Archive of Our Own

Don’t get attached. That’s what he had told himself over and over and over again.

Wasn’t doing him any fucking good now though, was it? It didn’t mean shit. Not when his k- Not when the kid he cared about and was actively keeping alive was out there by herself.

Well. Not by herself. If there was one thing that he had worked out, it was that she wasn’t fucking alone.

He knows he’s too far gone with all of this shit when his anxiety stops taking place as a you’re going to get her killed. She’s dying, she’s dying, she’s dying.

And becomes a you’re going to find her. She’s going to be okay, she’s going to be okay, she’s going to be okay.

He can’t even stomach the fucking idea of anything else anymore.

Being violent doesn’t scare him. Not in the moment. All he thinks about is Ellie, and how these pricks weren’t answering nearly fucking quick enough. He didn’t have time to spare.

The cold doesn’t scare him. He thinks Ellie must be cold, wherever she is, her poor pale skin keeps flaring into a bright red when they travel through the snow. It makes her look even younger, like a little kid who’s been allowed to play outside for a tad too long.

The injury to his side doesn’t scare him. It hurts, he knows, he feels the pain of it with every step he takes. He doesn’t consciously register it, though. He just thinks about Ellie being hurt and then he feels close to no pain at all in his side.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t scared.

He’s fucking terrified.

He refuses to fill in the gaps between cargo and not my daughter and leave. All he acknowledges is that he can’t go through this again. He won’t.

Sorry, Tommy. He thinks, distantly.

Their dead horse scares him. The hanging bodies scare him.

Ellie’s backpack fills him with relief and dread in equal amounts.

He opens the backpack briefly, checks it over to make sure her belongings haven’t been taken. He’s never really seen everything she keeps with her though, and he’s swearing at himself for not knowing now. For being so careless, such an asshole, he never even asked what she keeps with her.

This bag is her whole fucking life, Joel. Everything that this kid has ever known or owned or loved, even ideas and thoughts and memories. This is her everything.

He zips it up quickly and hopes that nothing’s been taken.

At the end of it all, he knows that having Ellie back is far more important than her backpack, of course. But he knows that Ellie would want to see her belongings. No matter what state she’s in.

And doesn’t that fucking hurt to think about? That scares him. The state she’s in. When he doesn’t even fucking know what she’s going to be like when he finds her.

He is going to find her.

Seeing the smoke of a fire, a fucking building on fire, does more to settle his nerves than to scare him, truth be told. He doubts that it’s merely a coincidence, is all. That’s his kid’s doing.

It has to be.

He’s never moved so fast with such little effort before.

She’s disheveled when he sees her. Her stance is all awkward and her hair is falling out of her ponytail. For some reason, that’s the first thing to cross his mind.

She must be uncomfortable, she hates her hair out like that, messy and sticking to her neck. I should braid it for her again soon.

And then he’s not really thinking logically, just knows that his kid is right fucking there and he’s right fucking here, and he needs to reach out and touch her to know that it’s real. Needs to hold her close to make sure, himself, that she’s going to be okay.

All heart and no brain.

Ellie screeches when he touches her shoulder, body jerking and all but collapsing in on herself, her knees buckling and becoming as much of a dead weight as Ellie is capable of being.

“No! Get off of me!”

There aren’t any real conscious thoughts running through his head at that point. No words, no thoughts. Just a deep and awful feeling of failure and dread and grief, and a humming voice repeating Ellie’s name like a mantra.

She screeches and screams and cries.

He sees the blood scattered across her face and nose when he turns her around. He sees the wild, frightened look on her features, sees the helplessness and hopelessness in her eyes. The tears on her face.

It scares him.

“It’s me.” He repeats and repeats and hopes she hears. He’s not sure it registers for a second, as she hits her fists onto his chest over and over again. He doesn’t care, she can hit him all she likes, all she needs to, he’ll let her do fucking anything. As long as she’s here, as long as he’s got her.

Gently, ever so fucking gently, he brings his hands up to hold her face, hold her steady. Her breathing, so fucking scared, it makes him feel sick and worried and guilty.

“Hey.” He starts again, tone as soft as he can make it right now. “Look. It’s me.” Broken cries rattle out of his girl, and he wishes with such intensity that he’d been there for her when she needed him.

“It’s me.” He whispers, reassures right when he thinks she starts to recognise him.

She opens her mouth like she wants to say something, but he can see it in her eyes that everything’s so fucking jumbled up in her head that he’d be surprised if anything coherent manages to come out.

What the fuck has happened to his kid? Who the fuck did this to his kid?

“It’s okay.” He tries to reassure. He doesn’t want her to push herself into speaking if it’s just not going to happen. Not for him.

“He.” She stutters and Joel feels another mountain of fucking guilt and questions flood his very being. “But-But I.” And Christ, she barely looks like she can think the words let alone speak them.

She dives forward, wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face to hide in his shoulder. They’ve never done this before. Not like this. Maybe they should have. Maybe Ellie should have known, for sure, that someone cares about her, and wants to protect her, and wants her to feel safe.

But they’re here now, so he’ll just have to live with it.

