The Unforgiven

By: esmtz

By the time he regained consciousness, Nick's back was practically killing him from the pain and the moment he felt someone kick him on his side he immediately sat up and gritted his teeth against the cry that he was just about to let out.

"Fuck what the hell?" Nick yelled as he looked up at Coach.

"About time you woke up, boy. We ain't got the time to rest here now get up." Coach said looking down at him.

"You're a fucking asshole, Coach! You guys leave me out there to die and then you want to leave when it's obvious that none of you healed me!" Nick said angrily.

Coach snorted.

"Yer fault for not keepin up with us, Nick besides I was busy healing Rochelle."

"Lame excuse for saying that you didn't want to heal me in the first place." Nick said as he struggled to stand up wincing in pain.

"Well why would I? You pretty much admitted that you would be ok abandonin Rochelle!" Coach said coldly.

"Look who's talking. You and Ellis were the ones who ACTUALLY abandoned me not the other way around!" Nick growled.

"Yer still alive, Nick which means we actually cared enough to get you away from that Charger!" Coach told him.

Nick rolled his eyes.

"Yeah at the last minute! I have never done that to any of you so I know that I didn't deserve that!" Nick replied.

Both Ellis and Rochelle started to look guilty.

"Nick, I'm…" Rochelle started.

"Don't even start defending him, Ro! He was willing to let you die to…" Coach said.

"Oh yeah? Like how you guys just did with me? There's a difference, you guys did that on purpose. What I was trying to do was to kill that fucking tank before it killed both Ellis and me! What would you and Rochelle have done then if we had died?" Nick said angrily wincing again from the pain in his back.

Ellis bit his lip as he took off the health pack that was on his back and went towards Nick. Nick glared angrily at him.

"Don't you dare even think about touching me you fucking hick!" Nick growled menacingly, "Also you can forget about me healing you anymore! You want to play that game and side with Coach? Fine!"

Ellis started shaking tears filling his eyes. Rochelle stayed quiet as she brought out her health kit and looked at Nick wondering if it was ok for her to heal him. Nick sighed.

"I'm not mad at you, Rochelle." Nick said in his own words saying that it was ok for her to heal him.

"Just leave him, Ro. He ain't worth the trouble." Coach told her.

"You're such a fucking hypocrite, Coach! Looks like it's you who's the one that's ok with abandoning a teammate!" Nick told him.

Coach didn't respond as he continued to glare at him while Nick took off his jacket and shirt and Rochelle began to heal him back up. Once she was done Nick put his shirt and jacket back on, picked up a health pack, gun, and an adrenaline and then finally the gas for the boat. Coach, Rochelle, and Ellis also grabbed some gas (Rochelle got another health pack) and then stood ready at the door.

"Now we're ready to go." Nick told Coach.

"At least keep up with us this time, Nick." Coach told him.

Nick snorted shaking his head.

"Nick, wait I'm…." Ellis started, but as soon as the safe room door was open Nick was the first to leave the room.

"Oh this is just great it's freakin storming out here." Nick said barely able to see and hear because of the rain.

"Stay in sight y'all don't get separated!" Coach yelled out.

As they began making their way back through the field, Nick started to wonder where all the witches went since he could no longer hear their cries. He frowned barely hearing a cry coming from Rochelle. He turned to see if something was wrong, but then he felt a jockey jump on him and started trying to steer him away, but almost immediately the jockey was killed. Rochelle ran up to him and sighed.

"I said 'Nick, look out for that jockey' but I guess you didn't hear me." Rochelle said.

"How could I with the rain being this bad?" Nick said agitated, "I hate this fucking kind of weather!"

"We can't worry about that now! We need to get to the elevator. Coach is probably there by now." Rochelle told him.

Nick rolled his eyes.

'Who the fuck cares about Coach?' Nick thought.

Rochelle had turned around to check on Ellis.

"Ellis, sweetie, are you doing alright?" Rochelle asked.

Ellis nodded his eyes glued on the back of Nick's head. Nick snorted.

'Of course the kid's behind me. Stupid hick.'

Once they got to the elevator, Coach was already there waiting for them.

"Lights out y'all I hear a witch and I think I know where she's at." Coach said.

They all turned their lights off as Coach pushed the button making the elevator head back up. Once it reached the top and the door opened, Coach stood in front of the others and headshotted the witch.

"Nice shot!" Rochelle said as they all got out of the elevator.

"Killin a bitch is easy for me." Coach said.

"Look out!" Nick yelled when a spitter spat in their direction.

They all moved out of the way and Ellis quickly killed it before it could get away. He looked at Nick who didn't bother to look his way.

"Let's go." Nick said as he started making his way to the stairs.

Ellis looked down sadly and followed right behind him.

"Well this is gunna be a pain in the ass havin to walk in the water." Coach sighed.

"Maybe we can find a way to not have to walk in the water." Rochelle said as they started going downstairs to the second floor.

"Hey we can get on top of that tank over there!" Nick said pointing at it.

"Yeah, I see a ladder! We can get on this walkway over here and jump on to that building that almost doesn't have a roof!" Rochelle said.

"Well, it works." Coach replied

Just as they got on the building and then jumped down into the water in front of the ladder, they heard a smoker somewhere nearby, but they couldn't see where it was at along with a boomer and a hunter.

"Keep your eyes open for any sign of them!" Nick yelled as he started climbing the ladder followed by Ellis, Rochelle, and then Coach.

Before Ellis could reach the top the smoker wrapped its tongue around him and dragged him back to the ground making him injure his leg.

