what he’s doing and she’s gonna fucking kill him for it. You said you wouldn’t fucking leave me, you bastard, so stop trying to pull some self sacrifice bullshit.
Then Abby strikes, hitting him in the shoulder so hard Ellie swears she hears a crack and Joel grits his teeth to keep from crying out. Another hit lands on his side and he grunts in pain. Abby raises the club again and desperation overrides the suffocating fear choking her.
(There’s blood splattered on the glass against the snow and she hates it, she hates it, she hates it . All it ever does is freeze and burn and wrap its hands around her throat and tell her to beg.)
“Please,” Ellie begs, “please, please don't do this.” She chokes trying to drag in a breath as she sobs, fear gripping her lungs, suffocating her. “Please he's all I have, he's my dad, please.”
Abby goes still, midswing. Slowly, she turns to face her.
“What's your name?” she bites out, something like understanding growing on her face. Dawning rage and horror twisting her expression.
Joel makes a panicked desperate noise. “Don't, baby girl,” he says, voice laced with pain and sharp with fear. “Don’t.” But he sees Ellie’s face and he knows just like she does. Anything to protect you. So he begs Abby instead, something he would never do for his own life. But for hers? Anything. “Leave her out of this. Whatever grudge you got it’s with me , not her. Please.”
But neither listens. Abby doesn’t because Ellie’s right. And Ellie doesn’t because Abby is moving away from Joel and that’s all she gives a shit about.
“Ellie,” she replies, trying her best to hide the trembling of her voice. “Ellie Miller.”
Rage lights Abby’s dark eyes on fire. A spark to gasoline. “Check her arm,” she orders, stalking towards Ellie, putting a little more blessed room between her and Joel. “Check her fucking arm, now.”
Her arm is wrenched out at an angle that has her shoulder screaming in protest and Joel growling and struggling against the hands holding him down.
“What is that?” Abby demands.
“Chemical burn,” Ellie says, challenge dripping in her voice. “You like it? Did it myself.” The smirk melts off her face and she tries to smother her rage, tries to force her voice to soften. “But you already know why, don't you? You're Fireflies.” She flicks her eyes over all the faces she can see, tries to find pity, tries to find weakness. “This is about the hospital. Isn't it?” A beat. “Isn’t it?!” She glances around the room again and there’s enough there (faces downturned, eyes sliding away from hers, squared shoulders) that she knows she’s right.
But Abby stays silent, trying to decide which direction to go, clearly thrown off. Ellie takes a steadying breath (which only kind of works) and presses her advantage. Joel has told her plenty of times that she has to learn to reign in her temper and learn to talk things out with someone other than him. Which is mildly hypocritical, considering, but if there’s any time to take that advice, it’s now.
“Who'd you lose? This isn't about the cure is it? You lost someone when he saved me. Who?”
There’s a moment when Ellie doesn’t think Abby will answer her. A moment when she scans Ellie’s face, appraising her, trying to figure out what she could possibly gain from this. In the end, though, her need for them to know why wins. “My father. He was the surgeon. Joel Miller slaughtered him.”
Ellie almost laughs. She can work with that. She might not be the most empathic person in the whole world, but, right now, begging for Joel’s life, she understands this woman. “Your father. He would've done anything to protect you, right? Anything. Even kill a fourteen year old for a chance at a vaccine?” She holds eye contact with Abby, relentlessly. She can’t let her escape this. Even if all she wants to do is look at Joel to make sure he’s still okay, still there, still safe.
Still breathing.
(Even all these years later, a part of her never really left that winter.)
“It would've worked,” Abby hissed, but Ellie could hear the uncertainty in it. “It would've been worth it.”
“Maybe. Maybe it would've. I don't know. But Joel, he would do anything to protect me too. And he did and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry you lost your dad because of it, but please, Abby, please don't take mine. Just end it please.”
“It ends,” she growls, “when he dies.”
