A/N: Hey guys! So I'm a huge fan of The Last of Us. I'm freaking exhilarated for The Last of Us Part II. But before it comes out, and yes I know that won't be for another year or so, I just want to try my hand at another fanfic.

I recently replayed the game and the DLC and I'm just pumped full of ideas. If any of you read my first fanfic for this category, you know it wasn't the best.

So let's try again!

There are plenty of unanswered questions thorough the game. But what I want to focus on in this story is something that a lot of people have probably covered already. What were Ellie and Riley's last moments together like? How did Marlene react when Ellie came to her?

Thus my ideas are produced! Hopefully I do this justice and hopefully you guys enjoy. As always, fav and follow and review and whatever else.

Thanks guys! -Sara

"Love will always be the answer. Never run from it."

...

I'm sure someone told me that at one point in my life. I'm not sure why, or even if I believed them. But something keeps telling me I've heard that. Why else would it repeat in the back of my conscious like some type of mantra?

Her hand squeezes mine harder, like she's looking for some kind of anchor to keep her here. My gaze follows the sound of her laboured breathing, and my heart breaks with the sight of her.

Sweat drips from her face, droplets falling down her neck and shimmering in the brightening morn light. Her eyes hold something akin to pain, but not quite. Her brow furrows with the effort it takes to shift on this hard floor.

I don't know how long we've been here. I don't know nor care if it's safe. All I care about is spending whatever time I have left with my best friend.

"Ellie?" she breathes. And that's all it is, a breath. Because anything more hurts her. It should hurt me too, but it doesn't.

"Yes?"

A small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. She's trying so hard to stay positive. I don't want to, though. If we're going to die, we should die at the same pace. Why is it that she should go before I? What have I done that she hasn't?

I watch as her hand let's my own go. It slips into the worn pocket of her pants, shaking I notice. What she pulls out startles me.

"Here."

The metal is freezing as it's pressed into my open and awaiting palm. I wince, tugging it from her fingers accidentally. The chain catches the bends in her fingers, and now we're both holding it.

Her pendant.

The Firefly symbol burns my hand and makes me grind my teeth, but for her sake I accept what I can only assume is the last of her worldly possessions. Though, if my memory isn't already being twisted, I could've sworn she threw this away...

"But you tossed this..." I whisper, catching her eye.

She shrugs, though I know it takes a lot more effort than she should give, and let's go of the necklace. "Picked it up. During the chase."

I don't recall that. Then again, everything from that brief time had been fuzzy and a haze of jumbled worries. Anything could've happened and I would've been completely clueless.

"Oh."

She leans against me, skin so clammy it slides, slick, against my own. I reach over to timidly brush a soaked strand of hair from her face. We let the silence linger, broken only by her no longer manageable pants.

Until I let my head fall back, tears burning my eyes and clouding my vision. And I let myself hum.

It's a tune she knows almost as perfectly as me. I'd hum it to her whenever one of us got in trouble back home. I'd hum it to myself, laying in my bunk, wondering if she was ever coming back. Or could come back.

Now, it's for peace. A remembrance of simpler times. Times when we didn't seem to have a care in the world. What happened to those times, anyway? Where did they go?

It's so reassuring that for the briefest of moments we can let go. Her hand finds mine again and I feel the ghost of her kiss lingering on my lips. And we're happy.

Then there's blood coming from her mouth. She's coughing and gagging and choking, and my tears are gone as she leans forward to wrench and I pat her back in comfort. Our peace is lost.

"You need to.. go..." she heaves, vomit and blood now overwhelming her senses, making her body wrack with dry heaves.

But I won't go. And I don't argue because she doesn't need that. I'm pissed and I'm scared but for once I don't rant because I just want to believe in something greater than this.

We'd been through too much to go out like this. In the middle of an abandoned mall in a crappy quarantine zone slowly falling apart.

"I'm not leaving your side," I said, voice wavering but words clear.

Her body heaves once more and then goes still, and I'm rubbing circles between her shoulder blades in an attempt to soothe but she just starts sobbing.

"Please," I catch, though it's so small it hurts. "I don't want you to be here when it happens..."

I throw my arms around her shoulders as gently as I can while still making a point. She seems so fragile and so terrified beneath me.

"I don't care about that. I'm not leaving you alone, not again."

She pushes me away. With more strength than you'd think possible from someone in her state. It surprises me and she uses my moment of shock to pull the gun from her holster.

It's suddenly within my grasp and I'm staring into wide hazel eyes I've adored. But now I'm holding her at gunpoint.

She breathes a broken sob and presses the weapon harder against her temple, fingers wrapped painfully tight around my wrist to keep me in place.

"Either leave, or pull the damn trigger."

But it's not a threat. It's a request, a plead. A beg from someone horrified by the prospect of death.

My hand goes limp against her request and the gun falls, clattering onto the blood encrusted floor. But she doesn't let go, and I don't look away.

There's desperation in her eyes. There's blood following the trail of tears down her cheek and jaw. There's tenderness in her touch.

I shake my head and lean in, and her lips taste of copper. They burn, and my own stomach flips, but I don't let up, and she cries against my mouth.

We break apart only when her body starts shaking again. I listen to the unsteady rhythm that has become her gasps and pants and watch the way she huddles in on herself.

"I love you," I finally say.

She let's out a half hearted sob I think is supposed to be a laugh. Her eyes come up, she rolls her eyes despite the pain.

"Dumbass."

I reach for and hand her the gun. She needs it more than me now. And though everything in my being screams at me not to leave her like this, I respect her final wish.

I walk away.

And I hear it whispered after me, followed by the cocking of a gun.

"I love you, too."

Marlene is looking at me like a diseased animal that just crossed her path. Maybe I am. Or, just maybe, I'm not.

It's been three days since the bite. Three days since Riley. All I've done since then is bunker down close to base and grieve.

But I'm sick of feeling sorry for myself.

"How can I be sure you're telling me the truth, Ellie? How can you expect me to believe that," and she motioned with a slight hint of disgust at my bite, "is three days old?"

I don't blame her. I wouldn't believe me either if not for the fact I lived it all. The truth was all I knew. I was still debating whether that was good or bad.

"Why would I lie to you?" I ask.

Marlene sighs, annoyed, looks away. "You have to understand, I have to keep my people safe. If I was to keep you at your word, and you lied, that would be on me. There are already those who don't-"

My fist slams down on her desk and I can see from the corner of my eye one of her guards, or whatever he is, reaching for his hand gun. But my temper is tired of being concealed.

"Damn it, I know that! I know this sounds fucking crazy, but it's true! If you don't believe me then lock me up, keep me hostage a day or two, see for yourself! This is three fucking days old and I feel fine!"

The woman before me doesn't show any signs of being angry or scared. She just drops her eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose in thought.

When she looks back up, there's hope in her eyes. It's so nonexistent and so well hidden that I nearly miss it, but I don't.

"You," she says, motioning to the guard that now seems weary of me. "Take Ellie to the medic's tent. Have a guard posted and alert me immediately if her condition changes at all. Is that understood?"

The guard now inching to my side nods, and motions for me to stand. I do as ordered, and as I'm leaving, Marlene speaks once more.

"If this is true, you could be the answer to everything, Ellie."

I'm not so sure that's a good thing.

~Fin