Chapter 2: What a Difference a Day Makes:
Maria had a stare that was so intense, it could have peeled paint, "Tommy, you have got to be out of your freaking mind if you think I don't see exactly what is going on here!"
Tommy sat down on the edge of a small metal chair, resting his head in his hands for a moment before running them through his hair and gripping his neck. Breathing out sharply, he began his defense, "Mamma, it ain't like that. It's not as if I have a choice here!"
"Bullshit Tommy, don't sit here telling me that we haven't had this conversation before! Now you know I love that girl but, dammit, I also knew that brother of your's was trouble since day one! We have got to think about more than ourselves here. And, don't even get me started on your old friends!" Maria grew angrier by the second and began pacing the small room.
"Now you hold on, right there!" Tommy said, rising to his feet, "You think I wanted any of this? I have a responsibility to those people, Maria - they're counting on me!"
"I'm counting on you Tommy! We're counting on you," Maria shouted, resting her hand across her stomach.
"I ain't disagreeing with you but what, exactly, is it that you think I should do here, cuz guess what? Those soldiers are comin', one way or another. You're right, I ain't gonna sugar coat it, we're in a bad spot. All that's left to do now is prepare for the worst."
"You know, what you need to do Tommy. We can't risk what we have here. If the Fireflies take her, the army is going to destroy everything we have built! Please, just give them what they want; this isn't our fight anymore!"
Tommy stuttered with disbelief, "I can't believe what I am hearing, Maria. You-"
"No, Tommy! I am not going to be made into the bad guy here! We have taken on enough responsibility of our own. We have priorities now! You promised me those days were behind us!"
"Maria, that is my brother. And Ellie? She is practically our niece! I know the way you feel about her, so how can you stand here now, saying this?"
A few feet away, Ellie's back slid down the far side of their closed door and their voices muffled as she covered her ears and rested her head upon her knees. She had heard everything. Her hands moved to her face and her whole body shook as she cried from a deep, deep place within. However, these were different than the tears she cried yesterday, much more painful.
What had happened the previous day was horrific - but David wasn't the first person to try and do what he had done and the hunter in the woods was probably not going to be the last. She tried not to think back to the military school; the sounds she heard at night and the things she saw and felt. It was an unspoken pain that was only discussed amongst the girls through the silent, unearned shame in their eyes. It was all she had ever known.
This pain was different though. It was not the pain of being turned from a person in to an object; something that could be understood over time as the projected sickness of someone else. No, this pain felt wholly personal. It was her greatest fear, made real; being seen for who she was and rejected - cast aside and alone.
She remembered Joel's words, in that cabin not so far away and not so long ago; "You're right about one thing, you are not my daughter!" She shook even more violently at the memory, as a series of high pitched squeaks escaped her core.
Tommy opened the door and saw her on the floor, "Ellie," he said, mortified by the thought of what she might have heard. But, before he could continue, she was gone; running out of the building to the last place on earth she had left.
Maria stood a few feet away, covering her mouth with both hands and finally understanding the weight of her words.
Ellie reached the small clearing across the dam and ran to the monument which Joel had created for them. Dropping to her knees, she kissed Riley's name and held her forhead to the wood, as she closed her eyes tightly. After a long moment, she stood and looked once more at the names, tears still streaming down her face. Moving to the ridge, she closed her eyes one final time as she lifted her face to the sky and stepped off of the ledge towards the raging, icy river below.
One week later and two thousand miles away:
Glancing around, everyone looked like a ghost in the dim green light. It was silent except for the rhythmic drone of the engines. He was lucky and had a small window next to his hard metal seat, but was disappointed to find only an impermeable darkness outside.
This was his first real mission and nothing he tried could keep his stomach from flashing between adrenaline pumping excitement and absolute panic. He had only been outside of the quarantine zone a handful of times and by a dozen miles at most. This adventure was going to be a whole other animal, entirely.
He knew how long the travel was going to take but it was utterly impossible for his mind to fully grasp the magnitude of the distance. Until now, his entire world consisted of only a few square miles. He was as scared as he ever had been but found comfort and pride when he saw his name, once more, on his orders. He carefully folded the paper, as he had already done a dozen times and thought proudly of the first line of text:
"Congratulations Cadet Shipwright, you have been promoted to the rank of Private. You are hereby ordered to report to the office of Duty Selection: tomorrow at 0600 hours, for assignment and transfer to your duty location. Package all personal effects in your previously issued size-A duffel, attach the enclosed tracking tag and report for assignment, combat ready."
