I really appreciate all the feedback (and Callus suggestions), it gave me a lot to think about. All of it helpful. Not much I can say about the chapter without giving a whole lot away. AUs are gone again, but will be back. I'll finish with a thank you for reading, etc, and my playlist! 6 sections in this chapter. For 4, Bring Me To Life by Evanescence, not a huge deal the lyrics, well sort of, but the music felt right. 6, White Flag by Dido.
Also, one tiny thing, I'm changing the genres from "Adventure/Friendship" to "Adventure/Hurt/Comfort."
That's it, and enjoy.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Do You Remember?
Expecting him to just hate her instead was a dumb move, Ellie knew it now. She walked with an empty feeling inside. Equally as empty as the very town she walked in. Perhaps she should have showed more focus on the town around her, instead of the inner conflict of the closest to a father she had ever had. People watched her from the windows. Men, women and children wondering what a girl was doing walking down the streets of their town.
She froze at the distant sound of infected. Not just one, many, were coming. She ran towards a clothing store, ducked behind a car. Quickly checked her pistol; only three bullets. Anything with more power was back at the motel room with Joel. Even if she made her shots count as he told her, she still would only be able to take out three of the fuckers. There sounded like there was too many for her to try any switchblade related stealth kills.
Her only option was to run. Taking a chance, she dashed towards the clothing store. Opened the door with ease. Pushed a shelf unit over to block the door. Made her way through the racks of clothes. The inventory was a mix of leather pants, ripped vests, rhinestone jackets, distressed denim and studded leather cuffs. While she waited for the horde of infected to pass by, she remained low out of sight of the window, moving slowly and checking out the clothes. Some pieces she liked. Amongst the items she stole were three patches she intended to stitch onto her backpack, and a new pair of high tops. Her own had seen far too many winters.
Near the counter, she saw something that made her feel a touch emotional. A black and white bandana. Exactly the same one.
"Ellie? Joel?"
Ellie stumbled, falling flat on her ass. The voice was coming from her backpack. Shit. Joel had given her the walkie-talkie before they left Jackson, in case something happened to him. Once she was in range of the compound, she could contact someone for help.
She retrieved the black walkie-talkie from her backpack, held it to her mouth, pressed the button to talk with her finger. "Tommy? What are you—? How—?"
"Ellie? Where is Joel?"
"Safe. Resting. Where are you?"
"Outside some village. Eerie quiet. I'm guessing you're here too."
"Yeah. Tommy, I need to talk to you. It's about Joel…"
"Alright. I'll wait around. How long will it take you to get here? I'm near the town sign."
"A hoard of infected is out there, but... pretty soon, if this place has a back window."
Their conversation finished, Ellie lowered the walkie-talkie. Glanced once more at the bandana. Grabbed it, and placed it in her backpack.
Frantically he searched. Spread the contents of his rucksack across the floor. Guns, ammo, flashlight, and everything else. Lined up neat in rows. Turned the beaten old rucksack inside out. Emptied all the pockets. He didn't need it. He just wanted to look at it again. Not obsessively. Just open the yellow paper, look at the writing and put it back. His mind was so erratic, he wondered if some how he had gotten bitten and not noticed.
"No…," he thought to himself. "This is stupid… just Ellie putting the thought in your head… the talk about T—." Even his own inner monologue couldn't say her name.
A lot had changed in the last two years. The giant hole Sarah had left in his heart was starting to heal. Little by little, he had learned to feel. Trust. Even love. This, all of it, was just some desperate attempt to hold onto the only thing he knew; pain.
He looked up from the ground, and met with the gaze of Tess's brown eyes. She had lowered herself to his line of sight. One hand flat on the ground, the forearm of her other arm resting on her bended knee.
"What is the plan, Joel? Search for some list I wrote ages ago? I'm dead. Something I scribbled on a page isn't going to make it all go away."
Joel turned away. "Ellie found it, and she took it."
"And if she did, what are you going to do, steal it back?"
"No. Maybe. I'll ask her for it."
"Then you will have to talk about me. See how there are flaws in your logic?"
"Then what? What is it going to take, to stop all this?"
Tess closed her eyes. Appeared to take in a deep breath. "Face your loss. You can't have it all Joel. You can't have this whole father-daughter thing with Ellie, and still be dead inside. You want to love her like you did Sarah, and have this whole daughter I never had bullshit, you got to put up with all the hurt that came with it."
Avoiding the infected was surprisingly easy. Most of them were runners, and easily outsmarted. She remained low, threw one of the many bits of litter on the ground to distract anything that came remotely close.
Tommy was waiting just outside town like he promised, his horse lingered close by drinking from a deep puddle on the ground. He was already concerned for his brother, when he saw Ellie run towards him.