He pulls her as close to himself as possible, not giving a single thought towards his injury. Not giving a single thought to himself at all. One arm across her back, one up to cradle the back of her head. Enclosing her the best way he knows how. Keeping her as far tucked away from the rest of the world as he can. Lord knows that he owes her that much, at the very least.

“It’s okay, baby girl.”

He doesn’t think about the words before they’d been spoken. Maybe that’s proof of how much he cares about her. His kid, his girl, his Ellie. He didn’t need to think, he just knew. Somewhere deep inside of him.

All heart.

“I’ve got you.” His heart is shattering into pieces at the sound of her cries, her small and broken sobs, the tears he can feel on his shoulder.

He closes his eyes, needs to. Is overwhelmed at her mere existence. She’s not okay, but she’s here, she’s alive, she’ll find a way to get better, he’ll make sure of it. He’s got her.

“I’ve got you.” He whispers again, for the both of them.

Her cries stop as abruptly as her screaming came, and she pulls back with a look he distantly remembers from Before.

The look of a little kid, not knowing what the next step is, relying solely on their parent to tell them what to do, to guide them. Only, Ellie still has blood on her face and a haunted look that glazes over her eyes.

She must be cold. He thinks again, beginning to take the backpack and his jacket off. He keeps watching her for a fear that she might just disappear if he doesn’t. Ellie looks at him the same way. Maybe for the same reason, maybe also because she really does seem like some lost little kid.

They don’t break eye contact, either way.

He wraps her up in his jacket, while she stands there, watching him. He can literally see her retreating into herself, disassociating. Maybe if he’s not watching her, isn’t touching some part of her, isn’t attached and tethered to her. Maybe she really will just disappear.

So he bundles her as close as he can, he doesn’t stop to think about his injury, doesn’t care that their walking is slow and awkward, doesn’t care about fucking anything except for keeping his girl close. Keeping her safe. He’s got her now, that’s what he’d promised.

So that’s what he’ll do. He isn’t letting his kid go. Not again.

Maybe it doesn’t fucking matter what he does or doesn’t deserve. Ellie does deserve fucking everything, and if she feels safe with him, then who the hell is he to deny her the comfort?

If he has a chance to have this, who the hell is he to deny himself?

He has a vague sense of where they’re going. Really, the only thought he has is ‘get away’ and that’s enough for him. He doesn’t lead them back to where they’d been… staying.

Where he’d been dying.

He has a lot of blanks to fill in.

He’s not taking Ellie back, is the point. Not to where he’d murdered those men, not to where she’d surely been expecting him to keel over and die every night in the fucking cold.

Certainly not to where they’d found her.

It isn’t a hard choice to walk in the other direction. Distantly, he wonders how far off course they’re veering as they walk from where they think the Fireflies are, but quite frankly, he couldn’t give a fuck about the Fireflies right now.

All he cares about right now is keeping Ellie, and by extension, himself, alive. Today, tonight, tomorrow.

The dissociating thing must have been a correct guess on his part, because Ellie is freakishly distant the entire walk. Her eyes are glazed over in this way that he fucking hates to see. Like there’s no one in there. Like his Ellie has gone and taken a walk in the other direction and hidden away in a memory that lives oh so far away from the surface, and all that’s keeping her close to him is this physical body that he’s got wrapped in his arms.

It scares him enough that he tries not to look at her for long periods of time. Just continues to glance down at her every few minutes, just to check that at least some part of her is still with him.

Just as always, in the snow, her cheeks are a bright red, and her nose is red enough that if she wasn’t so… Far away, he’d try to compare her to Rudolf. He’s not sure it would land anyway though. Especially since he can’t tell how much of the colouring is due to the cold, or the blood, or maybe her nose is broken. He needs to check.

He needs to check her over for a lot of injuries, actually, but right now they’re walking, and he’s honestly not sure if they’ll be able to start again if he lets them stop before they’ve found some form of shelter.

Not that their pace is particularly helping with that matter. He doesn’t hold it against her, not for a second, of course not, but Ellie’s barely picking up her feet with each step, let alone maintaining the pace she’d once had when they’d be looking for a place to rest for the night.

If he wasn’t so badly banged up himself, barely doing much better than Ellie with his own slow walk, he’d be picking her up to carry her the rest of the way.

He feels himself frowning as the wind starts to pick up. He knows they’re going to need to stop soon, both because of the weather getting worse, the day starting to come to an end and their light starting to fade away, as well as both of them being just too fucking exhausted to keep this up for much longer.

He hears a slight thunk of Ellie’s shoes on a fallen branch, before she makes a small noise of surprise, tripping into the snow, while Joel barely keeps himself upright. Really, she should be aware enough to have reacted more than she does. Her hands come out to catch herself, at least, but she doesn’t make any move to actually get up once she’s fallen down. Her hands tremble, quickly becoming damp and pink in the snow. Again, Joel isn’t quite sure how much of it is blood.

“Ellie.” He tries getting her attention as he steadies himself, only wincing a little bit at the strain put on his injury. “You alright, kiddo?”

She doesn’t make any noise of acknowledgment. Well, she doesn’t make any sign of acknowledgement at all.

“Hey.” He says, trying to keep his tone light and encouraging, even as he kneels down in the freezing snow and presses a hand against his side. He hopes she can’t hear the pain in his voice.

