I really love this story, and want to update it really frequently, so please enjoy!

Life at Tommy's place was easy, especially compared to what we'd been dealing with the past few months. Things were going great, I was able to work at the stables during the day, while Joel would do carpentry work with Tommy. I would come home a couple hours before Joel and would usually stop at the kitchens to pick up food to cook for dinner. I never ate without Joel, I always waited until he got home before taking the food from the oven. While I waited for him, I would read the books I borrowed from the library, my favorite was this one called "The Hunger Games". I saw the movie with Joel and fell in love with the whole story. I read all three books in four days after work, once I even forgot to cook dinner and dove straight into one of the books.

All of this would have been perfect, letting me forget all about what we'd been through, if it wasn't for the nightmares. They would come in flashes, always the same thing. David's face looking at me with a huge smile on his face and saying, "You know you're special." Then his hand would touch mine and I would wake up. Covered in sweat, hair stuck to my forehead. One night Joel must've been awake when I had a nightmare because when I awoke shouting he came running into my room. He ran to my bedside and sat down, taking me in his arms, "Shh baby girl it's ok. Shh.. what's the matter? What happened?"

I took a second to get myself together. I told Joel about my nightmares, told him about how I saw David's face almost every night. He listened to me, holding me in his arms, making me feel safe.

After I finished Joel just looked at me for a few seconds. "Ellie... I know you've been through a lot. I'll never be able to understand exactly what you've been through, but I can tell you it'll get better. You keep livin', keep goin'. Pretty soon none of that stuff is gonna mean anything to you."

"But how do I get over it Joel? I don't know if I can."

"Ellie. You're a helluva lot stronger than you think you are. You are the single strongest person I ever knew. You'll get through this by persevering."

The next day Joel made eggs and bacon for us. It felt like I was still asleep, it was so surreal to me that just a couple weeks ago I was trying to shoot a squirrel out of a tree for breakfast, now I had a whole feast. We ate and talked, avoiding the topic of last night. I said goodbye to Joel and departed down to the stables, looking forward to seeing Callus Jr. Work always went by fast, and today when I got home Joel was there sitting on the porch of our small yellow house. "Hey, what're you doing here? Don't you have work?"

"I was able to get off early, most of the construction is done for right now. Tommy wants to start training people to build houses, just so more of 'em know how to repair things and not all the work falls to me and him. But for today he said I can go home, and I had an idea."

Joel reached behind his back and pulled out a small box made of old, stained cardboard. I eyed the box and then looked at Joel who was smiling at me. "I went down to the marketplace this morning when I got off work, and found this." He held it out and pushed it towards me, "Well go 'head. Open it!"

I opened the box and removed, what looked like, underwear. "Uh thanks Joel, but I think I have enough underwear already."

Joel let out a deep, small chuckle. "It 'ain't underwear, its a bathing suit... You know? For swimming."

The pieces were starting to fit in my mind. "Wait, you mean you wanna teach me how to swim today?"

"Well why not? Tommy was telling me about this huge pond, not that far from here that we could go to."

A smile crept across my face. "I'd love to." I put my arms around his neck, and he put one of his around my back.

We got to the pond about half an hour later, and each changed into our suits. I looked at Joel's stomach, saw the scar from his stitches I gave him. I felt a lump in my throat. He was so close to dying... I put that thought out of my head quickly, and focused on the swimming.

I put my clothes in my bag, but left my knife outside of it, just in case. Joel got in the water first, slowly. "Woah jeez! That's cold." he said.

Once he was fully in I got to the edge of the water. My feet touched the water and I let out a shriek. "Holy shit that water is freezing!"

"I know don't worry, you get used to it pretty quick."

I walked, slowly, into the water until it was up to my neck. "Okay Joel, not goin' any deeper."

"Oh yes ya are." Joel replied. "Now just watch me and then try and do exactly as I do."

I watched Joel calmly swim through the water for a couple of minutes before I decided to try it. I copied his movements exactly but couldn't stay afloat. "Goddammit! Joel this isn't working!" He had to grab me to keep me from sinking.

"Now don't worry, no one knows how when they start. Now here, I'll hold you up, just stretch your arms out... There you go, you're gettin' it!"

Joel spent the next hour teaching me to swim, and by the end I was actually pretty good. "Hey, baby girl it's starting to get dark, we gotta head back."

"Aw really?" I looked and noticed how much darker it had gotten. It would almost be full dark by the time we got back. "Aw okay. Let's get goin'."

We changed back into our clothes, and headed back. As we were walking I heard a twig break behind us. "Joel wait."

We stopped in our tracks, listening. Nothing.

"Ellie I don't hear anythin'."

I listened for another second, "I guess you're right... I thought a twig broke or something..."

We got back to the gate just before curfew, that night I dreamt of swimming deep down into the pond, Joel at my side diving with me.