A/N: Here it is, the big moment. Or, at least, part of the big moment. Chapter ten. I thought I should make sure to finish this tonight with all of TLoU buzz about the just-revealed single player DLC "Left Behind." Man, oh man, is it gonna be good. I'm a bit bummed we aren't getting more Joel and Ellie, but at least we get one of them. And playing as Ellie is a ton of fun!

So here's the chapter. Things are going to get real intense, probably from here on out. This will likely be 15 chapters long like Part I as I need to focus on writing my novel. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to read this! Please enjoy!

DISCLAIMER/LEGAL MUMBO-JUMBO: I do not own The Last of Us, it is Naughty Dog's property.

CHAPTER 10

SPARK

He stared straight ahead, into the darkness beyond the floodlights, until he could no longer bear the feeling of her eyes on his skin. His mind raced. Should he play dumb, act like he had no idea what she was talking about? No, she was too smart for that. He knew it, in the back of his mind. She knew. He didn't know exactly what, or how much, but she knew.

He exhaled. "You… might understand... someday." He felt her eyes leave him.

"I knew it. I fucking knew it," she muttered, barely audible to anyone else, but she knew he could hear. Her eyes returned to his face. "I might understand now. Answer the question," said Ellie, firmly, fighting to keep her short temper at bay.

"You… you can't understand now," he said softly.

"What happened back there, in Salt Lake City? If you can't explain the 'why,' at least explain the 'what.'"

Joel felt, uncharacteristically, like running away. The guard tower was small, and the railings might as well have been prison bars. He unconsciously stood and began walking around the walkway that lined the circumference of the tower. Ellie followed a step behind him, not letting him avoid the situation.

"Joel! Answer me!" she said, raising her voice and tugging at his arm. "What happened?"

"Let's talk about this tomor-"

She pulled harder, forcing him to face her. "No! Tell me now! After all we've been through, you owe me this much." Her eyes pled even more than her words. He turned away, unable to look at her.

"You… you're the only one…" his voice was barely a whisper.

"What?"

"Immune. You're the only one."

She shrugged. "That doesn't surprise me, but... that's not all there is. What else?" Joel's eyes avoided hers like the plague, no matter how hard she sought after them. She repeated herself, firmly, emphasizing both syllables, "What else?"

"They're… they haven't quit… lookin' for a cure."

Ellie sighed in exasperation. "No shit. Those two lies were the easiest to see through."

"Well, I guess… in a way, they have stopped lookin'... now…" he said, more to himself than to her.

"What the hell does that mean? Come out with it, Joel." Her words grew sharper, more pointed. She assumed the role of a surgeon, attempting to extract the truth from the shell of lies Joel had created, and her pressured words were her scalpel. "Tell me. Tell me, Joel. Fucking spit it out! Tell me!" He tried to turn away again. "Don't you turn your fucking back on your own goddamn d-" she stopped herself. The words had been flowing from a pit of anger she had left concealed within her. A pit fed by suspicion and doubt. She hadn't realized just how influential it had become. The pit of anger wore at her inhibitions, and something had nearly slipped out that she had kept in an even more precious place than the pit of anger. She regained control and resumed her assault. "Tell me the truth! Joel!"

You can't save her. Marlene's voice taunted him vindictively, unnervingly, viciously. He swore she was whispering it right into his ear, standing next to him. He could see the black, ragged hole in her forehead. You can't save her.

"Joel!"

"I killed them!" he snapped, whirling around to face Ellie. "I fuckin' killed them, okay? All of them, all of those goddamn Fireflies!" Something had ruptured within him, and the words came spilling out like hot oil, searing at his skin. "All of those motherfuckin' sons of bitches. I killed them!"

Ellie stumbled back and fell against the railing, wide-eyed. It was the first time, to her memory, she had been in Joel's presence and been truly, deeply, genuinely afraid. There was a fire behind Joel's eyes, flickering with an unbridled malice. He saw the terror on her face and his demeanor shifted, in an instant, to one of gentleness and paternal concern. The contrast was as terrifying as the rage that came before it.

His voice was soft, soothing, "Ellie, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please… p-p-please forgive… forgive me, baby. Please." He reached out to take her shoulder, but she recoiled against the railing, beyond his grasp.

The trembling, quiet, hauntingly sincere words she spoke felt like a dagger had been plunged between his ribs. "Get the fuck away from me."

