Disclaimer : I do not own any character of (The Last of Us) TLOU is owned by Naughty Dog, but all the Oc character are from my invention.

AN: I want to thanks, to all the people that is follow and favorite, this story especially to (Krycek39) for be the only one that is posting a review in every chapter. I also want to Thanks to all the readers, that vote in my poll. I going to keep that up until September first, and depend on the winner option, I will put the second one a soon after that. I hope that all of you participate in that one too. Thanks all for reading this story, and continue with this saga, and hope that you liked at the end, as much you like the first one. I like to know you opinion of the story, so I hope that some of you leave a review, telling me how the story is going so far, thanks.

Chapter 10 : Joel & Ellie Reunite

Ellie is pointing her rifle at the woman beside Joel… the woman with a knife in her hand. Joel and the woman look at her as soon as Ellie opens the door and says those words. "Move your fucking hand away from him… you bitch" But right now, it's like everyone is frozen in time. Nobody says anything, they just stay there, looking at her. Ellie's heart starts beating so fast that it feels like she is going to pass out. Ellie can't believe that Joel is there, her Joel, alive, but then she sees that his hands are tied up behind the back of a chair and his face is all bloody. Even after 2 years without seeing him, all that she's suffered back in Jackson after he left… after all that happened to her in the last 6 months, all that she did when she was out there looking for him, she can't believe that she finally found him.

Yes, she is mad at him; she needs to confront him later for leaving her alone in Jackson. But more than that, she need answers - not only for leaving her, but also for what he did in the hospital, and lying to her. But all that can wait for now, because she's not going to let these people kill him. No matter what he's done, she still needs him. After a few moments, Ellie hears Joel talk.

"Ellie?" says Joel, with one eye open, and looking at Ellie like he's just seen a ghost.

"You know her?" Amber says, looking at Joel, and then she looks at the girl standing in front of the door. "Who the hell are you?" Then Amber points the knife at Joel while the man on the other side of Joel prepares his gun to shoot.

"The person that's going to kill you, if you don't move away from him right now," says Ellie with a furious voice.

"Well, I don't know who you are, little girl, but if you don't lower your gun, I'm going to kill him. And I don't think you want that, do you? And if you came with someone else, you'd better tell them to surrender too," says Amber, now pressing the knife to Joel's neck.

"You are the one that is going to surrender, because all the men you had outside are dead," says Ellie, trying to scare the woman.

"Even if what you're saying is true, you're not going to get out of here alive... so drop your gun or… wait a minute… you!… your name is Ellie? Shit, you're the... immune girl!... fuck! This is my lucky day. And I assume that you're alone, right? I don't know how you killed my men, but I definitely don't need them to get you. Sorry, Hunter, or whatever your name is... it was a pleasure to pass the time with you. But business is business, and I don't think that I need you anymore. He wants to kill you himself, but I don't have a way to take you and the girl with us, so this is goodbye." Amber moves her hand to stab Joel with the knife, but she doesn't have the opportunity when Joel stands up from the chair, throws himself at her, and pins her on the floor.

"ELLIE!... RUN!" Joel yells at Ellie while he stays on top of Amber and tries to stop her from getting up. Then Amber tries to break free. While she struggles with Joel, Ellie tries to point her rifle at her, waiting for the opportunity to shoot her. The man on the other side sees his chance and points his gun at Ellie. When he is about to shoot, he hears his boss telling him not to kill the girl, but it's too late. The man is about to pull the trigger of his weapon and shoot at Ellie, but Ellie looks at him when she hears Joel yell at her, "Ellie, watch out!" Ellie then points her rifle at the man and shoots. Even as the man tries to move out of the way, Ellie is so close that the bullet hits him in the head, blowing his brains out.

Amber pushes Joel away from her and stabs him in the arm with the knife. While he screams from the pain, Ellie notices the situation and tries to reload the rifle, but the woman stands up and takes the pipe that her men were using to hit Joel, and jumps at Ellie. Ellie blocks the pipe with the rifle when Amber tries to hit her with it. But Ellie`s gun is overthrown from her hand, so Ellie moves backward when the woman tries to hit her again. Then Ellie takes out her pocketknife and points it at the woman.

"You don't have an escape, girl, he can't help you, and you are no match for me. So why don't you do yourself a favor and surrender?" says Amber, now circling the young girl.

Ellie has to think of something. Even though she has grown in the past two years, this woman is stronger than her, and has more experience. And of course, the woman has a big pipe in her hand... but Ellie is not going to give up so easily.

What would Joel do in a situation like this? He'd probably go and bust the head of this woman in a few seconds, but for her, that's going to be more difficult to do.

"C'mon, girl, you don't have any choice - surrender, or he is going to bleed to death," says Amber, trying to make Ellie lower her guard.

Ellie is running out of options. Whatever this woman wants, it's not going to be good, and she's probably going to let Joel die anyway if I surrender, so that's not going to be an option, says Ellie to herself.

"Okay, have it your way, girl - you're going to lose anyway," says Amber, launching herself at Ellie with the pipe and trying to hit her.

