Goodness, Mercy, and Sanity
"They're gonna come for me." The man said as she pulled the ropes tight. "They'll notice we haven't checked in, and they'll come looking." His gaze shifted to the three bodies in the room, blood seeping into the floorboards.
"Well, duh." She replied, checking the other knots at his arm and legs. All secure. The only way he'd be able to escape was if he flipped over and smashed the chair. "Just so you don't get your hopes up, they're probably not gonna make it in time to help you."
He was saying something else, but she wasn't listening. She still had some tools to get out. She walked back to the hallway and opened her pack, sifting through ammo and packs of food and materials. She felt a pressure in her head. In her mind, almost. And she sighed to herself. She knew what was coming next.
"What are you doing?" He asked, suddenly in front of her, frowning down at her in the way he used to do, when they'd first met. When she was just mouthy cargo and he was just her deliveryman. Only this wasn't annoyance. It was disapproval.
"I figured that'd be pretty obvious." She said, as she returned to digging through her pack. She hated this. Or at least, she thought she did. She wanted to, maybe. Part of her couldn't stand it. How he'd always show up, always have something to say, always remind her that he wasn't here anymore, not really. She hated him for it, and she hated herself for not stopping it, for letting him show up, every time.
But another part of her loved it. His presence, his voice, his occasional touch. The possibility that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't gone. Even if she also knew beyond a doubt that that was bullshit. That he was absolutely gone, without a doubt. But she missed him. So much. So she never tried to stop him showing up. Because even if she was, clearly, going crazy, she knew it'd be so much worse without him there to help. Even if he wasn't actually trying to help with the going-crazy bit. Except that he was, always reminding her that he wasn't really there. That she needed to let go. Needed to stop. But she couldn't. Because if she did, he'd stop showing up. And she wasn't sure if she could stand the world without him in it.
She found some of what she was looking for. Packets of salt, the extra knife, the lighter. She loaded them into the smaller sack, and rose.
"What could that asshole possibly know that you'd need to do this?" He asked.
"Enough." She said shortly. It wasn't completely an excuse. Just mostly. The man was one of them, and that had become good enough for her. He sighed, and dragged a hand through his hair. It was going gray, or at least, going more gray.
She bundled up the cloth, and got halfway down the hallway when he reached for her. And like the crazy idiot she was, she let him catch her.
"If you do this-" He started, a lecture clearly building.
"What the hell makes you think this is my first time? And where the fuck do you get off, telling me this is too far?" She asked.
He didn't look disappointed anymore. He just looked sad.
"I never wanted this for you." He whispered. He couldn't look at her now; his gaze was fixed to the floor.
"Yeah, well what you want doesn't really matter anymore, does it?" She said as she tore her arm out of his grip and forced herself to look away, to look anywhere but at him.
The asshole in the chair was gaping at arm had been caught right in the archway into the main room of the house, and the guy in the chair had seen the whole argument. She walked forward and dropped the sack, its contents spilling out before him. His eyes widened in terror.
"Listen, I don't know what it is you think we've done, but you're clearly not right in the head-"
"Yeah, no argument here. But," She said, flicking open her pocket knife and lowering it towards one of his legs, "You assholes only have yourselves to thank for that."
So this fic is my handling of one of the more popular theories at what's going to happen in part 2. Namely, the theory that Joel is going to die, but remain a presence through Ellie effectively hallucinating him (whether or not this is a twist is something that varies from person to person). This story is showing my favorite way on handling that, that I was fully introduced to by Bioshock Burial at Sea. In that, the person hallucinating a dead friend/SO is totally aware that they're hallucinating and going a little crazy in the process, but they're so desperate for that person to be around again, and so lonely and broken in general, that they willingly play along. I could also easily imagine Ellie having mixed feelings on that subconscious decision.