He was no longer Cadet Shipwright, he was Private Shipwright. He let his mind swirl around that fact again. In this world, the world he had grown up in, there were only two kinds of people: the kind that begged for handouts and the kind that had handouts to give. He was young but his heart was already filled with disdain for the 'civies' he was forced to encounter regularly. Whether he was fulfilling his required daily service by collecting forms from them or serving food and stamping ration cards; every interaction strengthened his views that they were disgusting, helpless animals.
Most of the young soldiers either slept or pretended to but, in a seat facing towards the rear of the plane, a seasoned sergeant kept watch. He was easily twice the age of them and felt every bit of the responsibility he had, to keep them alive.
The sergeant studied his field manual like a bible. Though he knew nearly every word, he felt that it was his duty to ingrain in these soldier's minds the proper image of what it meant to be a warrior. If they were to survive, they would have to learn how to; eat like him, dress like him, run, shoot and even shit like him. He would kill these little bastards himself before allowing a single one to die under his command. He had already seen, many times, the things that they were about to and he knew, despite their ignorant confidence, that they were in for a world of hurt.
Of course they had seen desperate men and women in the QZ before; begging for food and creating a disturbance, when rations ran short. But they had no idea of the true desperation in a man's eye or the savage acts they were willing to commit when they had not eaten for a week; having spent months or even years on the run from other men and the infected. They all had seen the various stages of the infected before, thrashing against the glass and bars at the research station. Some of them had even witnessed dissection or assisted in the burnings, during sanitation detail. Still Sergeant Drake knew, how very little that they actually did. He could only hope that their training and his field leadership would be enough.
Confident that the young men and woman under his command were asleep, he tried to rest up; tomorrow was going to be a very long day. A loud buzzer startled him awake, though he wasn't sure he had actually been asleep at all. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the piercing, flashing red light.
"Five minutes to drop!" a voice bellowed from the open cockpit door.
Private Shipwright blinked his eyes a few times and glanced out the window, similarly unsure if he had actually slept. Below, he saw a thick sea of green trees, wide open meadows and snow-capped mountains; a great river snaking its way through it all. He had never seen anything like this before, in his entire life. Still scanning the surface in awe, he jumped-to, as he heard the sergeant hollering commands.
"Echo Company 2, to the one six two!" he bellowed, drawing out each word and sounding, for all the world, like a cross between a gorilla and hound dog. His men jumped to attention in two perfect, parallel rows, which spanned the entire length of the massive aircraft. "Pre-pare for drop!"
In unison, all one hundred and seventy five fresh-faced soldiers turned to face the rear of the aircraft; the combined 'click' of their parachute ropes, clamping onto the steel cables, echoed like a drum beat. More than one of these terrified, killing-machine children, did all they could to keep last night's dinner in their stomachs.
"Pray now to your God, if you have one" Sergeant Drake ordered, emphasizing each word like a machinegun, "In one minute, the alarm will sound. At that time you will follow the soldier in front of you off of the ramp, at a high rate of speed." As if choreographed, a series of alarm horns accompanied a massive blast of air as the aircraft's rear ramp opened. "Follow your training and you will be victorious! Refuse to jump and I will shoot you myself. Today is the day, that I will finally let you kill!"
The entire aircraft of men and women cheered and screamed. The alarm blared as the company of soldiers ran to meet their fate; plunging into wide-open nothingness. For many, the last sound they would ever hear was the rush of wind as the jumpmasters screamed "Go! Go! Go!"
From the ground, the plume of silent black circles struck terror in to those that saw; young and old alike. The younger members amongst the colony could not comprehend what they were seeing and only vaguely understood as the older members echoed, "My God, they're here!"
On the misty edge of the colony:
"Shit, I'm slipping!" Joel grunted as he struggled to pull himself back from the edge. The grass was slippery from the constant mist, and his fingers began to bleed as he dug his nails into the soft ground with as much force as he could muster.
Seeing Ellie running to the monument, everything in Joel's being told him that something was just not right. He ran as fast as he could to catch up to her and dread filled him as he witnessed her desperate embrace of the lifeless wood. She turned and leapt from the edge just as Joel dove through the air to catch her. Gripping Ellie's backpack, he struggled to keep them both from sliding over the edge; with just one hand to slow their inevitable plummet.