The fight goes on for a few minutes as Ellie evades the pipe, but the woman is quick and grabs Ellie's hand. Ellie hits her in her stomach with her knee, but it doesn't have much effect. Then the woman punches her in the face, and Ellie falls down to the floor. Ellie still has her knife in her hand. When Ellie tries to stand up, the woman kicks her down again.

"Stay down, girl, don't make me hurt you more than I need to. Make this easier for you and surrender... I need you alive, but not him. Do you see, Hunter, lying to people never ends well," says Amber, pointing at Ellie with the pipe.

"You don't have any idea on that, but too bad for you, you're not going to be around to find out how bad it can be," says Ellie, smiling when she sees Joel moving behind the woman with a knife in his hand - the same one that she used to stab him. Then Joel grabs Amber from behind and stabs her in the neck. The woman opens her eyes wide but no words come out, just a lot of blood when Joel takes the knife out of her neck. He sees the woman grab her neck to try to stop the bleeding, but it's too late. Amber falls down on her knees, and then to the floor. After that, Joel looks at Ellie.

"Ellie! Is...is it... really you?" is the last words he says, as his vision starts to go black and he starts to fall down to the floor, too.

Joel!... Joel!... Joel! He starts to hear in his head as everything goes black and he loses consciousness.

*Four days later with Joel*

I try to open my eyes, but all I feel is pain. My head feels like it's going to blow, and my body is worse. I try to remember if what happened was real or a dream. The hitting part, I know was real, because I can feel the pain from that. But the other part, the part when I saw Ellie, my Ellie… She was here? Trying to rescue me, again? Like she did before, when I was captured by that guy... Michael. But it can't be true. Ellie is safe in Jackson with my brother - it's impossible for her to be here. I know that I've been thinking of her a lot more now in the past 7 months, since I had to leave those lunatics that I was working with.

Maybe that's it: I want to see her again so much that I dream about her, but that doesn't explain how I escaped or why I'm now in my bed. I checked my body, and I have a bandage on my arm, which hurts like hell, by the way, and more on my chest.

"What the hell happened here? I don't remember attending my wounds?" says Joel in a lower voice while he tries to sit up in the bed.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," says Ellie from the other side of the bed.

Then Joel turns his head and sees Ellie sitting in a little space in front of the window, cleaning her gun. "Ellie?... Is it really you?... I'm not dreaming?" Joel starts to ask as soon as he sees her.

"No, Joel, it isn't a dream, it's me, and as for who treated your wounds, that was me. You`re still weak because of them, so it's going to be better if you don't try to get out of bed," says Ellie, trying not to show too much of her emotion as she continues cleaning her gun.

Joel looks at her and tries to get up again. "Aaarrrrr…" Joel screams in pain while he lays back down on the bed again.

"I told you not to do that - you lost a lot of blood, and need to recover from that. Also, you have some other cuts, and 2 broken ribs. You were lucky you didn't get any infection, or all this would be worse," Ellie starts to explain, but she doesn't move from the place she's sitting.

"Ellie, what are you doing here?... you're supposed to be in-" Joel starts to ask when he gets interrupted by Ellie.

"In Jackson?... where you left me alone for the last 2 and a half year?" say Ellie, standing up from the window and get close to him, with her gun in her hand.

Joel, look at her and saw something different on her, something he don't see in along time, he saw: fear, anger, frustration, so he know that this is not going to be good for him.

"Ellie!… I'm sorry for what I did, but I have to go back there. I know that you don't understand, but-"

"Understand?... UNDERSTAND?... YOU LIE TO ME, YOU BREAK YOUR PROMISE AND LEAVE ME ALONE IN THERE…" Ellie yells at him.

Ellie doesn't want to yell at him; after all, she wanted to find him, but she has all of her emotions mixed up. She wants to know why he left; she needs an explanation, a good reason to not be so mad right now. But when she looks at him, with his face all messed up and in pain, she knows that today isn't going to be the right time for that.

"Ellie, you must understand… that I had to do what I did. I had some reasons for that. Besides, I didn't leave you alone. Tommy and Maria were supposed to take care of you."

"Joel!... I'm not going to do this today, okay, even if I want some answers… but you need to recover first. We can talk about all this later. I was preparing some soup. I'll bring some for you as soon as it's ready," says Ellie, trying to hide her anger, and then turning around to go to the stairs.

Joel wants to say something to her, but keeps silent. He's still in pain from the fight, and from the look on Ellie's face, he can see that she's in pain too... another kind of pain. He watches Ellie go down the stairs and disappear, and he puts his hands on his face. What have I done? he says to himself.

(Two hours later)

Ellie comes up from downstairs, and when she arrives at the top, she sees Joel sitting on the bed with one hand holding his stomach.

"What the fuck do you think you`re doing? I told you not to get out of bed," says Ellie, rushing to the bed and putting the soup on a table beside the bed.

"You don't understand… I don't know how you found this place, but we need to get out of here," says Joel, trying to stand up again.