A sound met her ears; one she didn't recognize. It sounded vaguely like a groan, but too deep and strangely metallic to be human. She could almost feel the creaking reverberation. No, she could definitely feel it, emanating from the middle of her back. Before she realized the source of the sound, something gave way, and she saw Joel falling away from her, falling back, back and down, down toward her feet. The guard tower fell with him. In her peripheral vision, she saw the railing fall past at each side, the section she was leaning against mysteriously missing. And then, she realized, the sky itself was falling behind the tower.

She saw Joel clambering toward her, trying to escape the falling tower, reaching out at her with palpable desperation in his eyes. She felt a snag at her ankle as his fingers wrapped around it, and the universe halted its freefall away from her and began swaying slowly back and forth. She looked down at him quizzically. No, not down. Up. Suddenly, quickly, violently, everything shifted and she felt herself dangling by her ankle, looking around frantically as gravity reoriented her perception.

"Joel!" she screamed in terror.

"I gotchya!" he grunted. "I gotchya, kiddo." He was on his stomach on the walkway, arms hanging over the edge, clutching her around the ankle. She looked up - no, down - at the ground below her and half-expected to see a piece of rebar, protruding like a deadly stalagmite from the earth, taunting her, but there was nothing there but grass and dirt. The grip around her ankle intensified, and the ground began to retreat from her. She felt Joel's fingers hook into the waist of her jeans and pull her safely back onto the walkway.

She instinctively dove into his arms, suppressing the feelings that had pushed her over the edge in the first place. He wrapped his arms around her and gently rocked her back and forth. She was sobbing, unsure of whether it was in anger, fear, or purely from the exhilaration of a brush with potential death. In that moment, she was content to permit Joel to comfort her, to soothe her. She was glad to feel his hand cradling her head. She welcomed his words of apology and reassurance that everything was alright.

But she knew it was just another lie.

Once again, the wailing sirens pierced his eardrums as he ran through the hospital. Ellie hung limply in his arms, still unconscious. At least, she was, at first. He frantically glanced this way and that, searching out the right path to escape. Fireflies poured out of the darkness in every direction he turned, their eyes burning bright in the dim, cold, sterile hallways of St. Mary's, casting cones of light on him like spotlights. He turned down another hall. Suddenly, Ellie was awake. She was fighting him, desperately. Fighting to break free. Thrashing violently.

"No! No! Get the fuck away from me! No!" she screamed.

The lights began to surround him as the Fireflies swarmed. He struggled to keep his hold on the flailing girl in his arms. He couldn't lose her, no matter what. He ran through another doorway, which opened to a hall indistinguishable from the one from which he'd come.

Suddenly, he felt a burning, searing heat in his shoulder. He looked down, startled to find Ellie's switchblade buried in his flesh. He looked at her in shock as she retracted the blade and stabbed him again. Through the pain, he dropped her and tumbled backwards onto the ground. She scrambled away from him, rose to her feet, and ran towards a dark figure at the end of the hall. The figure welcomed her, holding her by its side. Ellie clutched onto the figure, peering out from behind it and back at Joel.

"Help me! Get him away from me!"

The figure approached, and the flickering light fixture overhead illuminated its face. It was Marlene, the bullet hole still visible in her forehead. She raised her pistol, aiming it at the space between Joel's eyes.

Her voice shook the foundations of the building, the foundations of Joel's body, mind, and soul, as she spoke. Her lips didn't move, but the words thundered within his head, threatening the rattle his brain loose from its moorings.

"You. Can't. Save. Her."

She pulled the trigger.

He had only managed an hour of sleep, and not a second more of it came after the nightmare jolted him awake.

He lie on the mattress, watching the color of the sky lighten as the sun rose. He had watched the hours since the nightmare pass against the dark canvas outside his window, its indigo hue growing ever lighter with each minute. His altercation with Ellie had occurred near the end of the shift, and his relief had run to the tower upon hearing Ellie's scream. Joel told him that they were alright, just shook up after a close call, and that he'd take Ellie home to rest.

He had walked her up the stairs and turned toward his room, when he felt her peel away and walk to her own bedroom. It was then that he knew something had changed, and there was no going back. The bedroom felt cavernous and cold in her absence. He half-rolled over on the mattress, looking despondently at the place on the mattress where she should have been.

Unable to stay where he was any longer, he stood and walked over to the window, resting his arms on the sill. He tried to fathom what had come over him earlier, that unchecked furor that had manifested itself without warning. He had never snapped at Ellie to that magnitude, not even when he first met her and didn't give a rat's ass about her. He felt a surge of guilt at the thought of Ellie's face, the fear in her eyes. Frightening her was the last thing he ever wanted to do.

