SUMMER; BOSTON
JOEL

Not thinking on things was as necessary to survival as a quick wit and a handful of bullets, and it's something that Joel's gotten pretty good at. If he'd spent the last twenty years thinking on everything he'd seen or done or lost... well, he'd never have made it that long, anyway.

There's a lot of things to not think about, though, and they pile up more and more every day.

Don't think about where those ration cards came from. Don't think about who could use 'em better than you, bribing your way between zones and behind locked doors. Don't think about that guy you just choked out, or his people (if he had any left, anyway). Don't think about your people, not the ones you have left or the ones you don't. More than anything, don't think about your life before all this shit, 'cause it ain't your life any longer.

This is his life now, and so long as he intends to keep being in it, he has to just keep going and not think on any of it except for what might happen in the next hour, the next day, that kind of thing. There's no point in thinking on what happened even five minutes ago, because five minutes ago he could've died, but he didn't.

Not Tess, though. All she'd had was luck, as much as anybody else, and that runs out for everybody sooner or later. That's what she'd said, what they'd always said, to make themselves feel better, to distract themselves when they got to thinking on things too much.

Ellie wasn't supposed to be Joel's problem. A simple drop off and that'd be it-hands wiped, debts cleared. But things don't always go how they're supposed to, so now she is his problem, and not one that he can just put aside and not think about. She's special-real god damn special-and that life of hers is more valuable than Joel's, than Tess', than anybody else's. But she's just a kid, and for all that nerve her mouth's got, it doesn't count for shit when there's a gun pointed at her or when there's infected around the corner.

The thought of having to protect someone again overwhelms him. He hasn't had to worry about anything like that since... well, not since before. Tommy was a shithead sometimes but at least he knew how to fire a gun. Tess could take of herself better than most, and if she'd ever heard Joel say that he's the one protecting her, he'd feel it sharp across his cheek.

So he compartmentalises and breaks everything down into whatever he can manage right now. Right now, they're walking to Lincoln. They'll find Bill, somewhere; wherever he's holed up now. Bill will set them up with a car, hopefully, and then they'll head west. Tommy's out west, in Wyoming, and he'll know where to take it from there. He'll take Ellie and they'll head out to wherever the Fireflies are, and Joel will be able to focus on getting things back to normal. Maybe he'll keep heading west, up to Oregon or something. Whatever. He doesn't need to figure that part out now, he just needs to focus on getting the kid to Tommy's.

It's been a long, long time since Joel's been around a girl her age, and frankly, he's surprised at how unfamiliar it seems to him. He has no idea how to talk to her, and when he tries, his voice is more harsh and gruff than it really ought to be. None of this is her fault, he knows, but there's some bitter part of him that can't help but think that if it hadn't been for her...

He tries to keep that part down deep, but it bubbles up sometimes, whenever he starts thinking on Tess. Ellie doesn't flinch or anything, though, when he snaps at her. She just stares at him with those big, glassy green eyes, always waiting just a beat too long to answer and making Joel wonder if she's actually going to shoot back after all, and then she nods or shrugs and says 'fine' or 'whatever' or something else dismissive.

He keeps Ellie on his right as they walk, positioning himself between her and the highway, even though he hasn't seen a working car since the QZ. She hasn't said anything since they set out from Boston, walking next to him with her hands gripping the straps of her backpack over her shoulder, as if the thing's grounding her somehow. That's fair, he thinks-everybody needs something concrete and familiar to hold onto now and again-and he realises that he hasn't got much to hold onto himself, now that Tess is gone.

By the time they reach Lincoln, they've been walking for nearly six hours, and Joel's tired. His place back in Boston was never what he'd call comfortable, but at least it was somewhere he could stop and rest. He can feel a dull ache radiating across his lower back, and he knows that before the day's out, it'll stretch the whole way up his spine. It's times like this that he remembers, no matter how empty his pack might be, he's carrying twenty years worth of this shit on his shoulders. He surpassed the point of wondering when it all would end about fifteen years back, but the time doesn't make enduring the weight of it all any easier. He tries again not to think on it, but it's about as helpful as slapping a bandaid on a bullet wound.

Ellie starts talking about the forest around them, and that works as a pretty good distraction. Joel hasn't been surrounded by this much nature since before reaching Boston, and after so many years, he'd wondered how much of it was really left. It could've all been razed to the ground by now and he wouldn't have known the difference from the dingy, dilapidated depths of the city. But Ellie's never seen a forest before, so he keeps his mouth shut and lets her enjoy it. It reminds him of the hikes he used to take with Sarah, but the memory's a little too heady, especially with the kid walking up ahead. It'd be real easy to picture Sarah inspecting that fern instead of Ellie, but he doesn't even dare, no matter how much he really wants to see her again. Instead, he keeps walking, one eye on Ellie and one on the path ahead of them. It's pretty and peaceful, sure, but he doesn't trust it. Infected don't care about either of those things, and they're just as likely to be lurking around here as anywhere else. So he keeps his guard up, listening for any of those particular noises that never fail to make the hairs at the back of his neck stand up.

This is why he can't get caught up in thinking on things. He can sit and wallow all he wants, and even fade away if he feels like it, once this is all over. But for now, he has to keep his eyes up and his head right, because this responsiblity, this obligation is his now and he knows it's more important than any self-indulgent memory.