Had she discovered the truth about Salt Lake?
Had he accidently called her Sarah?
Both of these questions ran through his mind with a whole host of other questions. Instead of making matters worse, he waited while she caught her breath. Ellie glanced around for Maria, and realized she wasn't there.
"What is it, Ellie?" Tommy asked, leaning his back against a nearby tree.
"How did Joel deal with Sarah's death?" said Ellie, getting straight to the point. "He's having nightmares, calling out for someone. Staring off into space. I know it isn't about Sarah, because he doesn't touch the watch."
"He met a woman named Tess," Tommy replied.
Oh, fuck, Ellie thought. The look on her face gave away her thoughts. "What happened?"
"I don't know. We just got into Boston. I met Marlene, and you know what happened there. Joel changed completely. This Tess woman, she was just as broken as him. Somehow they worked well together. He just shut down. Sarah's name never got mentioned again, and Joel closed himself off."
"Oh… so there is no hope."
"Didn't say that. It is much easier to break a wall down after it is built."
"What happened, after it happened?"
Tommy lowered his head, looking at the ground. "A whole heap of pain."
September, 2013, Twenty Two years ago, outskirts of Austen, Texas…
Rain fell over him, a broken man. Defeated and shattered. She was gone. Ripped away from him. Limp in his arms. Her blood staining his shirt. Tears pouring from his eyes. Not now… Many times, he begged her to come back. Just wake up. All of this be some cruel nightmare. Even the hand of his brother on his shoulder wasn't enough to bring him back. Not from this. There was no coming back.
He couldn't stand to put her down. In the late of the night, stumbling through the dark. All those things could come at him, and he wouldn't care. Better to rip him to pieces, than to live in a world she was no longer a part of. His brother followed him, calling his name, but he didn't hear. He refused to stop, until he reached a park where she once played. Under a tree she once made him sit under, while she showed him some soccer tricks, like keep ups. Made him endure her reading out those stupid Dawn of the Wolf books.
Laid her body at the roots. His face was ghostly white—he was a ghost. A lingering empty soul of his former self. Gone, just waiting for his body to catch up. Searched for pieces of wood. His brother seemed to understand, running back to a upturned truck a while back, that was rammed right off the road. It was a hardware delivery truck, and it would contain the tools they needed. Through what was left of the night, the two brothers built a coffin. Laid her body within it, and put her final resting place into the ground. There was no need for a tombstone. Using a knife from the tools his brother had collected, he carved her name into the bark of the tree;
Sarah
Wait for me, Baby Girl.
He couldn't bear to carve any more. He wept until his tears dried up, and his throat burned. As dawn broke in the distance, his heart had a wall around it. Everything used to be was gone. Nothing could shine a light in the dark and empty void of his heart.
Tears fell from Ellie's eyes, and she didn't bother wipe them away. "Joel…" was all she could bring herself to say.
Tommy reached out and touched her arm. "Ellie, if he is in mourning, that is the only way. To force him to shut down, and he will hate you for it."
"No," said Ellie, shaking her head. "I can't do that to him, and it isn't the only way. Joel always says, we have to find something to fight for. We'll start with this town. Keep finding stuff to fight against, until he is too busy fighting to think."
Turning to Tommy was a mistake. It had opened a lot of old wounds, reminded himself of the worst night of his life. Burdened Ellie with knowing the pain. She parted with him once more, making sure he planned to keep away from this village. Her mind playing the image of Joel crying at Sarah's grave over and over. All the way to the motel. She climbed in through the small window, washed her face, closed the lid of toilet down, and sat there. Thinking. Wondering what she would say, what she would do.
After ten minutes of silence, she knew what she would do. Removing her backpack, she entered the main room of their little safe house. Joel was sat on the couch, his head in his hands, rucksack at his feet.
"Joel?" Ellie said.
He looked up at her. "Hey, Ellie. Find anything out there?"
"Infected, but nothing we need to focus on right away." She sat down at the other end of the sofa. "Joel, I want to show you something. A few things I've kept."
She showed him Riley's firefly tag, and told him of what happened when they were in the mall together. Then the letter her mother wrote when she was a baby. Lastly Sam's robot. Returned each one to her backpack once he was done looking at it. He didn't know what she was getting at—or he didn't want to see it—but he humored her. Letting her show him them, and explaining how much they meant to her. Even now, after so much time had passed since she saw each of them.
"I can't forget them. Talking about them helps. Maria helped me get over it. We would just sit down, and talk about the good moments. I don't have any with Mom, but Riley and Sam…"
"Ellie, what is this?"
"Look, Joel, you can shut me out all you want. I know you have something lingering about Tess, and I want to help."
"This is not the same. I'm not holding onto something of hers."
"Not now, because I stole it." Ellie retrieved the list and slapped it down on his hand.