"Just let me go Joel!" she cried, "it's better for everyone."
"Ellie please, grab my arm and pull yourself up, I can't hold on!" When she didn't respond, he kept going, "Look Ellie, I know I'm bad with words. I have tried to find a way for so long to tell you, but I just didn't know how. Ellie, forgive me please, you are my daughter and I... I love you! As much as Sarah and far more than myself! Please just grab my arm!" he begged her with all of his might and meant every single word.
Ellie took a deep breath and looked down. Her mind was so numb that it could barely even register the danger she was in. "I don't know what to even believe anymore, Joel," she said, reluctantly reaching above her head to grab Joel's arms. She helped pull herself up by digging her heals into the cliff face, "It's not fair! I can't even feel anything anymore! I might as well be one of those... things out there!"
Once she was far enough up, Ellie flipped around and Joel managed to grab her belt and pull her the rest of the way up. He lay flat on his back, panting, trying decide how he was going to approach the situation. After a few moments he sat up and looked right into Ellie's big, green eyes.
"I meant every word of it Ellie," he began, reaching out and cradling her face. His hand was so big compared to her, that his fingers reached around to the nape of her neck. He used his thumb to wipe the tear from her lightly-freckled cheek before continuing, "All of these years, losing Sarah, I've only been alive but I haven't lived. Not until I met you."
"You say that you care, but then why did you lie to me?" Ellie demanded. "We're supposed to be partners, Joel. You swore to me!"
"I was scared, Ellie and it took almost losing you before I allowed myself to accept just how much. I know it was selfish and I've beaten myself up more times than I care to recount. I need you Ellie, more than you understand and more than you need me. I was afraid... that my love wasn't gonna be enough."
She stared at her own feet for a long time without saying a word and the pain inside Joel grew intense. He was sure that he was losing her and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Ellie ran her fingers through the damp grass, savoring the tickling sensation of the blades between her fingers. After a few minutes she grabbed a handful of the grass and threw it at Joel's face.
"You can be such an asshole," she said as a tiny smile escaped the corner of her gently puckered lips and scrunched nose. "But," she hesitated and looked down again as uncertainty drove away the hint of a smile, "you really do... love me?" she finished, looking up at his face from the top corners of her eyes.
His slightly aged face and gray-streaked hair still speckled with blades of grass, Joel began feeling as if a huge, crushing stone was slowly being lifted from his chest. Letting out a chuckle he said, "It was hard enough the first time, you ain't gonna make me say it again are ya? Well, if it makes you feel better," his face grew serious again, "I do love you Ellie. I don't know why it's so damn hard for me to say it but, I just figured that you knew. I've never been real good with saying how I felt so I just thought I'd show ya."
"You don't know too much about girls do you Joel? Maybe it's stupid but we need to hear these kinds of things sometimes." She finished by brushing the grass from his head.
"Ya know, my ex-wife said the exact same thing... Right before she rode off on the back of some other guy's Harley and outa me and Sarah's life for good." he meant to be funny and lighten the mood but ended up being reflective.
"Joel..." she said, holding out her hand and not continuing until he took it in his own, "I love you too." She pulled his arm around her shoulders and leaned her back against his chest. Joel kissed the top of Ellie's head as his mind wandered back to everything that happened at the bridge and all that it meant. They sat that way for quite a while before Ellie finally broke the silence.
"So, uh, Joel..." Ellie nervously began as blood rushed to her cheeks, "this is super embarrassing, but yeah... You're pretty much my dad now, right? So... I wasn't planning on 'going there', like ever, and I was gonna ask Maria but I don't think she wants to see me right now, and-"
"Ellie, what on earth are you goin' on about?" Joel interrupted, genuinely perplexed.
"Uh... I'm really sorry Joel, but I think I just started my period." Her eyes clenched in embarrassment and she thanked God, she wasn't looking Joel in the face.
"Uh... Yeah, okay... Maybe I could, I don't know..." he stumbled and stuttered, not at all prepared for this kind of conversation.
Ellie sat there silently, for as long as she could bare, before finally offering him relief, "Joel, you seriously gotta learn to relax - I'm just fuckin' with you! You're too easy," Ellie laughed as she stood up, "Oh, what I would give to have seen your face!"
