It had been a long day.
As soon as they had found their shelter for the night- a small one room cabin that had probably seen better days-Joel had settled down to start a fire in an attempt to warm up the room from the chilly Fall air. Ellie had taken to sitting on the other side of the room in the darkest corner and was quietly curled up. Joel had thought it a little strange, this was usually the time where Ellie liked to wheedle out bits of his life Before, but he wrote it off as tiredness. They had walked a long way today.
Joel continued to stoke the fire and got to work heating up some canned food, glancing at his young companion every now and then to make sure she was alright. He was beginning to think she had fallen asleep, when he heard a small whimper of pain.
Joel got up quickly and rushed to Ellie's side, "Ellie? Are you hurt?" He brushed hair out of her face and saw her face scrunched up in pain, "Ellie?"
Ellie groaned and pushed his hands away, "Its nothing, okay?" The southern man scoffed, "My ass its nothing," he muttered and gently, but firmly uncurled her body and quickly checked her for injuries. There was nothing that he could find, he frowned. "Ellie, what's the matter? I can't find an-"
"I've got cramps, Joel," she sighed.
He froze. This is not a conversation he had ever wanted to have. Oh christ. What was he supposed to do now? Sarah had never been old enough to have this problem, he'd never dealt with this kind of thing bef-
"Calm your tits Joel, I'm not a rookie, okay? Its just a little worse than usual this time."
Joel cleared his throat, Get your act together, he thought to himself. "Do you need anything? I mean- Is there anything I can do?"
Ellie shook her head, "I've always just had to wait until it passes. Marlene said they used to take medicine when it got bad, but nowadays you can't waste 'em on this, you know?"
He grumbled, he wished it wasn't like this. Pain is pain, women shouldn't have to suffer this way. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him and he returned to the fire where he had been heating up cans of food. He took an extra shirt out of his pack and wrapped it around a heated can and brought it to Ellie, "Here, this should help," he crouched and carefully placed it in her hands. She sat up and placed it against her abdomen while Joel returned to the fire.
"Thanks."
"It's no problem. Tell me when it gets cold," he replied.
They sat in silence for a few minutes more while Joel placed more cans to heat up.
Ellie broke the silence, "Have you done this before?-I mean, I dont want to pry I j-"
"Sarah was never old enough. I did have a wife though," he reminds her, "And there was Tess."
He remembers the countless times Tess had scared some Rookie into going out and finding clean cloths for her, and when she'd burst into his apartment wearing an irritated expression, holding a bottle of whiskey and silently challenging him to deny her a drunken night of forgetting. He almost smiles, before the image of her lying dead in the capitol building appears in his mind.
He can feel Ellie's guilt from across the small room.
"I'm sorr-"
"It wasn't your fault," he quickly stops her, and sighs. They both take a minute, each of their thoughts separate but the same.
"Need a new can?"
"Thanks, Joel."
Ellie falls asleep not long after that, her small body wrapped around the now lukewarm can. Joel sets his head against his pack and settles down for the night. What he wouldn't do for one more night of whiskey with Tess.