Author's Note: Like I said, a much shorter chapter. I don't have much to say in the author's note here, but I am feeling that this story might be drawing to an end. Maybe five chapters or so more, maybe slightly less. I have an idea for another The Last of Us story, but more information in that will come in the author's note for the next chapter, I think. I hope you like this chapter, but it is by far the shortest I've ever written. Still, slightly longer than your average chapter on this website. I've never liked short chapters, I don't think there's enough content. Which chapter lengths do you prefer —are my chapters typically too long? So, yes. Read and review! :D

ELLIE V

Joel had fallen before Ellie could grasp what was happening, and then she saw him. It pained her that her initial instinct was to run, to save herself, but she wouldn't leave Joel. She would not abandon him. If she ran, he would kill Joel and then he would kill her. She looked down at him, spread on the floor. She stayed very still and she could still —

"See him breathing? I do too. He's very fortunate," Ora said. "A blow like that would put most men down. For good."

"He's not like most men," Ellie said. The rifle was on the floor, trapped under Joel's weight; there was no way she could get it out from underneath him before Ora slammed her skull in too. She tried not to let her eyes linger on the gun too long, and she mentally dismissed it as an option.

"Why, I think you might be right there. Come on in here, will you? Leave the body. Wouldn't want that gun going off underneath him, would we? That'd makes quite a mess, and we don't want that now."

He saw me looking, she thought. He had little else to do but watch her, and his eyes made her uneasy. They were eyes that reminded her of Joel's; sometimes there was a kindness behind them, other times they revealed nothing. This was the latter. Ellie could see his thoughts no more than Joel could see anything.

She knew only this: in time, Joel would wake up. She had to stall, had to distract Frances Ora as much she could. I have to buy us some more time or he'll kill us here and now. She wondered briefly if she could nick him with her switchblade before he could slug the wooden beam at her. At this point, she wasn't yet willing to find out. Ellie would have to wait.

Slowly she moved into the control room. Ora moved back, the great windows that overlooked the complex to his back. In the distance Ellie could see the black night breaking into a velvet blue where the land met sea. Dawn was not far off. We should be in the tunnels heading for the cabin.

The man's grey eyes watched her move in. She could feel them on her, even when she look out over the trees or at Joel. They didn't look at her with the same perverse fascination that David's had, no; he had been broken by the world and driven to cannibalism. Perhaps when things had been normal before, deep down David had always been a dark character — with Ora she had no clue. He seemed to like the world as it was. He was thriving.

"Why won't you just let us fucking go?"

"You've got a miserable tongue on you, young lady. Would you say that to your mother?"

"Yeah. She's been dead a long time and I'd really like to see her again."

Ora laughed, a folksy laugh with real mirth, more suited to a man who told stories around a camp fire. Sometimes she heard Joel laughing like that too. But, though Joel was almost fifty, Ellie could tell this man was younger. She couldn't tell, not really, but he had about the same amount of wrinkles as Tommy. As Tommy had. The memory made her angry. He tried to speak, but she missed it and rushed on, cutting him off.

"Why?" she asked, moving towards him a little. She wanted him on edge, unsure. She didn't know if this man could be pushed to that, but all in all he was just another hunter, no matter what fucking crazy stories he told himself.

"Why? To show god that we care."

"They're fucking people," she said, angered. "They aren't gods, you sick fu—"

He took a few sharp steps forward and, before she could move, slapped her hard with the back of his hand. A jeweled ring cut into her cheek and she felt a little blood trickle down. "That language is trying my patience." Ellie wanted to pull the finger at him. Try this, she would say, but she had to keep him talking until Joel began to stir. If he tried to slam the wood against him again… "I know they ain't gods. What I believe is a lot more complicated than that, but my followers… they don't like complicated. They like the old religions. Something to worship, something physical. They don't like the idea of a god up above, no. That's negligent faith."

"You're just lying to try and keep fucking control."

"I'm not lying – I'm making it easier for them. It's a lot easier for them to lose people this way, and we have lost people. I have too, though never to the infected themselves. No, always people. What I believe is that there is a god, in heaven, yes. The same Christian god that led me to church every Sunday, work permittin'. I believe the fungus and the spores are instruments of His love."

He is fucking crazy, she thought. Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw Joel move, but she couldn't be sure. Ora's eyes almost wondered, so she shifted quickly to draw them back to her. Come on, Joel. Wake up and realise what the fuck is going on.

"Why do you want us dead so much?"

"Why? You're an abomination before the gods. Imagine you were me – imagine my faith, built up so well and my followers love me so dearly. And then appears a girl… a girl who is somehow immune to the disease." Ora shook his head a little and tutted. "I knew you were special. I overheard Maria and Tommy talkin' about you, after you left Jackson before. Off to see the Fireflies. What happened with them, do you know?"

"There are a lot of immune people," Ellie said. "They didn't need us."