At this point though, he’s not entirely sure that she can hear him at all.

“Ellie.” He brings a hand up to her shoulder and she flinches, hard, eyes suddenly frantic and wild and looking directly at him, like she’s meant to be pushing herself as far away as possible but she’s stuck. Her body won’t let her.

“Hey, hey, it’s just me, just me.” He rushes a bit, holding the hand back closer to his chest, hoping to come off as non threatening as he can. He thinks he’s crippled enough for anyone to believe that.

But then again, what was it that he had done earlier, only half alive and with a kid to find?

But that’s far different.

Ellie heaves in frantic breaths, looking around like she has no idea how the fuck she got where she is. She probably doesn’t, it’s not like she’s been especially present for the past however long they’ve been walking.

Her eyes eventually find their way down to her hands, still buried in the snow. They must be fucking cold, he thinks.

“You want some help up?” He asks, partly just to get her brain moving forward again, instead of being stuck on how her hands ended up in the snow.

As he’d expected, her head jolts up to look towards him again, as if surprised that he was still there. He smiles as gently and as calmly as he thinks he can pass off as genuine. She’s scaring him to death, truth be told, and considering his condition right now, that’s not exactly reassuring.

Still, he’ll pretend they have all the time in the world, and he’ll pretend to be in control, and he’ll sell as many ‘we’re okay’s as she needs to hear.

He’ll tell her anything she needs, wants. Anything.

She blinks a couple of times, and he wonders for the millionth time what’s going on inside of her head. He wants to know how to help, he wants to know what she needs. Wants to know what she’s too afraid to ask for, so that he can give her everything and more. Enough to settle her, to make her feel safe. Enough to apologise for the shit he’s put her through.

Her hair runs over her shoulders, and she carefully, in a way that says she feels like it’s unfamiliar, moves her arm out of the snow and to her hair tie, barely holding on, to take it out of her hair and wrap it around her too small wrist. He waits for her to reach back and tie it back up, even though he knows she won’t. It still stings when she doesn’t. A shaky, cautious nod follows.

He nods back, encouraging. “Okay, baby.” He says, surprising himself with how easily it slips out. Now that he knows how easy it is to give in to it, to give Ellie something as simple as endearment, he fears he might not be able to stop. Or maybe fear is the wrong word.

He carefully gets himself to his feet, slower than he hopes to, but at least he’s not dying on a basement floor. He raises a hand out towards Ellie, waits and waits patiently as ever, because anything else would be rude and a complete disrespect to his girl. It takes a while, longer than Ellie probably thinks it does, for her to take his hand, but once she does, she’s up and dashing into his side as fast as she can.

The rapid change of how much touch is okay is more than a little dizzying, but he’s content enough to let Ellie take the lead with that. It was simple enough, wasn’t it? If she wanted to be as physically close as possible, then that was fine. If she didn’t, then that was also fine.

For a brief few seconds, he thinks fuck it, and almost tries to just scoop her up into his arms anyway, injury be damned. But he knows that that isn’t the smartest idea for right now.

Right now.

He pretends that doesn’t imply a later.

“Come on.” He encourages absentmindedly. Just talking to talk. Anything to cement the fact that Ellie was still here, with him.

They keep walking, he doesn’t know how much longer they go on for. He does know that by the time he sees an old little house, he’s fucking relieved. He steers Ellie in the right direction and tries not to think about how she’s slipped back into the too pliant, distant state again. That’s okay, he’s got her.

It feels like it takes ten times longer than it should, but eventually they’re standing a couple steps away from the cabin. He tries to steel himself for however difficult the next part of the plan may be.

First things first, he cuddles Ellie just a little closer to his side for a second, swallowing hard when she goes easily and rests her head on his shoulder. It’s painful to tug her away, gently pushing her back with his hands on her shoulders. She still goes easily, but her expression clearly indicates her unwillingness, though.

It’s so unsettling, is the thing. That’s not his Ellie.

Not his doesn’t move in her sleep- self sacrificing- pun reading- shit at whistling- still a fucking kid- Ellie.

It’s like that Ellie ran in the other direction. He’s so convinced that that’s what actually happened, that Joel genuinely has to stop himself from turning around and looking for her.

He’s pretty sure he’d have the same amount of luck with finding that version of Ellie, roaming around in the snow, calling out her name, that he’s going to have sitting right in front of her.

And he’s so fucking scared to think about why that is.

“Got to make sure the place is clear, okay?” He poses the question with a gentle tone, hoping the words might float down to her by some miracle. She’s staring straight forward, eyeline going directly to the center of his chest, because of her height. It’s unnerving, how similar her look is to when he got hurt. Just staring at him.

He almost checks himself for some unknown injury that must be the cause of her distress, but he knows there’s nothing there, and he doesn’t want to put ideas into Ellie’s head that there could be.

“Ellie?” He ducks his head a little, trying to meet her eyes, even if there doesn’t seem to be much recognition in them right now. Her nose scrunches slightly, eyebrows drawing in, and she lightly shakes her head, a slow back and forth. He wishes he knew what she was thinking.

