Author's note: Guy's I'm almost done the game and that makes me both happy and really sad. Anyone else have a heart attack and then proceed to freak out until they saw that Joel was okay? I sure did, had to take a break from playing to make sure I wasn't going to die. :D This is another little one shot, does anyone else think I'm writing a lot of one-shot these days? Oh well, review your thoughts on the story or the game!

Disclaimer: I own the story; just the story.

Joel wasn't sure what to think when he woke up; he was finally starting to feel better after his injury and this was the first time he was able to keep awake for more than a few moments. He had a faint memory in the back of his mind of Ellie injecting him with something. That something had made him pass out and considering he felt much better now it had probably been some type of antibiotic.

He sat up carefully and looked around, quickly noticing that Ellie wasn't here. He heart pounded fast, and he tried to tell himself that she was just out scrounging for food. Still the thought of her out there on her own didn't sit well with him; it didn't matter that she proved herself capable time and time again, he still worried about her. It was just natural, they were so far into the middle of nowhere that to lose the person you rely on would be catastrophic.

It had come to a point that he didn't know who was using who to survive anymore. She could have just left him and continued through her journey easily, in fact she should have. Ellie probably would have finished her mission by now if she had, she was more than strong enough. Instead though, she was playing doctor to an old man and staying in one places putting herself in more danger then needed in doing so.

Joel tried to stand up and ended up pretty much crawled over to his discarded backpack, it was still in the same place Ellie had thrown it to when she had ripped to off him to check the wound. He couldn't get the look she had had on her face as she stitched up the wound for him. Those worried, sad eyes were enough to make a grown man cry. He definitely didn't want to see that look on her face again anytime soon.

Joel couldn't help but wonder when they had started to care so deeply for each other; at the beginning of this crazy adventure he hadn't even cared if she died. At that time it would have been well to bad, try to find another way to get the guns with Tess. Now it was Ellie's life is a hundred times more important to his own. Not just because her veins were carrying the ultimate cure either, but because she was like a daughter to him. That thought in itself was sometime hard to process, he could suddenly see the death of his own flesh in blood play through his head.

That was sometime he hadn't thought about in months now, Ellie keeping him on his toes at all times with talk and questions and constant source of human interaction. His daughter's death had haunted him for years, but he felt that in these months travelling with Ellie he was finally starting to move on, of course it was only because all those thoughts of how he let her down was slowly replaced with his thoughts and worries of Ellie.

Which is why he picked up his pack, swung it over his shoulder and started to call out Ellie's name. It was time to find his little girl.