“No, it doesn't.” And Ellie’s desperate, but she lets it show, hoping it’ll reach Abby. “It doesn't because if you kill him, you have to kill me because I'll follow you. And if you kill me, you have to kill Tommy and Dina and Jesse. And if you kill them, you have to kill the rest of Jackson because it will never stop. Ever. Please. Please.”
Then one of the men steps towards the center of the room. “Abby…” he says gently.
And Abby flinches at the sound of it, immediately turning to face him. Ellie feels something like hope blooming in her chest. She can’t reach Abby alone, but maybe her group can, maybe this man who knows her can.
“He killed him. He killed him.” Abby looks at the man desperately and Ellie prays to every god she doesn’t believe in.
“I know, but this isn't what he would've wanted. You know that.” He steps closer, lowers his voice and Abby gravitates a little toward him. “We can walk away. Come on.”
Abby’s frame just sags. Her grip on the golf club loosens. Then, so quiet the blizzard outside threatens to swallow it, “I can’t.” The tension returns and she raises the golf club to strike and Ellie knows it will be a killing blow. The only mercy this woman can muster for her.
“No, please, please, god, Abby, please don’t do this ,” Ellie begs, and it comes from the very core of her because Joel is the very fucking core of her. “Not this, not this, not this, please.”
All she sees is Joel and he’s looking at her like she’s the only thing in the entire world that has ever fucking mattered. Like all of this is fucking okay as long as she survives it.
“Abby, please, please no, please don’t do this, please,” she begs, she fucking begs. Her voice is wrecked, high and cracked and right on the edge of breaking (her voice is, her heart is, she is), but still she begs. She doesn’t even stop to breathe. “I was the cure. It was me. It’s my fault, not his. It should be me, not him. Not him. Abby, please don’t do this.”
“Don’t look, baby girl,” he says and the blizzard is inside of her, tearing everything apart.
“NO!!” she screams as Abby swings, both of their cries mixing into something broken and raw. The seconds slow down to almost nothing, but then time slams forward when the golf club clatters to the ground next to the chair, skittering across the floor. It’s polished surface, unmarred.
“Knock them out. We’re leaving.” Abby’s voice is like ice, like a monster growling in the dark, but it all sounds like it’s underwater. Adrenaline pumps through Ellie’s veins and she feels like she’s falling through the floor.
But Joel’s alive and she can see him and Abby is already out the door, letting it slam closed behind her. She wants to crawl across the room and curl into him, make sure he’s really there, really okay. Make sure he’s still warm. Make sure he’s still breathing, his heart is still beating, because she can see it, but she can’t fucking feel it. All she can feel is the tile floor pressing against her aching (screaming) ribs and the hands still fucking holding her down. All she can feel is desperation and terror and more anger than she knows what to do with.
(That’s a lie—that’s a fucking lie. She knows. She knows, but she can’t get free to slaughter them all. And she would. She would because they touched Joel. They hurt Joel, and she would burn them alive if only she could get free.)
Darkness comes, as always, and Ellie doesn’t feel anything for a long time after that.
When she wakes, she wakes slowly. First there is the cold, then the sounds of Dina, Jesse, and Tommy talking, then the feeling of the hard floor under her.
“Ellie,” Dina says softly, worry thick in her voice. “Ellie,” she says again, a little more urgently, shaking her shoulder. There’s a pain in her ribs and suddenly everything comes slamming back down on her.
Her eyes fly open, catching on Dina’s face and then looking past her to where—oh thank fucking god, he’s still there. Tommy has him sitting up and is checking him over and he looks irritated and like he’s in pain, but he’s alive. He’s fucking alive.
“Joel,” she calls and it comes out pitiful and small and scared and she hates it, but she doesn’t care nearly as much when Joel snaps his full attention to her. He softens instantly, but Tommy protests when he tries to stand to get to her.
“Fucking- Tommy,” he threatens, but Tommy doesn’t flinch.