“Ellie.” He calls once more, and he’s not trying to be harsh with her, not at all, but he needs her to focus up right now. She reacts with a frustrated hum, low and warning. It feels like there should be words that he can hear, but she isn’t really saying anything, and it’s a hard thing to work with.

Still, he’d be an idiot to miss how much of a stop it sounds like.

“Sweetheart-” Her eyes manage to meet his at that, and he wonders if it’s her name that’s making her so distant, and then there’s another thing to add to his list of guilt and wonder and helplessness.

He takes a breath and tries to steady himself for another five minutes. Ellie maintains the eye contact though, so maybe they’re entering a better patch. If he’s lucky enough, she might be cohesive when they’ve settled in the cabin, and he can look her over for injuries.

He starts to repeat himself, can’t really tell if she heard anything he’d said, let alone retained it. “I need to-” Ellie nods her head, expression making it look as if he’s stupid for thinking she might not have heard him.

It lacks any of his Ellie’s qualities though. He’d give anything to see her roll her eyes, or swear at him, or call him an idiot.

He nods, matching her. “Okay.” He says, dropping his hands from Ellie’s shoulders. “Okay.” A little steadier. “You’re gonna have to wait out here for a couple minutes. I’m gonna be right back for you though, alright?”

Ellie’s still staring into his eyes, like she’s in disbelief that he’s still actually here. She nods slowly, shakily. He wants to stop time. Stop responsibilities. Stop the snow and the danger and the fear. He just wants to wipe the blood off of her face and bundle her up in as many blankets as possible. He just wants to hold her as close as he can and apologise for everything that he’s put her through.

He nods once more, out of habit than anything, and turns away from her before he can stop himself, walking up to the door and quietly pulling it open.

The cabin is full of dust and mold, definitely, but there’s no infected lurking around, and no people either, and right now, that’s all that Joel cares about.

It’s a small place, which counts as a plus tonight. Two exits, not including windows. A quick scan of the bedroom shows some old but relatively alright looking blankets, and the living room is still big enough to be comfortable, if they move some of the furniture, and drag the mattress out.

When Joel rounds the corner, on his way back outside to grab Ellie, she’s standing in the doorway, the cabin door wide open behind her. She’s got that frantic look about her again, and her eyes are full of tears, some already making their way down her red cheeks. It’s smearing the blood in a gut wrenching way, but Joel won’t ever admit that to her.

“Hey-” Is all he thinks to say before Ellie’s all but running towards him, with a speed she hasn’t shown since long before all this. She crashes into him, some form of half words, half sob, coming from her. Her arms reach upwards, small hands grabbing at his jacket with tight fists.

“Ellie-” She flinches. “Okay, okay.” He wraps his arms around her, pulling her as close to him as he can. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know.”

He doesn’t know, is the thing. He doesn’t.

He has nightmarish ideas.

But he doesn’t fucking know, does he?

He does know that he fucking hates how bad Ellie’s trembling in his arms, though. He needs to close the door, but he’s honestly more than a little worried about letting go of Ellie. If he makes the wrong move here, he’s fucking terrified of how that might affect her.

She’s far too vulnerable for him to be making the wrong decisions. It’s just a little bit harder when he doesn’t know exactly what’s happened.

I can’t make it better if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.

He’d said that to Sarah once. He doesn’t even really remember why. She was an honest kid, and independent as hell, there wasn’t ever much that bothered her that she didn’t fix herself. She’d always been that way, giving anything to be more independent.

He thinks it’s the other way around, with Ellie.

“I’m right here.” He speaks softly, “Ain’t leaving.” She cries more when he pushes her back, struggling to breathe when he grips her elbows, keeps her arms close to her sides. She’s more or less like a ragdoll. A ragdoll who’s incredibly upset about how her limbs aren’t working with her.

“Listen, listen, hey.” Joel lilts softly as Ellie sniffs and coughs her way through breathing. “I’ve got to close that door-” He nods in its direction. “Then we’ve got to set this place up to sleep, and then I’ve got to check your injuries, okay? I’m not leaving.”

Her half sob, half coughs, get fewer and further between. Her hair’s still a mess, falling over her shoulders, and he’s a little worried about her nose.

It’s a split second decision, on his part. His Ellie, from before this, would have scoffed at the very idea of it, and definitely wouldn’t shut up about him going soft or some shit, but it’s painfully obvious that this isn’t the same Ellie as before this, and Joel would offer her literally anything if he thought it had even a chance of making her feel more comfortable.

He doesn’t ask, not verbally, because he’s not sure if her pride is going to stop her seeking comfort, or if her insecurities are going to deny it.

Slowly, visibly, he reaches his left hand out, and gently grabs her hand in his. She furrows her brows a little, figuring it out, but then he starts walking to the door with Ellie being gently guided behind him and she gets it. He knows she does, because her grip gets stronger, like nothing could make her let go. He’s not leaving her, and she’s not letting go of him.

So they stay that way. She only needs to let go of his hand once, and that’s to help drag the mattress out, but he’s right there the whole time anyway, so he doesn’t think it’s too bad. Even if she scrambles up and grabs his hand again as soon as they’re done.

Now that that’s sorted, he knows they have to move onto the much more difficult parts of the priority list.

Cleaning the blood off of Ellie.

Checking for injuries.

Getting Ellie to eat something.

