One week in, and she hates it here. She hates Jackson and everything in it, even though it's absolutely the best thing that's ever happened to her. It's given her a life she's never thought obtainable, left to stupid orphan daydreaming in the military dorms: of having a bedroom to herself, a bed, a desk, hot food, hotter water, and people who act decent.

Joel volunteers himself to Jackson's militia. Or Tommy volunteers him. They ask her what she wants to do and she has no fucking clue. It all seems so meaningless. A big blur. Busy work, nothing work, compared to the magnitude of the scar on her arm. A month ago, she was humanity's last hope. Now she's supposed to be something else. A kid again? That ship sailed. Someone who goes out and hunts for food? It sounds reasonable. Lots of open space and time to be alone - time to think and process all this - but Joel makes it pretty clear that if Ellie leaves Jackson it's only with him in tow.

They need him now, more than she does, so she relents. She doesn't even really care. She lets them convince her to help Maria maintain the wall. Sure, great. It might still be quiet there. Maybe she'll even get to have a view again, an occasional one, when this fucked-up world decides to look beautiful.

Time passes and so does spring, and then the days get hotter. Ellie works herself into a routine. She thinks months go by, but she doesn't really know for sure. Her entire world feels soft and curved, padded out with no more sharp corners, and Jackson, Maria, and Joel's lying face lose their textures when she looks at them too long, like she's staring at them through a screen. It feels a lot like that song Riley had on her tape. Comfortably numb.

She attends some Jackson get-together with Joel. Everyone comes with their best manners, and there's food and guitars and firelight, and a feeling to everything Ellie's never felt. She's never experienced so many people together, and in a good way. Not there to be suspicious of each other, or angry, or looking for things to steal. People genuinely enjoying each other's company, sharing stories, and laughing. She admits it's addictive. Some time into the night she's even pulled out one of her pun books, and she's got the group in stitches. Ellie even hears herself laughing. That's new. That's a relief.

Then, between flipping pages, Joel reaches out and tugs the sleeve of her shirt down over her right arm. Ellie didn't realize it was riding up, coming painfully close to exposing what she knows waits underneath. He pats her, and the brief touch makes her hidden scar burn for hours.

Ellie glances over but Joel doesn't look at her, busy saying something to Tommy next to him with his perfect poker face.

Her stomach turns over. She tells her last joke that night.

Then the nightmares begin.

Sam is in some. Tess in others. Riley in the rest. They take turns talking to her in the dark, with clarity to their voices and a visceral rawness to their dead, rotting faces that Ellie is losing track of when she's awake or asleep.

Riley, always Riley, talks to her. Riley never knew when to shut up. It starts when Ellie appreciates things like a working bathtub, or a beeping microwave, or a pair of sunglasses, and thinks to herself that Riley would have really liked that. Hell yeah I would've, Riley one day answers, laughing away the quiet. Glad you're enjoying your victory spoils, Brick Master.

Riley intrudes in on all of her dreams like a fucking pest. She's either dead or dying, all over again, like the seasons on endless repeat. One night, she sits on Ellie's windowsill, plays with Ellie's dusty, unused switchblade, and talks about bicycles. She won't fucking shut up until Ellie agrees to build one. Before Ellie can, Riley turns around, and she's got giraffe's eyes, big and brown and mirror-wet. She stands over Ellie's bed and sings something and then her face splits open, bone yawning in halves as her giraffe eyes mulch, and out of the gore comes fungal plates and unwinding spores.

She sits on Ellie's chest and chokes her, and then she's David, leaned down close, his too-tight skin stretched like candle wax over his bones. His eyes violate her with such an undressed look of obsession and want. "I got you, babe," he whispers.

She wakes up sweat-soaked and unable to move, her brain awake too fast before her body can unlock from sleep. She can't move any of her limbs, and can barely breathe, air raking in-and-out through her paralyzed lips. She hears clicking everywhere, in her bedroom, in her bed, in her head. Tears roll from her eyes, and Ellie immediately cries for Joel. She can't get the mobility or breath to get his name out, and stumbles on its syllables and vowels. She thinks she spends what feels like forever, absolutely helpless, absolutely terrified, and crying without sound.

Then she can move again, and when Ellie does, it's to find their small house empty. Joel returns noisily some minutes later, freed from a late militia patrol, speaking softly back-and-forth with some strange woman's voice. She says something and it makes him laugh in his stupid Joel way, that hitched grunt of amused approval. A month ago, only Ellie in the entire world made Joel laugh like that. Her chest hurts in some funky way. It feels like loss, and at the same time, the greatest sense of relief.

When he bids good-byes and checks on her, Ellie pretends to be asleep. Joel pets back her hair without a sound.

She spends all her free time at work, at the wall. It is the only thing left that keeps the voices at bay, Sam and Tess and Riley asking Ellie what happened, why wasn't she the cure, why did the Fireflies let her go, why did they all die for nothing?