Ellie tries really hard not to cry, instead focusing on using Dina to help get her up and across the room. When she finally (finally) gets there, she crumbles and tucks into his side, careful not to jostle his shoulder or her almost definitely broken ribs.
“It’s okay, baby girl,” he says softly into her hair. “I’m okay, we’re okay.”
The others step back, giving them room to settle back into their bones. All Ellie feels is cold, but Joel is still warm, and, just like back in that fucking basement, she knows that means alive alive alive.
Getting back to Jackson mostly blurs together, with a few moments of startling clarity. She remembers Dina having to pry her from Joel’s side to get her on Shimmer, and then Dina sliding into the saddle behind her, bracketing her on either side with her arms. She remembers the snow landing on Shimmer’s mane and on Dina’s gloves as she grips the reins. Ellie feels herself freezing from the inside out, but there’s the warmth at her back keeping her from turning to ice completely.
She also remembers flashes of panic that only soften when she finds Joel again, on his own horse, reins tied to Tommy’s.
When they reach the gates, Ellie reattaches herself to Joel’s side as Dina flutters her hands over her.
“Careful, Ellie, I’m pretty sure your ribs are broken,” she says, voice high and worried in a way Ellie’s never heard it before.
At the clinic, they try to separate them all, putting Joel in one room (out of sight, away from Ellie) and sending Tommy, Dina, and Jesse to the waiting area as they push Ellie towards another room. She starts to panic again, reaching desperately for Dina because she thinks she might shake apart or get swallowed by the cold in her center if she’s alone.
Dina sees it, like she always does, and forces her way back to Ellie’s side. “Hey, no, I always do all of her medical shit. I need to be in here.”
Maria bursts into the clinic just before one of the girls gets violent and calls over her shoulder as she starts to check over Tommy, “Let her in, goddamnit, that girl does not need to be alone right now.”
And so they let Dina in, and Ellie keeps her eyes locked on her as she hovers at the edge of the room, staying out of the way as ordered.
In the end, Ellie has two fractured ribs, a mild concussion, and a broken nose. When one of the nurses tries to bandage Ellie’s side she flinches so violently that Dina takes over with a little too much force to be considered polite. Ellie doesn’t care, though, she just wants everyone but Dina to leave and she wants to see Joel and then she wants them to go home.
She gets the first part of her wish as the medic and the two nurses leave the room and then it’s just her and Dina, silent except for their breathing. Dina’s fingers linger as she wraps up her ribs and it’s not desire, it’s something more tender than that.
“There,” Dina says quietly, “all done.” But when she starts to pull away, Ellie catches her hand. Dina looks up at her, surprised briefly, before her face softens. “Hey, no, it’s okay, you’re okay.” And Ellie shatters. Dina gathers up all of her pieces and holds her, talking in a low steady stream of soothing nothings that Ellie thinks sounds a little like a lullaby. Ellie sobs into Dina’s soft t-shirt and Dina strokes her hair, kissing the top of her head gently. “Shhh,” she murmurs, “you’re safe. Joel’s safe, Ellie.”
A shudder runs through Ellie’s frame and Dina tightens her hold. “I know. I know that, but I just- god, Dina, she was gonna kill him.” She pulls back enough to look her in the eyes and takes a trembling breath. “I was so fucking scared.”
Dina opens her mouth to reply, but the door bangs open and Tommy is there giving approximately zero shits that Ellie is nearly topless and half pressed into Dina’s body. “They’ve got him in surgery, so I’m gonna grab some shit from home. I’ll get you a bag of stuff since you’re staying.” And then he’s gone, leaving Dina quietly chuckling into Ellie’s shoulder.
“Your family is fucking insane,” she says, but she’s grinning so hard Ellie feels a little more warmth chip away at the block of ice in her center.
“Last chance to back out,” she replies and she’s joking but Dina’s face gets serious as she moves back to look into Ellie’s eyes.