Preferably in that order, too. Not that he’s going to care too much, as long as they manage to get all three of those things accomplished.

Which he’s sure isn’t going to be easy. Hell, getting through the fucking door hadn’t been easy, and that’s not Ellie’s fault, but Joel’s more than a little concerned about how to go about this.

He doesn’t dare sigh out loud, because he’s not giving Ellie any more reasons to feel like shit, and tries to prepare himself for the rest of the night.

“Lets get you cleaned up a bit, sweetheart.” He starts. He doesn’t even know what kind of a reaction he hopes to get, really. He doesn’t want her to act tough just because he’s there, not when she’s scared and hurt, but he’s also finding it a little difficult to look at her for too long on account of the guilt that feels like it’s physically clawing out of his throat.

But he definitely can’t be the scared one here. She can’t see that, not from him, not when she looks like that.

Ellie’s eyes flit around the room, and even though Joel’s unsure if she’s actually processing what she’s seeing, she’s at least looking around. He’ll take what he can get, especially when it comes to the few good signs that she’s showing.

She nods slowly, all jagged like and unsure, almost like she doesn’t quite remember how to make the movement properly. It’s far from the confident, run at him with a knife for a first impression, version of Ellie that he’s grown accustomed to. Grown fond of. Protective of.

That’s okay. He can make it okay.

It’s a bit of a struggle to get the snow from outside, probably more so than actually lighting the fire, but eventually Joel’s got some snow melting in a tin. Even if it hurts to see Ellie look so visibly uncomfortable to be around the flames. He certainly doesn’t want to push her into thinking and reliving whatever shit he couldn’t protect her from, but he knows they’ll benefit from keeping the fire, and right now he’s more concerned about keeping them alive than anything else.

He lets the tin sit for a couple of minutes after the snow has melted. He doesn’t want to burn her, doesn’t even want to remind her of that, so he waits for it to cool and then dips a ratty but mostly in tact rag into the water.

Not that Ellie’s noticed that. Not that Ellie’s really noticed anything since she calmed down after her being left alone scare. And it is. Scary, that is. It’s fucking terrifying, looking at someone and them having absolutely no idea of it. It’s like any sense of her surroundings has vanished. She’s sitting with her knees tucked up to her chest, arms wrapped loosely around her legs. Right in front of him. There’s barely any distance between them at all, which has kind of been the case since they found each other. He can’t count the amount of times that he’s almost tripped or accidentally stepped on her toes. Not that that’s discouraged Ellie from moving closer to him. While she might not be a tripping hazard when they’re both sitting on the floor like this, he doesn’t expect it to take long before she starts shuffling her way into invading what little personal space he has left. Not that he’d really mind, not when it’s her. It’d probably be reassuring, to have her as close as possible. His fingers twitch. It’s in his head now, the space feels too far, he feels the impulse to reach out and bring her closer, so that- so that he can protect her better.

He stamps that down pretty quick, because he can at least recognise that that really is more about him than about her.

And right now, nothing is more important than her.

Her eyes are locked onto the fire, blinking every now and then, but that’s Joel’s only real way of knowing she’s even fucking alive. The rest of her is so still that he has to fight the instinct to pull her close and call her name over and over until she starts fucking talking again even harder than before. It’s a fine line, he knows. He knows. She can’t keep him in the dark though. He needs to hear her talk again, she has to be able to talk to him. He doesn’t want to force her, he doesn’t actually even know how he’d try to. She doesn’t have to talk about anything that she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t have to talk.

But it’s incredibly hard to stop himself from holding everything off until he can coax her into talking.

That might have more to do with him than it does with her though, so he shakes his head to clear those thoughts and tests the water again.

Face? Hands? Face? Hands?

It’s a debate that delays cleaning the blood off of her for a minute longer than it probably should, but he can’t say he’s done this for someone else before.

Sure, he’s helped clean blood off of Tess in a similar fashion, but that’s mostly been due to either injury or her not being able to see herself. He also knows that’s mostly due to her letting him do it for his benefit, but that’s neither here nor there right now.

Tess had certainly never been borderline catatonic when he did this. He’s just going off of personal experience of being covered in blood.

But Ellie’s nose needs to be checked, and that leads into other injuries, and that leads into trying to coax the girl into conversation and that seems like something difficult. A glance at Ellie, who hasn’t moved since he last looked at her. Very difficult.

Hands first, then.

“Hey sweetheart,” He tries carefully. He doesn’t want to scare her, but he also isn’t sure that being overly cautious is going to help matters either. No physical reaction, but he’s going to hope she hears him. “I’m gonna clean off your hands, if that’s alright? Might feel a little weird.” He warns, and slowly shifts towards her, ringing out the rag, and holding his hand out.

As expected, Ellie doesn’t move. Joel breathes slowly. He reaches his hand out further, gently touching his fingers to the back of her hand.

There’s a startled hum, and Ellie’s head snaps down to their hands, before lifting to look at him. “Just me.” He repeats for what feels like the millionth time. He doesn’t want her to see it, and she will, he knows. She’ll read him like an open book if he thinks too fucking loud, but he’s seriously worried that this is what the future looks like. What if she doesn’t get better than this? What if she can’t? What if she can’t even try? It’s the worst thing for him to think and it’s one of the only things racing through his head every time he looks at her.