Maria helps. Maria talks a lot, but in a nice way. Ellie doesn't ask, but she is sure Maria was once someone's big sister or someone's favourite aunt. She knows all the right things to say, and is parental without being too hovering or overbearing - Joel could take some lessons. She seems starved for female company, or at least Ellie's in particular - young and innocent or whatever the fuck - and is always somewhere nearby.

She doesn't push Ellie to open up. It's a relief, because Ellie is certain that won't be happening soon or later or even forever. She sneaks glances of the woman, Tommy's wife, and wonders just how much of everything she knows.

Would she be surprised to see the scar of Ellie's arm? Would she scream and get all fucked up and turn a gun on her? What would she say to know this stupid whatever girl, the girl she's been chatting up for months now, could have been the fucking solution for all of this bullshit? How much did Tommy tell her?

Tommy knows something, that Ellie is sure. She saw the disappointment burn bright on his face to see her return at Joel's side. The messiah teenager who ended up amounting to nothing, the one so many people fought and died for, and what for. Tommy wouldn't have told his wife. Give her hope then rip it away. Ellie knows hope is dangerous here. Took Riley, took Tess. Near damn well took her too, if not for Joel there to save her.

Ellie spends one evening at the top of the wall, looking out over barb wire and spires and watching the darkness beyond. An entire world out there, silent and deadly, beckoning her in the same way it did Boston. Yeah, and I survived you, motherfucker, she tells it. She looks down, and it's not a bad jump, and with the right gloves she could even navigate the wire. She could hop over and no one would notice. Change worlds in the blink of an eye.

The idea consumes her.

She never attempts it. There'd be no effort going over, but it'd be impossible for her to get back. She doubts even she could sneak back in, and then there'd be Joel-sized hell to pay. He'd make her life a nightmare just when she's enjoying this wide, awkward berth he's given her, free to her thoughts, alone like she's always been and should be.

But she thinks about it constantly, her great escape, staged elaborate capers and all adventure-like in the complicated way she gets out. When Ellie does, she does something bad ass and super kung fu all the way back to Utah. She makes herself way more special than the other immune people and somehow cures this bullshit. She doesn't let this fucking infection end on a cliffhanger.

She wonders how Joel would go on without her. She watches him spend time with that woman, though it's pretty sad to look at, and they are both awkward and pathetic talking to each other. Joel's still smiling with his body language though, Ellie can tell. He likes her. He's bonding, which is a relief. After that whole Henry thing.

He patrols and cleans guns and instructs the greens on tracking and shooting, but Ellie can tell Joel's mind is on other things. He builds things out of wood whenever he has a chance to. Tables and chairs and shit. He's good at it, like he's done it before. But he never requests to go into construction, or even admits to his strange new passion. He's set on the militia, and Ellie knows why. Joel doesn't ever want to lose his edge. He's on alert, and he's protecting his new home.

That's what this is. A home to him. And Ellie wants to believe that would be enough for Joel, enough to hold him down and keep him happy, long after she's gone. She supposes she's made the decision a long time ago, and is only ever realizing it now.

She has to get out.

There's no way in hell she can ever tell him, so Ellie tries her hand at letters. She tries to write how she can't be here and it's time for her to go, and that they had a good thing but now it's her time to be alone, and she's ready or whatever. She sucks at letters. Riley critiques her doodles of Angel Knives.

She goes through drafts and is sure to burn any evidence, not wanting Joel to read anything before she's ready. It nearly happens anyway, stupid mistake on her part, when he interrupts her writing while listening to her walkman. Ellie's heart stops to wonder how much Joel read. Nothing, it seems, either because he respects her privacy or he's just too busy looking weird and awkward with the guitar he's carrying.

He sings her a song and it breaks her fucking heart. Ellie hates Joel even more for how weak he makes her feel, every single fucking time. Nothing made her cry, not even Riley dying, before meeting him. Now she can't stop the tears, or that crushing, squeezing pain in her chest, or the guilt that flints up at every stolen glance of her half-finished, half-covered good-bye letter.

His stupid song tells her that she's going to fucking break him. It pins her down like Joel's guitar does, left too-big and awkward and clunky, on Ellie's lap.

She doesn't know what to do. Either she stays and loses her mind, or she leaves and shatters him forever. Ellie guesses it would be easy if she could just learn to lie like Joel does. If she could just make the same music he's so good at. She dares a halting hand to guitar's strings, trying to imitate one of those haunting chords Joel made sing. It strums discord.

So Ellie tries, just for him. She hates him now, but he's the only one who never left. He kept her alive. He, for the first time, made her feel safe. He held her that day when her hands were glued with blood and her broken childhood rained down in smoke and fire.