“No need. I’m in for the whole crazy ride.”
And Ellie does the only thing she can think of, leaning in to press her lips softly against Dina’s. She takes a leap and there’s no hesitation from Dina as she cups Ellie’s face, sliding closer. They break for air and then move back together again like the tides.
The ice melts and melts.
Then Dina pulls away and Ellie’s still frozen, will be until Joel is there whole and okay again, but it’s a little easier to breathe than before. She’s a little more whole than before.
“Waiting room?” Dina asks, and Ellie nods. Then surges forward for one more chaste kiss. Dina smiles and it’s small and bright and warm. (And it’s all for her.)
Dina gets up first, offering Ellie a hand she doesn’t need, but takes anyway. Dina shrugs off her own hoodie and helps Ellie pull it on. She sucks in a sharp breath through her teeth when she accidentally pulls at her ribs, but she’s okay.
They find a corner of the waiting room and Ellie dozes off against Dina’s shoulder, not fully asleep but not awake either. Tommy comes back within an hour, dropping a bag at Ellie’s feet and tossing a blanket over the pair. Dina thanks him softly and Ellie lets herself drift away again.
A few hours later she wakes with a start, sucking in a panicked breath, before remembering where she is and what happened. Tommy and Maria are asleep and Dina looks like she had been until Ellie stirred.
“You okay?” she whispers.
“Yeah,” Ellie breathes. “Yeah, I’m good.” And it’s almost true. She knows the real nightmares will come later and her mind will twist that scene into worse and worse versions. When they come, though, she’ll have Joel there to pull her out of them. And when his own mind creates similar horrors, she’ll be there for him.
They’re a team. They stick together.
Dina dozes off again on Ellie’s shoulder for a while, but Ellie knows she probably won't be able to sleep again tonight. God, she just wants to see him.
Tommy had once called them codependent and Joel had glared him out of their house over it. He hadn’t told her what it meant and she hadn’t asked, but the word had left a bad taste in her mouth. Eventually, she had tracked down a dictionary and looked it up on her own. If the way Tommy had slung the word at Joel midargument hadn’t made her upset, the actual definition definitely did. She’d had to look up “enabling” too to fully understand, but when she got it, she was livid. The next time she had seen Tommy she’d told him to stay the fuck out of their business and to keep his fucking mouth shut about things he didn’t understand.
He’d taken that as an opening to talk to her about finding a more “stable” family to help her settle into Jackson better.
“I won’t leave him,” she had said. “Not ever. Joel is my family.”
“It would help, Ellie. Make it easier to find friends, have some semblance of a normal life.”
“I said no, Tommy. Fucking drop it.”
And he had. In front of her. He tried the same thing with Joel when she was out of earshot one day and she had come back to the end of the shouting match when Joel told him, “Ellie is not Sarah and don’t you ever say something like that to her. Get the fuck out.”
“It’s what’s best for her, Joel, and you know it!”
“I said get the fuck out.”
She had kept out of sight as Tommy had stormed out, slamming their front door closed behind him. Then she heard the sound of something glass shattering against the wall, followed by some very tired sounding cursing.
“Joel?”
He had sighed, deeply. “In here.” When he turned to look at her, she could read the hurt in his face right beside the resignation. “How much you hear?”
“The end. Starting with you saying I’m not Sarah. Ending with- well,” she gestured vaguely at the door. A moment passed, then she had told him about her own conversation with Tommy.
“Do you want,” he’d started, his hesitation and fear poorly hidden.
“No,” she’d said before he could even voice it out loud. “No, Joel, of course not. You’re my da- my family. You’re my family.”
He had stared at her. For what felt like ever until she was half convinced she had overstepped, had overestimated what they meant to each other. (The necklace had felt like a noose around her neck. His-her- their name had felt like sand slipping through her fingers.)
Then he had crossed the room in three long strides to fold her into his arms and tell her, “I know what I said then, but, god, Ellie, I was so wrong. You. Are. My. Kid.”