She nods, a little steadier than before. It takes one panicked second for him to catch up and remember what he’d asked. “Gonna clean your hands off, alright?” He asks in the same tone, repeating it for her sake, so she’s definitely aware, as aware as she can be right now, and for himself, to try and desperately keep himself from slipping into his own head. She nods again, looking at the wet rag in his other hand and the tin beside him like she wasn’t aware of when any of it got to be there. Like he hadn’t all but fucking narrated his every move.

He tries for a small smile, one that he knows isn’t going to be reciprocated, but Ellie at least doesn’t seem like she’s looking through him, so he doesn’t think it entirely falls flat.

“Thankyou baby.” He takes her hands in his, unfolding her closely tucked position in the process a bit. Her hands are freezing, is his first thought. Unsurprising, given that she doesn’t have her gloves with her anymore, she fell straight into the snow on the way here, and her complete unease with keeping any part of her body any closer to the fire than absolutely necessary.

If her fall in the snow did anything good for her, it was helping to clean off the surface level blood that was staining her hands, at least. She twitches a little when he first swipes the rag over her knuckles, but other than that she seems content enough to let him clean her off.

She’s got cuts littered over her hands that he’s sure will sting like a bitch when she’s coherent and conscious enough to register it, but other than that, it’s mostly her fingernails that have copped the worst of it. He does his best to clean underneath them, but there’s only so much he can do with it right now. He’s hoping she doesn’t get too caught up in the red stains under her nails, too much. If or when she does, he can help make sure she can soak her fingers or something.

He's been doing a whole lot of hoping in the past couple of hours.

It doesn’t feel like it’s stopping anytime soon.

Or like it’s helping, but he refuses to let himself dwell on that.

Ellie tugs one of her hands free, when they’re deemed clean enough and he’s ringing the rag out again to start on her face. Her knuckles run back and forth over her bottom lip a few times, some sort of repetitive self soothing thing. Better now than when they were covered in blood, he’ll give her that.

Joel braces himself, which is a little difficult to do when he doesn’t know what reaction to expect from Ellie on any given movement right now. Ellie frowns at something, bringing her hand back down and wiping it on her jeans. Not so unexpected, after washing her hands over, and her refusing to willingly push her hands closer to the warmth of the fire. She must be cold.

He clears his throat slightly. “I’m gonna do your face now baby, that alright?”

Her frown falls back into the more or less expressionless look she’s been wearing, as her eyes find him again. Her arm and hand twitch upwards, and he can tell she wants to touch her nose on instinct. No words come from it though. Ellie nods, not quite the unsure and shaky nod she’d had earlier, but not… Not what it should be either.

Joel knows the look she’s got. He sees it. So much trust that it makes him feel nauseous.

Some little kid looking to him to make it all better.

He doesn’t let himself dwell on that either. Not right now, when he needs to be present enough to try and put Ellie back together.

He knows that that has a hell of a lot more to do with him than her.

He keeps his movements deliberate, predictable and slow the whole time. She closes her eyes a couple of times in the process, which seems to be a hard thing for her. He keeps careful around her nose and tries to keep her hair out of the way for her. It’s not as difficult as he’d expected, and not as easy as he’d hoped, so he counts it as a small win.

Her nose isn’t broken, thankfully. Good sign. It’s sore, evidently, but it’s just something that’s going to take a little time and heal. Much like the other scratches and bruises he’s been seeing as they pop up. He tries not to look overly mad, or upset, because he’s sure it’s going to send all the wrong messages. Especially when Ellie’s communication skills are so out of it.

Ellie looks at least a little bit more like herself when he’s cleaned up all the blood. Her staring isn’t helping with the picture, but he’s not selfish enough to ignore her behaviour. Not for some perfect picture of some happy kid that’s not real.

The thumbnail of her right hand slowly shifts back and forth over her lower lip, which he can tell is cracked as all hell. He wonders, just for a second, if she’d been a thumb sucker as a young kid, if that’s why she’s fallen into this halfway in between habit that she’s picked up in the past hour or so, but it seems misplaced of him to even think about anything other than here and now, for one thing, and like a breach of her privacy, which he’s sure she doesn’t need any more of, for another.

Sarah had been a thumb sucker, for a short while. She was too independent, was the thing, she always needed both of her hands free. He can’t really remember when she stopped exactly, before preschool, definitely. It didn’t last very long, a was until it wasn’t anymore, kind of thing.

But that was like most things when it came to Sarah. There until it wasn’t.

Checking Ellie’s ribs goes just about as well as he expects it to. There’s a lot of caution, on both sides, and a clear unease for the whole thing but he knows it’s his responsibility to make sure nothing gets worse now.

There’s nasty bruises that are starting to show. Some splotches, some big, some small. Some in some fairly fucking identifiable shapes that make him need to stop and steady his breathing for a minute before he can continue.

He hates the evidence of someone clearly having the advantage over Ellie. Hates the markings to prove it, and he hates how fucking silent it’s made her.

Because that means more than just I was on the losing side. That means I was losing.

Every time Joel wakes up, he knows the feeling of losing something that you had, and he never, ever wants Ellie to feel that way.