"Help! Smoker's got…"

The smoker died in a puff of smoke and Ellis started coughing as he looked up and saw that Nick had been the one who killed it with a weird look on his face.

'Why the fuck did I…instinct it was all because of instinct that was it.' Nick told himself sighing thinking he should have just let Coach or Rochelle save Ellis instead.

Ellis smiled slightly as he made his way back to the ladder and climbed back up. They continued making their way across the tanks until they had to drop down and continued on from there until they had no choice but to walk in the water.

"This is going to be a problem when the tank shows up." Nick said.

"We can't even use a molotov to help kill it." Ellis said limping slightly.

"Is yer leg alright there, boy?" Coach asked looking at him.

"Yeah it's just kinda hard walkin in all this water." Ellis replied.

"Ellis, maybe you should stay closer to Coach and me." Rochelle told him as it was obvious to her that he was trying to stay as close to Nick as possible.

Ellis shook his head.

"What if Nick needs help? Cause if he does he ain't gunna get it from Coach." Ellis said.

Nick hadn't heard them from how loud the rain was and continued on ahead. Once he turned the corner he saw that there were a lot of the regular zombies aimlessly walking around. He also heard faint noises coming from the same boomer and hunter that they hadn't yet killed. He started killing the zombies that had spotted him and started running towards him and by chance he also killed the boomer.

"Lucky me." Nick said.

He was caught by surprise when the hunter pounced on him and before it could dig its claws into him, the hunter was shot right off him. Nick turned his head and saw that Ellis had killed it and was looking at him worried.

"You alright, Nick?" Ellis asked.

Nick snorted as he started standing up.

"Thanks, Rochelle." Nick said when he saw her come into view.

Ellis looked hurt and Rochelle looked at him confused. Nick turned back around and started shooting at more zombies.

"Well, at least we're almost there." Coach said from behind Ellis and Rochelle.

"Yeah that's a good thing right, Ellis?" Rochelle said looking at him.

Ellis put pressure on his injured leg and went to catch up with Nick. Both Coach and Rochelle sighed.

"That boy ain't never gunna learn." Coach said.

"Coach, don't you think that maybe we might have been a little too hard on Nick?" Rochelle asked.

"No trust me he's just acting like he's a victim to get y'all on his side instead of staying on mine." Coach replied.

Rochelle frowned still feeling guilty since before she never really thought of why Nick acted the way he does. The look she saw in Nick's eyes just before they left the safe house also had her convinced that he really was telling the truth. Plus not once had he given them any proof that he would abandon them and to her right now it just seemed like Coach was treating him this way simply because he hated him.

"Maybe we should catch up with them." Rochelle said.

Coach nodded as they started walking and shooting whatever zombies that Nick and Ellis had missed. Surprisingly the tank didn't show up just as Nick and Ellis made it to the safe house and waited for Rochelle and Coach to show up. Nick closed the door just in case any of the special infected tried to get at them. He then went to get ammo for his weapon and sat down against the wall and refilled it trying hard to not look at Ellis. After about a minute of silence Ellis walked over to Nick and sat down next to him.

"Nick, will you please just listen to me for a minute?" Ellis pleaded looking at him.

Nick didn't respond he just simply stared at his gun.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have listened to what Coach was accusing you for." Ellis swallowed, "I guess I just…"

"You don't trust me, overalls and I get it. You seem to be more comfortable around Coach because he doesn't treat you the way I treated you before." Nick said.

"I DO trust you, Nick. I know that you wouldn't go and leave any of us to die. It's just it's kinda hard to tell if yer tellin the truth or not since you did say you wanted to leave when we first met and instead you ended up stayin which I'm glad and all that yer still here." Ellis told him.

Nick smiled sadly and looked at him.

"I would never leave you guys to die. I would say that I would, but I won't. I just have a problem with trusting people especially with Coach and the way he keeps attacking me I'm positive now that he really would leave me behind to die, but then again I don't blame him for not trusting me either." Nick said.

"He wouldn't leave you behind, Nick. I'd make sure of that. You've saved our lives lots of times and without you we'd all be dead by now. Yer a good guy and I don't see why Coach doesn't see that in you." Ellis said smiling at him.

'I don't see how you see that in me, overalls.' Nick thought.

Nick pulled out his adrenaline and gave it to Ellis. Ellis frowned looking at it and then back at Nick.

"What…"

"It's for your leg, Ellis. You seriously didn't think you were able to hide the fact that you hurt it when the smoker grabbed you did you?" Nick said.

Ellis blushed.

"You noticed?"

"Hell yeah I did, overalls. You did a bad job if you were trying to hide it." Nick smirked.

"O-Oh…"

Nick chuckled.

"Hey, Ellis?"

"Yeah, Nick?"

"Don't tell the others that we had this talk."

"Ok."

Author's note: I probably won't add the next chapter till next weekend since recently i've been watching Gilmore girls all week long a disc per day except Fridays where its two discs plus I do want a little bit of a break anyway. I've been playing Hard Rain recently just so I can remember what the campaign looks like (I hardly play it because it's the one I don't really like) so sorry if the description of the setting is a bit off. Nick just couldn't stay mad at Ellis for long now could he lmfao. Yeah…I don't see how anyone can. Im really glad that all of them are in character despite the fact that Ellis isn't telling any of his Keith stories and his accent is terribly missing. Sorry I don't really know how to write his accent very well and I kinda have bad ideas when it comes to Keith stories considering the one in my last story was a bit weird with it including Ellis's 'party'.