And she had just completely fallen to pieces, crying into his shoulder until she was too exhausted to continue. Every fear, every doubt, every quiet whisper in the back of her mind telling her not to get attached, wiped out. Joel had been her safe haven for months by then, but that had been the first time she had ever felt truly safe. Not long after that night, Tommy’s attitude shifted, and he stopped viewing her as his brother’s last ditch attempt to save his daughter.
Her thumb runs absently over the name on her necklace, again and again, an old habit. It’s a good memory. She has a lot of those now, all of them things Joel gave her.
The doctor, Elijah (he insists titles are a thing of the past), an actual trauma surgeon from before the outbreak, who had been operating on Joel, enters the waiting room, interrupting her thoughts. She snaps all of her attention to him the second he enters her line of sight, watching every line of his body as he approaches and feeling like she’s going to suffocate until he smiles tiredly.
“He’s out of surgery and everything is gonna be fine. He should be awake in a few hours—maybe longer since he’s had a lot of stress in the last twenty-four hours.” Elijah smiles again, warm and crinkly at the edges. Ellie could sob. “He’s gonna need a lot of rest, but,” he nods, “yeah, he’ll be okay.”
“Thank you,” she whispers, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Is he- Can I see him?”
“Yes ma’am. Already got a chair by his bed with your name on it.”
She extricates herself from Dina, who immediately wakes looking to her then to Elijah. He starts filling her, Tommy, and Maria in while Ellie does everything but flat sprint to Joel’s room.
And then he’s right there. Still out, but alive alive alive.
She plants herself in the chair positioned by his head as promised, dragging it as close as possible. She takes his hand and rests her head on his good shoulder, listening to his steady heartbeat. I’m still here, it says and the voice sounds like his.
“I love you,” she mumbles into the quiet and closes her eyes for a moment. Then she sits up and grips his hand like a lifeline as she watches the rise and fall of his chest.
She stays there, anchored to him, for hours. Dina comes in to tell Ellie she’s going home, but to send someone for her if she needs anything. Then Tommy and Maria come in. They talk to her for a little bit, but she doesn’t absorb much of it and eventually they let her be. Tommy knocks back out on the little couch across the room after Maria heads home.
I’m still here, she remembers him saying a lifetime ago in that sewer. It’s still true, she knows, even if the ice in her center tries to whisper otherwise.
I’m still here. I’m still here. “I’m still here,” she whispers, and only the silent tears of a scared little girl pretending to be all grown up are there to hear her.
She doesn’t sleep. The nightmares behind her eyelids won’t allow it. The possibility that the metronome of his rising-falling-rising chest could stop in a split second won’t allow it. Memories of a winter that sunk into her bones and made a wretched sort of home there won’t allow it.
Four hours into her silent vigil, Tommy wakes with a half choked gasp that she recognizes as a scream strangled by instinct. He makes excuses about the smell of a clinic and needing fresh air, saying he’s gonna go on a walk for a while. She nods and promises that she’ll ask someone to get him if Joel wakes while he’s gone.
She counts Joel’s breaths, gets to a hundred, and starts again. I’m still here.
Unbidden, she thinks of Sarah. Wonders if in a different version of this story, she’s sitting in a chair beside Ellie. Wonders if she would have taken Ellie’s place completely.
Sometimes she tries to remember her real father—no, biological, Joel is her real father—but she can’t. There’s a fuzzy outline of a memory of a man with her eyes and a kind voice. It’s all she has, but the letter never mentioned her father and Marlene used to say her eyes looked like her mother’s, so Ellie figures she’d made that memory up when she was little to lull herself to sleep.
She wonders about him a lot less now than she did in Boston. Mostly, she wonders if he would’ve loved her like Joel does, or if he would’ve sacrificed her. What would he have put first? His daughter or the world?