Ora's eyes widened a little and Ellie knew she had told him something he didn't know; she wondered if he'd spoken to Joel already. "It looks like we have a liar in the room," Ora said, smiling a little. He shook his head at Joel.

"What do you mean?" Does he know something about what happened in Utah?

"This little monkey here told me you went to the university and then came straight back. There are immune people there?"

Fuck, I told him too much – Joel lied to him about where we went. Shit, shit, shit. He doesn't know we went to Salt Lake City; just lie to him. "Yes. A lot of them. The Fireflies are experimenting, they're going to create a cure."

"The Fireflies… look for the light," he quoted. "It was that little mantra that drew me to them in the first place. I wanted to carry the fire, wield the light," he said with an exaggerated flourish of his plank of wood. He leaned his back against the wall. "I was very disappointed to find they were a group of idealistic idiots. Their leader was aimless. She was a sheep too."

"Fuck you, man."

"Oh, did you know her?" Damn it. Shut up, Ellie. Just keep your mouth closed! "This was years ago. You must have known her recently. How recent?"

"Last saw her a year ago."

"It's been… fourteen years since I last saw her. She was so focused on saving the world… and now she's got lots of people who are immune." He rubbed his thumb against his forefinger whilst staring at Ellie, but his thoughts were elsewhere. She chanced a glance – one of Joel's eyes were open, he was awake. He closed it as soon as she looked. Slowly, she moved her head back towards Ora. He can't think I'm trying to avoid looking at something. The man seemed a step ahead as always, but when she looked back at him he was still in thought. She considered breaking his thought but she left him. The longer he stays like that the longer Joel has to plan something. She moved closer to the left, towards the cabinet. She imagined that Ora would turn, back to him, and lunge for Joel… and she'd go to him… and then the day was back.

Smoke hung deep in the air, filling the room. She could see him moving slowly past the tables across the way from him… following her, running at her. The machete was in his hand. He is going to kill me. He is going to kill me. She stabbed him in the back, she stabbed him over and over and over…

"They're just as much as a threat to me as you are, Ellie." She stared at him and he smiled. He moved closer towards her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Joel's eyes open a little, but Ora now had his side to him… he wouldn't see him. Ora advanced on Ellie. He tightened his grip on the wood – or was she just imagining it? No matter what she saw, and what she didn't… he was coming closer. She wished she could see what was in his eyes. If he comes any nearer I'll fucking stab him in the face.

And he did come closer, too. And a shape moved behind him, and she could see the shape that was Joel move up behind him. For the first time she could see what was in his eyes; and he lifted the wood and he swung it, it cracked as it smacked Ellie in the head and she fell down too, and then she heard it crack again – but she didn't feel it. A sick thud on the floor and he had known Joel was there; maybe he had seen it reflected in his eyes. Ellie looked up and saw Ora lifting the rifle out of Joel's hands. He was probably concussed, though Ellie didn't figure that. Come on, she thought. She wasn't out but the world span. She could hear extracts… bits and pieces.

"You tried and you failed, Joel. You can't fight a soldier of god."

I can fucking cut one, Ellie thought and she woozily removed her switchblade. She swiped it across the back of his foot, slashing at the muscle there. Ora screamed and his leg buckled and gave way. She stabbed his foot through again. His elbow slammed her in the face and she winced, blood spurting from her nose, the crunch of it breaking. He reached for the rifle and Joel snatched it. He pointed it at Ora's head and fired. Click click click. Empty.

"Very few of the weapons in this facility work, unfortunately. Fear tactics. They work well."

Ellie stood and walked around the desk in the middle of the room to stand beside Joel. Frances Ora moved backwards, almost cowering, until he got to the back of the room, back against the cabinet where they'd hidden. Joel lifted up the planks of wood, but it'd shattered – broken into pieces.

This is the only shot we'll get at this, Joel. Once we leave here we can't come back. There's too many of them. We have to endure. Endure and survive.

Before Joel could even look around for something to kill him with, Ellie moved up and she slid her knife between his ribs. Once and then twice, relatively close, right in the his gut. "Fuck you," she said, and then spat in his face. Even as it happened he tried to reach out to slap Ellie, but Joel grabbed his hand, and then he kicked it hard against the steel cupboard.

"Let's go, Ellie."

"Yeah," she said, and they left him there for dead. Let him fucking rot before they find him. I want him to bleed. She thought of Tommy as they left. They moved on down the corridors and heard voices, but they couldn't wait. Joel looked down both ways and saw they were coming in from the main doors. If they walked past they would see them, they couldn't wait.

"If they come by here they'll see us, if we go back into the control room then they'll hear us. We've gotta run. Shit, we forgot the map –"

Ellie shook her head slowly, and produced it. Joel nodded.

Joel and Ellie looked around the corner one last time. Six, maybe seven of them. Joel checked the blueprints, nodded. They took a deep breath, the voices travelling up towards them, and then they ran around the corner. The voices grew loud.

"Shit, there! THERE!"

Ellie could only hope their guns were empty.