Joel just stared at her with his mouth partially open; a little pissed but mostly amused and relieved. "Ellie, I swear..." he jokingly warned and, as she helped pull him up, he laughed even harder remembering her 'reaction' to Bill's magazine.
Across the dam, Tommy and Maria watched the two closely. They were relieved that Ellie seemed to be doing alright and for the distraction it offered from their fight. Putting his arm around Maria's lower back, he rubbed the side of her barely-enlarged stomach. Sliding his hand down to her ass and giving it a little squeeze, he said "Well that's my big brother... I guess women either love him or they hate him, sometimes both at the same time..."
"Ugh!" Maria replied as she pulled his hand back up to where it belonged and rolled her eyes; relieved but knowing the conversation was far from over.
Over the next few days, life around the compound grew increasingly complex. The Fireflies demanded that an 'escort' be present at all times, for fear of losing Ellie to the army. The request felt much more like a threat or invasion than most liked, but the founding members of the colony had all been either members of, or associated with the Fireflies and were sympathetic to their cause. This fact alone began to expose rifts in the fragile alliances that were formed amongst the citizens of Jackson Dam, as the settlement came to be known.
Security patrols had to be dramatically increased in light of the conflict with the gypsy-hunters who ambushed Ellie. They were intent on settling the river town, which they were now fully occupying. They had experienced many deaths in their encounter with Joel and Ellie and blamed the plague of infected on the colony. Tommy and Maria began peace-talks with their leaders and eventually settled on a tentative truce and agreement to establish trade ties.
All the while, the constant fear of the army's return loomed over their heads. The Fireflies insisted on providing tactical and strategic aid - a fact that did not sit well with the majority of Jackson Dam, including those from their former ranks. It was of genuine concern that the Fireflies would attempt to co-op the settlement. Perhaps even more dangerous, any alliance with them would, in and of itself, ensure their permanent place on the army's shit list. It was a sticky situation to say the least, and would require careful diligence and planning on the part of the colony's leadership if they were to have any chance of surviving another winter.
Joel and Ellie thrived in the chaos. Not only was it familiar and comforting, but it gave them a chance to prove their worth to the colony, during several intense strategic planning sessions. They had both experienced recent 'action' against soldiers and Ellie's internal knowledge and familiarity with the military were valuable to planning their defense. She was acutely aware of the fact that she was smack dab in the center of all of the drama and was grateful to be part of a solution; she definitely did not think of herself as a 'damsel in distress' and was eager to prove it to the others.
Ellie had forgiven Joel for lying to her but still wasn't sure how she was going to proceed. The situation definitely needed a lot more thought... She wasn't rejecting their offer outright or even her role as 'humanity's last hope', but she was pretty pissed that everyone except her seemed to have a vote on her future. In the meanwhile, she just enjoyed her relationship with Joel and the time they had together. Neither of them were convinced that their presence in the colony was good for anybody but, similarly, felt it would be a betrayal to abandon them in their time of need. Joel was just plain tired and, if he didn't think it was a complete waste of energy, would have wished for a simpler existence.
A week had quickly past since that fateful day on the bridge. Ellie brushed Callus' soft fur before braiding his mane into a dozen thin ropes. She stood back and admired her handy work. Joel finished mucking the other stalls and came to rest his arms and back by leaning on the gate of Callus' stall. Seeing the braids, he glanced over at Ellie with an incredulous look.
"Ellie, what did you do to him? What the hell is that?" He laughed and motioned towards the horses mane.
Staring right through him, she repeated "What the hell is that?"
"Isn't that what I just asked you? Ellie, you really are a weird kid" Joel said, laughing again. When she didn't respond he asked "What's gotten into you El?"
Feeling a bit uneasy, Joel turned to follow her gaze. Not quite able to see where she was looking, he leaned out of the stalls and glanced around. Seeing large, dry flakes of snow descending slowly, he continued.
"Whatdya know, the first snow of the year. Ellie don't tell me you haven't seen snow before, we've slogged through our... fair... share..." he quietly trailed off as his eyes drifted higher. He had never seen anything like it, outside of some movies many years before, but his mind immediately recognized what was happening. He stared for a moment longer at the hundreds of dark circles that filed the sky above and the wispy white trails that stretched to the horizon.
Ellie gripped her arms tightly around one of his and, unable to find any other words, she softly whispered, "Joel..." with her eyes locked on the spectacle above.