"Ellie," he said, angrily.
"Don't "Ellie" me. I want to talk about Tess. So we are going to fucking talk about her!"
He knew he wasn't going to win. He gave in to this one request. "Alright. One conversation about Tess. Right here. Right now. Then you get off my back. Deal?"
"Okay," Ellie said, nodding. "How did the two of you meet?"
"I thought this apartment was empty—the one I took you to. Walked in through the door. She hits me over the head with something. Knocks me clean out."
"No way," said Ellie, unable to hide a smile.
"She always swore it was a can of potatoes, but I thought it was t-bone steak or something, 'cause all I could smell was meat for two days afterwards until I got caught out in the rain."
"That was it? How you met?"
"Nah, not exactly. I woke up, tied to a chair, Tess holding a knife to my throat. She asks "Make it quick, tell me why the fuck you're walking in my apartment, before I slit your throat." I reply, "Thought the place was empty." That is it."
"Just like that, she let you go?"
"I dunno. I can't remember. This was seventeen years ago." He moved to the edge of the sofa cushion. "That it? We done talking."
"No, I got something for you. You know how you have the watch Sarah gave you?" She reached into her backpack, catching the cloth of the bandana between two fingers. "While was out, I found…"
Joel glanced at her, raising his eyebrow.
"Okay, stole… this!" She presented him with the bandana. "It is just like the one Tess wore, right?"
Joel turned the black and white thin cloth over in his hands. Yes it was. He practically threw it at her, stood up abruptly. "We're done talking about this." Walked into the bathroom, and stayed in there for half hour.
Ellie liked to think she was doing good, but really she had hurt him more.
Ellie climbed up through the window first. They had packed up everything, arranged who would carry what weapons. Joel had chosen to carry the flamethrower and a hunter's rifle, while Ellie favored the bow and a shotgun. She waited out in the alley. Joel took his time. His back turned to the window. Rolled up his sleeve just enough to come to rest half an inch above the broken watch. The bandana peeked out from under his sleeve. Wrapped around his forearm, tight and securely.
Joel rolled his sleeve down, and followed out the window. "How far 'till you come across the horde?"
"Not far," Ellie replied, walking down the alley.
He looked back at the small window and followed her.
Spring 2018, Seventeen Years ago, Boston QZ…
Joel walked down the musty empty hallway. No one he knew lived on this floor. He figured the problem with Tommy was because they were practically living on top of each other. One brother had to move out, and it might as well be him. Fireflies were always coming in and out all hours of the fucking night, and it was driving him crazy. All the doors were locked off, with those military issue quarantine locks. Except, the last one.
He looked out the window. Not bad. Nice location. No one around to bug him. He opened the door, looked inside. Furnished. Would save him the inconvenience of raiding other apartments, or having to sleep on the floor. He pushed the door open and walked in. A woman in the shadows clubbed him over the head with either a can of potatoes or a t-bone steak—who really remembers? They could have both forgotten.
His head felt like it was going to split open. Unable to move. His arms tied behind his back, his ankles to the leg of the chair. Joel wasn't going anywhere. A woman sat on his lap, legs around him. He could feel the leather of her pants under his fingers. A knife up against his throat. Her other hand had a tight hold on his hair—making the splitting pain worse. Brown eyes glaring into him with the wrath of fire.
"Make it quick, tell me why the fuck you're walking in my apartment, before I slit your throat," Tess told him. There was no anger in her voice. She said it in the same way someone might ask for the time, or what the weather was like.
Joel shrugged, and admitted "Thought the place was empty."
He already knew she wasn't someone to mess with.
"Now you know," she said, tilting her head to the side.
He didn't quite know why he said it, but on the brink of death, he found himself thinking about that god awful movie Sarah dragged him to. Better to go out on a joke. "My life is in your grasp, my lady, as long as the moon shines on us."
She hesitated. Fuck. She was going to slit his throat.
Tess laughed. "That movie was god awful." She dismounted his lap, letting go of his hair. "Don't tell me you liked that shit."
"God no," Joel replied. Was she actually going to let him live? "Longest two hours of my life." Well, there had been longer but he refused to let himself remember it.
She cut the bindings at his ankles, and around his wrists. Walked into the kitchen, stabbed the knife into the counter. "You drink scotch? I think I got a bottle in here somewhere."
"Yeah," he replied, rubbing his wrists.
"This place is always a mess after a shipment, until I can sell it. The smugglers are useless. Had to kill a couple last week. They drew in too much military heat." Tess came back from the kitchen, with two glasses of scotch. "Got a name?"
"Joel." Taking a glass from her.
"Tess. So, Joel, you any good at moving cargo?"
Joel shrugged. "Got to be easier than ambushes."