If he was a Firefly, she already knows the answer. It’s the same as it would’ve been for her mother. Make me proud, the letter had said. The thought makes a chill run down her spine and she shivers.
There was a time in her life when she would’ve given anything to have her parents still be alive. But now, as fucked up as it is, she’s grateful she never knew them. They would’ve walked her right through the hospital doors to die. And Joel wouldn’t be there to save her.
She would never have even learned how to swim.
“I can hear you thinkin’ from here,” Joel says, voice rough from sleep. She jerks like she’s been shot, crashing out of her thoughts and focusing everything on his amused-worried-tired-fond eyes looking at her.
“Joel,” she whispers because she doesn’t think she can speak without breaking into a million pieces.
“Hey, there.” He smiles, exhausted and hurting, but warm. His eyes track over her face, to the bruises and scrapes she knows are there, more from the way Dina had fussed over them than from the actual discomfort they caused. His face shifts more into concern, and he reaches out, so she moves forward to meet him. His rough, calloused fingers that have done so many violent and terrible things brush over her cheek to cup her face gently. She leans into the touch, letting her eyes briefly flutter closed. “You okay?”
She laughs, but it catches in her throat and comes out almost like a sob, tears slipping down her face. He wipes them away. “Yeah, I’m okay, you asshole,” she half chokes out. “Are you?”
“Still here,” he says, chuckling so lightly it’s almost an exhale. He moves his hand away and she tangles it back with her own. Then he changes course, gets serious in the way they tend to avoid except for under the cover of darkness when they’re up with nightmares and have no hope of falling back to sleep anytime soon. “Thanks to you.”
Tears trip over her face, but she tries to laugh. “Seriously? I thought you were gonna yell at me for that stunt.”
He grins. “Oh, no, I’m definitely gonna yell at you for it, but I’m tired and drugged right now, so I’m being polite.”
“Oh good, good. For a second, I worried that hit to the head had permanently addled your poor old brain.” Her tone is light, but he reads the very real fear under it. Her smile falls away and his follows.
They’re a mess, the two of them. Covered in tears and bruises.
“I’m okay, Ellie.” And she knows, she knows, but she was so fucking terrified.
Tears slip down her face and she bites her lip, looking down at where she’s still got a death grip on his hand.
He shuffles himself over as carefully as possible, gritting his teeth when he jostles his shoulder too much.
“C’mere,” he says, nodding to the space he’s made for her on the bed. She hesitates, but he uses the hand she’s clutching to tug her over and, like a scared little girl, she goes.
It’s almost a full year later when a twig snaps behind Ellie while she’s outside the walls. She whirls around, gun up when Abby steps out of the trees, hands up.
Ellie growls and seriously considers shooting her on sight. “He’s dead,” she lies. “Died of his wounds.”
Abby’s expression doesn’t shift at all. “Really? He looked fine out here with you yesterday.”
Ellie glares, tightening her grip on her gun. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I just wanna talk,” Abby insists, risking another step forward, hands still up. “Lev?”
And then another figure, a boy, younger than Ellie (maybe fifteen?) appears and Ellie’s eyes flick between them, but he’s unarmed so her gun never moves from where it’s aimed at Abby’s stupid fucking face.
“About what? You let him go. Let us go.” Ellie knows she sounds pissed off and scared and weak and she hates that just the sight of this woman wrecks all of her composure.
Abby sighs. “Can you put the gun down?”
“No.”
She sighs again, and Ellie resists the urge to smirk. Or stick her tongue out. “Alright. Fair enough, I guess.”
“Why are you here?” Ellie asks again. She glances over her, taking note of the glaring absence of any WLF logos. She also looks thinner, more worn. Softer, too, Ellie thinks, but she really doesn’t care about whatever life changing shit Abby’s gone through. She just wants her gone, far enough away that she can’t hurt Joel. “Seattle didn’t suit you?”