She swallows back the David nightmares. She thinks away the bad thoughts. She ignores Riley, doesn't talk to her anymore, doesn't listen to her daily bullshit. Ellie helps Joel build a chair. She bends a nail and splinters the wood a little but he never looks prouder. Ellie meets Esther, and she's as nice as Joel says, maybe a bit of a dork. The woman tells good jokes, and they make Joel laugh. Ellie listens to the slow, halting stories of Sarah, and she curls up at Joel's hip some nights and reads her comic books. Just as promised, he plays her guitar on really warm days, and he teaches her his songs.

Ellie keeps her scar covered, day and night, and stops looking at it, stops touching it. She pretends she's like all the rest of them in Jackson. Just people. Just human beings. Not immune. Not a cure.

She's getting pretty good at this. A real Joel Jr. It isn't hard because all she's doing is just living her life, right? The one Joel made sure she could have. The one that wasn't ever the cure, and didn't have to save anyone anymore, didn't have to fix anything. The life the Fireflies didn't even want in the end. Or so Joel said.

Then she's at work, at the wall, and Ellie suddenly doesn't think she'll ever stop screaming. When she comes to, or whatever, Maria is there, looking white as broken bone and too scared to touch her. It's so fucking embarrassing, losing her mind. So she runs off and hides.

But Ellie doesn't spend too long cowering. She goes back, afraid Maria will tell Joel - of course Maria will tell Joel - and corners her. Ellie summons up one of her most breathtaking performances, all of her apologies trained straight out of military dorm days of convincing frowning handlers, and says it's just stuff she's going through. Shit she's seen, like bodies and stuff. She's really OK, she promises. Please don't tell Joel, because he means well, but he just makes it worse. He hovers and says shitty things that never helps anyone.

Maria only looks half-convinced and still looks reticent to even touch Ellie, afraid that too-rough or too-gentle handling may well both break the girl. Ellie isn't sure herself. But the woman gives her a spiel about being there to talk to, and there's even a man in Jackson who used to be some counsellor and Maria wants Ellie to talk to him too, and only then she'll agree not to tell Joel.

Ellie is so sick of adults everywhere.

After a summer of neglect, Ellie finally speaks to Riley again in the dark of her empty house. I guess I am losing my fucking mind, she says.

Won't be anything left for the fungus, Riley replies.

"Hey, fuck you. Immune, remember? Though good lot that did." Ellie rolls up her sleeve and picks at her scar. It shines by candlelight. Skin shouldn't shine that way.

"That blows. Life blows," says Riley. Ellie can pretend to feel the warmth of her best friend's back against her side. She wishes she could lean on her, just one last time.

"I know."

Riley hums under her breath. "But I thought we agreed not to give up. Guess you checked out already? Suppose it's all you can do. Out there, they're all dead already, because without a cure it's gonna happen. You'll be dead too. Hell, you're carrying on like you already are. Why even wait? Shoot your stupid ass now and get it over with."

Ellie glances over and she's all alone. Alone and crazy and talking to her fucking self. But for the first time since spring and Salt Lake City, she feels awake - almost alive.

The house is still empty an hour later. Joel and company are still on night shift, and Ellie remembers him mentioning rumours of a couple clickers around, though no one's seen anything legit. Infected haven't found their limping way to Jackson yet.

She writes him a letter. Her final draft. She thanks him and loves him but tells him he doesn't have to make her feel safe anymore. That he can't follow her and can't find her and they won't be seeing each other again. Please stay safe and keep her guitar nice for her.

She leaves the letter on the shitty chair they made. She takes a moment and imagines him, how he looked and what he was wearing this morning when she last saw him, realizing that would be the last time she'd ever see him again. He was smiling then, in his way. Ellie stores the image to memory, filed under Joel. Family. Dad.

Ellie says good-bye to all the things she never really deserved in the first place, bed and desk and shitty Ellie-built chair, and ghosts out of the house. She takes her dusty backpack and her mother's switchblade. She packs light supplies, hawks a few road maps and leaves a note to tell Maria sorry, slips around Jackson's skeleton crew like a motherfucking spider, and vaults over the wall. It's as easy as she first suspected.

She hits the ground running and doesn't stop. It's stupid to do, running like an idiot in the dark, but the world feels different. She is new, changed, light, like she's pulled off dragging chains and now weighs like a fucking feather. She runs so fast she can barely feel her sneakers on the ground. She trips on a tree root and laughs. Laughs!

Her eyes water, and her lungs burn, and Riley has finally shut up, and maybe is even smiling down on her, if there's such thing as a better place.

Ellie, for what she told Sam, at this moment is kinda changing her mind. Maybe she does believe in it - the better place. Maybe she can even make it happen right here.

Jackson's lights soon disappear, swallowed into darkness. Ellie is alone now, alone in every way that counts, but she never stops running.

Every step rubs a hard corner through her pack, between her shoulder blades. She's brought her books, because it's going to be a long trip, and Ellie is going to need a few jokes for the road.


A/N: Originally meant as a one-shot to vent this idea from my head - a What If after the game's events - but I believe there will be more to come. Perhaps even some drabbles to flesh out past before and during-game moments. Thanks!