And Joel’s not an idiot, he’s had a daughter before, he’s been scared to death of this before, he knows how girls can be hurt, and he knows what girls can lose.

It’s a fear that he slips back on like a well worn coat, by this stage. One he’s had in the back of his mind since they started going this journey solo. Why wouldn’t it scare him? He couldn’t protect her from clickers, he couldn’t protect her from watching Sam, or Henry, he couldn’t protect her from the hurtful words he spoke back in Jackson, or watching him nearly die.

So what makes him think he had any chance of protecting her from that?

And now he has to live with it. Now he has to ask.

And it’s one of the worst burdens he could ever live with.

And it’s exactly what he deserves.

“Ellie, baby.” Her eyebrows furrow, then she goes blank, then her eyes clear a little. She hums in response, looking at him like there’s nothing for him to worry over.

He swallows thickly, eyes trailing back down to her sweater, covering the spot on her skin he knows is marked with the tip of a boot print. “I need you to tell me-”

“No.” Her voice is raw, quiet. It’s hard not to give in to the plea. Extremely hard, given that she’s finally actually speaking to him. So hard that it physically hurts to ignore it.

Joel shakes his head in what he hopes to God is an encouraging enough way. “You don’t gotta tell me everything, I just need to know-”

“No.” She says again, eyes flitting away from him. She coughs awkwardly, clearing her throat. It doesn’t do much to help. “I mean, no.”

“Baby.” Joel sighs. God he wishes Tess were here. She’d know what to say. Hell, if Tess were here, then Ellie would have probably never gotten into this situation in the first place. “Did someone-”

“No.” Her thumb goes back to repetitively swiping along her bottom lip. “He-” A pause, a shaky breath in that has nothing to do with her ribs. “Um, he was going to.” Her thumb stills. “I stopped him.”

It’s simultaneously the best and the worst news he’s heard since he found her.

Ellie’s eyes dart up to watch him carefully, waiting for his reaction. To be honest, the last thing he wants to do right now is be fucking calm, but he cares far more about her than he does about himself, and he’s always had an alright poker face.

He nods. “Alright.” She exhales some sort of sigh of relief. He’s not going to push her to talk about it right now. Not if she doesn’t need medical attention.

The right thing to do would be apologise for ever failing this girl, his girl, but he doesn’t think he’s going to get much further than saying the words ‘I’m sorry’.

And now isn’t the time for him to break down, not when he needs to keep her safe. This shouldn’t be about his guilt. This is about her. Everything is about her. He has a feeling that it always will be.

Her thumb restarts its repetitive journey.

She needs to drink something. Needs food too, God knows how long it’s been since she’s been eating as much as she should be. Another thing he’s failed to do properly, on account of his major failure of almost getting himself fucking killed.

He continues to narrate his movements, even if she seems slightly more with it than when they first arrived, as he gets some water for their canteens and heats up a can of something at least edible. Not that he’s entirely convinced that Ellie’s even going to realise that she’s eating at all, when they get to that stage.

As predicted, she doesn’t. Or at least she just doesn’t care. Or maybe it’s hard because she’s been eating so little for days now. Whatever the reason, she doesn’t make any move to feed herself.

After a few minutes of silence and her just... staring at it, Joel tries to keep things light. “Well, I can spoon feed you again, but I’m pretty sure that that was ‘fucking awful’, so…”

A flicker of recognition, her eyes look up to him instead of glaring at the can. “I’m not hungry.”

Exactly what he didn’t want to hear. He can’t let her have her way, not on this, but it’s a difficult situation to be saying no to her right now.

“Kid, you’ve gotta eat something.” He pushes, shaking his head.

“I’m not-”

“Ellie.” She snaps her mouth shut, looking away from him. “Just a couple mouthfuls, at least.” He tries to bargain. Anything is better than nothing, after all.

Nothing.

“I know.” He clears his throat. “It isn’t easy, when you haven’t been eating.” He ducks his head to try and make eye contact. “But you can’t stop.”

More nothing. Ellie scrunches her nose up slightly, in a familiar enough way, that says she doesn’t agree with what he’s saying.

But she slowly reaches out her hand, and drags the can back towards herself. It’s a win.

He hates how hard it looks for her. Each time she goes to take a bite, how she has to steady her breathing and try not to shake too hard.

In the end, she only manages the couple mouthfuls that Joel insisted on. Right before she bolts up to her feet and runs to the door, throwing up the second she gets outside. It’s both the fastest and the most coherently she’s moved in hours.

He doesn’t need to think about the next part. It’s some instinct that’s stayed in his muscle memory since the first time he did it. He’s beside her in an instant, one hand gathering up her still loose hair, keeping it away from her face, the other lightly resting on her shoulder, ready to rub her back or keep her upright.

A position he hasn’t found himself in, in a very long time.

Comes as naturally as anything, though.

“Shh, it’s okay, it’s alright, I gotcha.” He continues a quiet murmur of praise going, until she’s done. She’s at least with it enough now that she brings the back of her hand up to wipe her mouth.

Ellie leans back into the touch, closing her eyes. She looks almost helpless. In a way that Joel would have never described her as before this. It makes the tight feeling in his chest constrict tighter.