To her disappointment, Abby doesn’t really seem surprised. “Made a new friend,” she nods at Lev. “Gained a couple enemies,” she says, tilting her head like it was nothing.
“More like a couple hundred,” Lev mutters, somewhere between exasperated and fond.
“Probably more,” Abby says, something almost like a smile playing at the edge of her lips. She gets the feeling this is a back and forth they’ve had before. God, she really doesn’t care.
“So what?” she snaps. “You came back here to finish what you started? Or is it me you wanna murder this time?”
The smile falls from Lev’s face and Ellie feels a little bolt of satisfaction. Good , she thinks, he should see her.
“I’m not here for him. And I don’t plan to kill anyone.” Abby drops her hands, and Ellie’s arms tense. “Jesus, lighten up. I said I wanted to talk to you.”
Ellie scoffs. “Last time I saw you, we saved your ass and then you tried to beat my dad to death. Forgive me for being a little fucking wary.”
“I know, I know,” she sighs. “But I didn’t.”
“Which is the literal only reason I haven’t shot you already.” She gestures impatiently with her gun. “What the hell do you want to talk to me about?”
“Would you have chosen to die for the cure?”
Both Ellie and Lev’s eyes widen in surprise, but only Ellie’s narrow in suspicion. “Why?”
“I just… My dad made the decision to kill you without asking and the last thing I said to him was that I would want him to do it. If it were me.” She sighs, which seems to be something she does a lot. “I don’t know if I could’ve persuaded him to let you live, but I definitely pushed for your death. I just need to know. What would you have done?”
Ellie takes a deep breath, blows it out slowly. She lowers her gun. “Now? No. I’ve got a dad who would burn the world down for me. A girlfriend I love. A kid I want to teach everything I know. Even if I knew it would work… no. Joel taught me what life could be and I won’t give that up for anything.” She smiles, then it falls. “But then? I dunno, maybe. If I thought Joel would be okay and if… if Marlene pushed for me to say yes. Then, yeah, probably. Marlene was supposed to look out for me and Joel was the only living person in the world who cared about me.” Abby’s face twists at that and she looks at her with something almost like pity. Not quite though. “Maybe it would’ve been easier if I’d known I was gonna die from the start. Coulda kept Joel at a distance, but… it was a long trip. I don’t know if there was ever an ending where Joel didn’t go after me.” Ellie glances at Lev, then back to Abby. “I don’t know if there was ever one where I didn’t choose him either.”
Abby just nods at her. “Okay,” she says, and it sounds a little hollow. Then, hesitantly, “He is okay though? You both are? His leg?”
“Yeah,” Ellie says, after a moment of searching her face for a trick or a game or… anything. “Yeah, we’re both okay. He healed.” She laughs, humorlessly, and Abby actually flinches at what she says next. “I mean, there hasn’t really been a night where one of us didn’t have a nightmare involving you for the last year, but… we’re moving on.” She shrugs. “Endure and survive,” and she tries to grin carelessly, but it comes out thin and forced.
Abby just… nods. Something like regret and nausea mingling with the hollowed out emptiness on her face.
“Y’know after you… came here, it stirred up a lot of memories and questions about the hospital. Joel had come clean a couple months after we first settled here and I’d moved on. We both had. But after you, I wanted to know if it could’ve worked.”
“It would have. He could have done it,” Abby insists and Ellie can see it for the mantra it is now rather than the real belief it may have once been.
She shakes her head. “No, he couldn’t have. I found all kinds of textbooks and shit, so many that Joel almost burned them because he thought I was gonna try to make the cure myself.” She shakes her head, amused, before she goes back to being serious. “You know what I found? There’s no way to make a vaccine for a fungus. It’s impossible. I would’ve died for nothing.”
“No,” Abby protests. “No, he wouldn’t- he would have never—”
“I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he was desperate. It doesn’t really matter either way. I’m sorry he died, Abby, I am, but there was never any chance at a vaccine.”
