AN: I guess I was writing so much fluff that I needed to prove to myself that I could still fee pain XD I totally believe in the afterlife and I really don't think Tess wold have just wandered off.
"C'mon, big guy, you gotta get up."
His hair's gotten so gray over the past few months, and the wound slowly draining his life away didn't help his skin either, turning him pale and bedraggled. In just months he looked like he had aged years. It's sad to her because she always used to tease him about being an "old man," but she never wanted to see him like this. He had always been stronger and livelier than any kids she knew before the outbreak.
When she died, she thought the hardest thing in the world was having to watch Joel walk away, never see him look back, never pull him down onto the bed again, never get drunk off their minds again, never wake up beside him again. The truth was, all that came second to what she would experience on the other side. The hardest, most difficult thing she had to do, was be forced to watch him get battered and bruised, and even get fucking impaled because Joel was a good, loyal guy, and actually honored her last request. All this, and she couldn't even clean his wounds, just watch.
It was horrifying to see him take that fall, find herself screaming, and realize that she was the only one who could hear it. All she could do was give Ellie little hints and nudges, praise her bravery, breathe a whisper of guidance if she got lost.
"Tess…" Joel murmurs in his half-conscious state, lips barely moving.
It brings a tiny curve of a smile to her lips. "No, no, no, it's not that I don't want to see you, Tex, but you're not done here yet." She reaches to touch him, tries, but she passes right through that soft hair she used to sink her fingers into. Her lips twitch, her smile falters. "Ellie needs you. I can wait, Joel. Now get up and go rescue her."
His eyes shoot open, brown and bright in the dim space. They stare right through her as she leans over him – something she's gotten painfully used to. He staggers weakly to his feet, stumbles, but then gains his balance. Tess can tell how much pain he's still in by the way he covers his bandaged abdomen, but he unsurprisingly pushes forward.
"Ellie?" His eyes travel the room to find nothing. There aren't any sounds to pick up on either. He can faintly remember her injecting him with medication last night, so she had to be somewhere.
"Outside, Joel," Tess urges. And he goes.
She watches him walk away from the doorstep for a while, knowing he can handle himself.
It's so damn hard to stand there just watching. It's even harder to lie beside him at night, listen to him mumble her name in his sleep, feel him reach right through her.
Yeah, it hurts like a bitch.
But where else can she possibly go? She belongs by his side, and he still has a drop to make – and thus so does she.