“Gonna get up?” He asks quietly after a minute of playing it safe, waiting for her to nod, before he helps her stand. She’s a little wobbly on her feet, but he’s hoping that sleep will help with that. He closes the door, leads them back to their makeshift beds for the night, hands her some water.

And he doesn’t let go of her once. Doesn’t dream to push her away even the slightest bit.

Because his Ellie has never cared all that much about physical proximity, or of affection, or of the comfort that came from being so close. Or maybe she has, and she’s just never let herself lean into it.

Either way, right here, right now, she is leaning into it.

And he is never going to push her away when she’s seeking comfort so blatantly.

Getting her to lie down and try to sleep isn’t at all the fight he’d been preparing for. Ellie easily slides down onto the mattress, tucking all of her limbs as close to her body as she can. It’s a small comfort for her, he knows. He remembers her sleeping the whole night in that position, the first night. When he and Tess watched her.

He doesn’t question the next part. There’s no hesitation there. No questioning, no wondering.

They both know this part well. Considering that he’s been out of commission for a little while, she deserves this from him.

And he likes it too.

He tucks the blanket he’d found around her shoulders, making sure her body is completely tucked inside, it was freezing as is.

He catches the small flicker of a smile that Ellie gives, before she’s back to being more or less expressionless. It’s a good sign. A small miracle, for now.

The familiarity of it must be nice for her too, he thinks. Kids liked routine, regardless, but there must be something especially comforting to her about this specific thing they have. Not that they talk about it. He keeps thinking it’s because they don’t need to, but maybe it’s just because they’re both too scared. Vulnerable.

Not a discussion for tonight. He gently swipes some hair out of her eyes, realizing a little too late that it could be too much. It’s not though. Nothing ever really is, in this routine they have. The boundaries aren’t exactly what you’d think they’d be.

“Go to sleep, kiddo.”

And she does.

He stays awake for a while after, just in case. Really, he’d planned on keeping watch, but he’s fucking exhausted as is, and he’s still in the middle of recovering from almost certain death. Sleep sounded like a fucking miracle right now, blessedly inevitable.

Of course, he worries about Ellie. Worries about whether she’ll be able to get enough sleep, or if she’ll wake up scared that she’s alone, panicking like she’d done earlier. Thankfully though, while Joel’s still barely awake to watch over her, she seems to be sleeping soundly.

Until she isn’t.

The nightmares aren’t unexpected, not by any means, he’s not naive enough to believe she’ll sleep completely soundly through the night. He cares enough to have hoped it, though.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, himself, but he’s so fucking exhausted and there’s only so much sitting around in the dark you can do before that exhaustion starts to take over. If he’d maybe worried about not knowing when Ellie was scared in the middle of the night, well… He shouldn’t have.

He gets woken by Ellie screaming.

He’s immediately up, getting as close to her as he dares. At first it’s just screaming, incoherent babbles of fear, but then it starts turning into no’s and stop’s and sobs. He lightly touches her shoulder, to which she all but jumps, cries spilling out of her faster than her breathing. It takes her longer than it should to find him in the dark, and then a few horrifying moments for her to actually recognise him.

But then she does.

And then it’s like she starts choking on her own cries.

“I’m right here, I’m right here baby.” He mumbles quietly, instinctively, slowly shuffling closer to where she’s sitting on top of the mattress. “Just me, It’s just me, I promise.”

There aren’t any words from her, then. Just sobs that he knows are going to haunt him for a long time.

When he’s close enough, she rushes into his arms, throwing her arms over his shoulders, and pulling herself as close as she can get towards him. It’s not unlike when he first found her, after.

“I got you, I’m right here, ain’t going anywhere, baby.”

And he isn’t. Not fucking anywhere. Not without her.

“He tried to-”

“I know. I know.” He rocks them both from side to side as well as he can in their position. Trying to give her any semblance of comfort that he can offer her now.

Eventually, it’s like she’s run out of tears. There’s nothing to keep her crying going, otherwise he’s sure she’d be up the whole night. He would be too.

She’s left sniffling and trying to breathe steadily, and she stays as closely tucked into his neck as she can be. He’s honestly not so keen on letting her go either. So he starts slowly moving, shushing her when she makes a noise of panic. “Not leavin’” He’s quick to reassure, instincts again. He remembers doing the same thing when Sarah was young, just a baby. Maybe a bad habit, not thinking about what he’s saying, let alone registering what’s coming out of his mouth before he says it, but if he’s ever known something factual about himself, it’s that he’d never hurt his kid, not when he’s murmuring half cohesive words of comfort.

When he’s managed to get both of them lying down, she becomes a little more hesitant, but after a few minutes she reaches her hand out to place about his heart. He has a vague memory of her doing the same thing when he’d been in the basement.

Whatever makes her more comfortable. Anything.

And eventually she manages to fall back asleep, cuddled close to him, head buried in his neck, tucked away from monsters.

He’s not sure if that rule is going to be applied for much longer. Not anymore. He doesn’t think that there’s anything left to make her feel like the monsters are being kept away.

But he’s going to do his fucking best to try. He’s going to try so fucking hard to make her feel safe.

And he’s never going to stop.