Silence falls and Ellie knows she’s almost out of time before someone comes looking for her. (Perks of having an overprotective dad and an overprotective girlfriend. It’s truly a miracle she can do anything anymore.)
“You want my advice? As someone who already chased the Fireflies across the country, don’t go after them. They won’t give you what you’re looking for—a cause, sure, something to die for, but your life won’t actually mean anything. You’ll end up another name on a wall somewhere, the kid too probably. Another sacrifice for a hopeless cause.”
Abby’s lips curl into something like a snarl, but Ellie barrels on before she can say anything.
“Find somewhere like Jackson. Put down some roots for you and the kid,” she’s echoing something Joel said to her not long after they moved to Jackson and the memory almost makes her smile because of how dumb she’d thought his speech was then. She gets it now though. “You wanna make your life mean something? Give him a shot at normal. Yourself too.”
Ellie does smile then, a little half thing, but still a smile, trying to show this woman who very nearly destroyed her life something like gratitude. Kindness maybe, but probably not. It feels like paying a debt that is owed.
You could have taken everything from me. You could have broken me beyond repair.
“It’s gonna suck for a while, but eventually, it’ll be good. I promise.” And Ellie means it because Abby didn’t. She didn’t kill Joel even though it would’ve been easy, even though there was nothing stopping her.
Abby watches her for a moment, before she glances at Lev and back to Ellie. She nods, and Ellie thinks maybe she’ll listen.
Ellie hears him outside trudging up the creaky steps to the porch, so she meets him at the door, pulling it open before he can reach the handle.
“Hi,” she says, aiming for casual (and missing by a mile if the suspicious squint of his eyes tells her anything).
“What’d you do?” he asks and her face falls dramatically.
“Do you not trust me? Is that it, Joel? You just don’t trust me?”
He doesn’t even hesitate before shaking his head. “Nope. Not even a little bit.”
She moves aside to let him in. “I’m hurt,” she says to his back as he sheds his coat and moves to the kitchen.
He snorts. Then pauses when he sees the stove. “You made dinner,” he says slowly, half turning to look at her. His eyes are narrowed even more.
“Can’t you just like not be a freaky mind reading dad for a minute?” she whines, going to serve him a bowl of the stew.
“Ellie,” he starts.
“Joel,” she mimics, handing him his bowl.
He takes a bite, and she watches as his face shifts. It’s good and he’s trying to be stern, but the second big bite he shovels in takes the heat out of his glare. She grins, triumphant. A little bit of the tension melts from his shoulders.
“So Abby was outside the walls waiting for me today,” she says, lightly like she’s discussing the weather. His whole body goes tense and she watches as he manages to bring himself back down to something that is very much not calm but at least resembles it.
“Are you okay?” he asks because he’s an idiot and because she’s not the only one watching every horrific version of that day over and over again in her nightmares.
“I’m fine, Joel, obviously. She wasn’t here to hurt us, or else I’d’ve killed her.” She gives him enough time to breathe, to check over her with his worried storm cloud eyes just to be sure. “She was asking questions. About the hospital. What I would’ve done if they’d given me a choice.”
He blows out a breath and shifts his weight, trying too hard for casual. “And?”
She shrugs, reaches for her necklace. “And I said I didn’t think there was a version where you didn’t choose me and I didn’t choose you.”
He softens, but he keeps looking at her and it reminds her too much of the way he has the few times he thought she would… she doesn’t know, hurt herself. She’s only seen it a few times: when he found her after she burned off the bite, once when winter got really bad and he’d hidden all the weapons in the house, and when he’d found the stash of textbooks.
Ellie sighs, wraps her arms around her middle. “Joel, you gave me a reason to live. And I have never regretted that. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“Okay,” he says and it’s all warm and soft in that way he only ever uses for her.
“Not ever,” she says, and crosses the kitchen to hug him. He wraps his arms around her and exhales slowly, the last of the tension melting away. “I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”