Ellie was left in the cold and snow with the bodies of the people she cared about. She had to think otherwise they would both die. If Tony had the strength to walk out the building he can surely hold on a little longer. The best course of action in her mind was to find somewhere warm and safe for them to rest. There was no way in hell she could carry them both so she thought of another plan. She went inside the dormitory and pulled out two sheets. She rolled Tony on his back and placed the sheet under him, same with Joel. She got some rope and tied in to Callus's saddle so he could drag them along as she rode.
After hours of riding she finally found a safe place to set up and went inside with the two still on the sheets. Once inside she started a fire and set them both near it. She felt their pulses, Joel's was stronger than Tony's because of his help with Joel's bleeding. Tony's pulse was very faint but it was still their. The only problem was that the pellets were still inside of Tony's body. He has no chance of surviving if those pellets are still in there, she had to find a way to get rid of them and she wasn't a surgeon. She bandaged up Joel's wound and she looked for something to help remove the pellets inside of Tony. The only thing she could find was a small knife and pliers.
She had no experience with this, the only person who did was Joel, she saw him pull tons of bullets out of his body. First thing to do is to stop the bleeding. She pulled a small medkit and started to clean up Tony's wounds. She felt scared when he barely reacted to the alcohol with only a small flinch.
"Not a good sign" she said to herself,
if he wasn't reacting than he was more gone than she thought. Even with the bleeding stopped there was still the issue with the pellets. Now that the wound was clean she could see all the entrances of the pellets the only thing that scared her was what if the ammo was specialized? What if it was shatter shots they shatter once inside and Cause more wounds, or worse! piranha shot. She's seen those things in action it was like a regular shotgun pellet except not in the shape of a small ball but instead dozens of tiny razor-sharp tacks. She decided that the only way to save him was to work with what she had and use the knife she got. The knife she found inside the kitchen was a lot cleaner then her switch blade so no switch blade.
She made an incision large enough for the pliers to fit through but small enough so no bleeding can happen. Everything was going smoothly except for one thing, she had no idea what she was doing. When she pulled out the first pellet she was relieved to see it was a standard pellet and not specialized. she continued this for who knows how many hours to make sure she didn't cause any more injuries than there already was. After she was finished she bandaged him up and saw her finished results. Eight pellets extracted, and Tony was starting to regain some color.
"Not bad for a little kid" she thought to herself.
Now the next step was food and water. It was snowing like crazy so water isn't a problem the only issue was food. She found a few canned foods inside the cupboards that could last about 3 days if rationed well. She needs hunt if she plans to help them, she would start practicing tomorrow. She Slept on the floor with Joel and Tony next to the warm fire. She wasn't worried about smoke she was a good few miles away from the university so no one would be able to see it at night and the fire was going to die while she slept anyway.
When she awoke the next morning she saw that it snowed a good 3 inches. She took Joel's bow and started to practice shooting bottles outside. After she felt ready She went into the nearby woods and started to hunt after she knocked down about a hundred bottles. She had to make sure she was a crack shot, she came back after a few hours of hunting with some birds and a snow fox. Joel and Tony were awake but barely, kind of like they could drift to sleep at any second. She gutted the animals and soon they ate. Ellie had to feed Joel most of the time due to him being unable to stand up, she was worried his wound got infected with something.
Joel was barely able to stay conscious while he ate while Tony was completely unconscious after five minutes. She needed to keep them alive. They helped her survive now it was her turn to return the favor. She cared for them and come hell or high water she wasn't going to have anyone else leave her again... not again.