He reckoned he should go check on her, and padded out of the room, down the hall, and hesitated at her closed doorway. He stood there for a moment before turning the handle and opening the door. The soft morning light fell in through the window, illuminating a faint square on the worn hardwood floors. The room still sat mostly empty, as it had been rarely used since they moved in. All the occupied the space was the mattress. The mattress was empty.

A spark of adrenaline lit inside of Joel as he burst into the room. "Ellie?" He checked the closet. Nothing. "Ellie!?" Her window was shut, and there was no proverbial makeshift rope made of bed sheets hanging from it. Her bedroom window looked over the backyard. In the dim light, he could see that the backyard was empty. Frantic at this point, he hurried back to his room, snatched his pack from the floor, and threw it over his shoulders. He turned to run down the stairs, then hesitated. Turning back, he opened the door to the unused bedroom. As he feared, Ellie's switchblade was no longer sitting on the windowsill. Her pack hadn't been in her room, either.

"No, no, no… no… no, please… no…" he cried as he stumbled down the steps.

He ran through the front door, slamming it on his way out, and tore down the street toward Tommy and Maria's. Upon his arrival, he pounded wildly at the front door.

"Tommy! Maria!"

His brother's tired face appeared beyond the open door. "Joel? What's wrong? What time is it?"

"Early. It's Ellie… she's… she's gone. Run off."

Tommy suddenly became more awake. "What, when? Why?"

Joel half-sighed and half-groaned, utterly distraught. "We… we had a fight last night, she… I told her…"

Maria appeared at Tommy's side. "Joel? What is it?"

"Ellie's gone. I thought she might come here, to see you, Maria. She always liked you," Joel replied, the desperation causing his voice to crack. He found himself fighting back tears.

Maria shot Tommy a look. "I'm sorry, Joel. She hasn't come by. Where do you think she went?"

"I don't know… I… Tommy, come on, there's a few places we gotta check."

"Sure thing, I'm right behind you," he said. He quickly kissed Maria on the lips and replied to her implorations with a promise that he'd be safe.

They sprinted to the stables first. Tommy insisted he do the talking, since Joel was in no state to be reasonable, especially since it was Grant that would be on duty in the wee hours of the morning. They entered the stables to find Grant at the front desk, sitting groggily over a cup of steaming coffee.

"Grant, you haven't seen Ellie this mornin' have you?" Tommy asked.

Grant rubbed his face with his hand. "Sure, came in here not… I dunno, fifteen, twenty minutes ago. Thought it was kinda weird she was out so early."

Without warning, Joel burst behind the counter and threw Grant hard up against the wall. He put a forearm at his neck and firmly lifted, showing the seriousness of the situation. "Where is she?" he seethed.

"Joel! That's enough! Calm down!" Tommy yelled.

Grant was too stunned to reply quick enough for Joel's liking. He pulled his 9mm from his waistband and pressed it hard into Grant's temple. "Where is she!? I swear to God, if you laid a fi-"

"Joel, think about what you're doing," Tommy cut him off, holding out his hands, palm down, toward Joel, pleading with him. "Don't do this."

"S-s-she came in here… a-a-askin' to saddle… to take a h-h-horse out for the day…" Grant stammered, visibly terrified. "I gave her her f-f-favorite one… she rode off…I didn't think anything of it, she does it a lot… that's all I know, J-J-Joel! I swear!"

Joel eased the pressure against Grant's throat and let him drop his weight back onto his legs. Grant wasn't a small man, by any means, but Joel was fueled by anger and fear. "Give me a horse. Now."

With shaking hands, Grant hurriedly saddled up two horses for Joel and Tommy, and they rode out to the north gate.

As they rode, Tommy turned to Joel. "Look, brother… I know you're real scared about Ellie right now, but you gotta keep a level head before you do anything stupid. Keep it together." Joel offered no reply, staring ahead sternly as they rode.

When they arrived at the north gate, Tommy called up to the guards. "Hey Jack, you see Ellie ride out of here recently?"

Jack looked over the railing. "Yeah. Weren't… I dunno, fifteen minutes or so ago. Asked where she was goin', but she just stared back at me. She looked as mad as a wet hen. The hell did you do, Joel?"

Joel bristled, but Tommy cut him off before he could speak. "You see which way she went?"

"Yeah… well, I think so. She headed toward the creek. Lost sight of her over the ridge, but it looked like she was headin' in the direction of that place where y'all would go swimmin' from time to time."

Joel looked over at Tommy, and Tommy saw the worry in his eyes. He had seen that look before, twenty one years ago, in the dark near a highway bridge.

"C'mon," Tommy said. "Let's go get your girl."

AFTERMATH: PART II CONTINUES

WITH CHAPTER 11