"Why, because of that crazy bitch and her men? You don't need to worry about them - they're all dead, and I already disposed of the bodies," says Ellie, getting close to him and trying to push him down on the bed.

"I'm not going to ask right now how you managed to kill the men she had outside. But that crazy bitch ain't the only one that was looking for me. There are others that are going to come here soon," says Joel.

"I don't think anyone's going to come here for a while… a bad snowstorm started two days ago. So no one's going to get up here for a long time," says Ellie, helping him onto the bed.

"Two days?... how long have I been out?" asks Joel.

"Four!" answers Ellie.

"Four days! Shit, we need to get out of here…" Joel says, trying to get up again, but Ellie puts her hand on his chest and stops him.

"I told you that the storm's really bad, so no one is coming here. Just stay in bed and get better," says Ellie, with her hand still on his bare chest. Then she feels something inside of her... something that she hasn't felt in a long time. Fuck, why do I feel like that? Yes, I touched him when I was attending his wounds, but now... it feels so different. She is drawn out of her thoughts when Joel says her name.

"Ellie!... are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, just eat the soup. I'll bring you something for the pain later," says Ellie while she removes her hand from Joel's chest and starts to walk out of the room.

"Ellie, we need to talk… you shouldn't-" Joel is interrupted.

"Not now, Joel, you need to get better. I'm just going down to finish cleaning the blood on the floor," says Ellie as she goes down the stairs.

After Ellie finishes cleaning the blood that was still on the floor, she goes to the kitchen. She sits at the table as some tears start to form in her eyes. She doesn't know what to do; all her feelings are mixed up. She's been waiting for this moment for the past two and a half years. To find Joel and see him again... to have him back in her life. But now that she's found him, all the bad things he's done come back to her. He didn't just leave her - and even though that is the part that hurts more, he lied to her, too. He swore to her after she woke up in that car, before they arrived at Jackson, that all he said about the Fireflies was true.

But all that was a lie. He lived with her for almost two years in Jackson without ever telling her the truth about what he did. He killed all those doctors and Marlene… oh... Marlene, he killed her, and she was her mother's friend - she was like a mother to Ellie, and he killed her. What is she supposed to do with that? Even though she never was very close to her, Marlene always cared for her when she was just a kid. Now Ellie feels so confused… after more than two years without him, she has the time to think about all that. She's been missing him... she wants to forgive him.

But now she doesn't know what to do. He not only killed Marlene and all those Fireflies, he condemned all humanity by destroying the only way to find a cure. Even though Dr. Wilson told her that there was no way to find a cure with the immunity to the virus that she had. But the doctor doesn`t have the equipment that the Fireflies have, so he can't be so sure of that.

Ellie just sits there in the kitchen for a few hours, thinking about what to do, glad that Joel is still in bed, so he can't come down and see her like this. So what do I do now, she says to herself. Part of her still loves him. God, she almost lost him. She is even having nightmares of him dying or getting infected. And even when she finally found this place, he was about to be killed; if she hadn't arrived here in time, he would have been. But now, after she left Jackson and finally found him... and all the things she had to do... part of her can't forget what he did.

She needs to confront him… to ask all those questions she needs to ask. She needs to find a reason to forgive him, if she can do that one day. She still loves him - if she didn't, she wouldn't be here or do all the things she's done. But for now, she needs to wait a little longer... give Joel some time to get his strength back - he almost died. And even if she feels some anger now, and doesn't know what's going to happen between Joel and her, she never wants anything bad to happen to him.

(2 days later)

Ellie sleeps on the couch again, the one Joel has in the living room. She's been sleeping there since she arrived. In the morning, she wakes up tired, not sleeping much after all that happened in the few days she's been there. Trying to take care of Joel is hard now; her heart and mind are in a constant battle of feelings. Ellie gets up from the couch and goes to the kitchen to prepare something to eat. The storm continues out there, less than the day before, but still bad enough.

Ellie leaves the kitchen to wait for the food to be ready, then she goes to the window to check how bad it is outside. She's never seen that much snow in her life, not even in Jackson in the winter. The snow is cool in a way, but right now it's not - it's getting too cold in the cabin. That makes her think about the first winter they had in Jackson, after they arrived... those were very cold nights. But during that time, she was sleeping in the same bed with Joel, and he always made sure that she stayed warm. Now, thinking of that is just too painful. Am I ever going to have that again? she says to herself.

After an hour, she hears Joel moaning from the pain, so that means that he is awake. The food is ready, so she puts it on a plate and goes upstairs. She tries not to look at him much, and just asks him how he's doing. It's been like that for the past two days. Joel doesn't say much either. He knows that Ellie's going to explode soon. It's unavoidable, so he knows that they need to talk, and that it needs to be soon.

After the day passes, Ellie goes to sleep early that night, trying to avoid Joel again, but like the night before, she can't sleep well. This time is worse. Joel wakes up in the middle of the night, and he can hear Ellie murmuring in her sleep. He knows that sound too well; he knows that she is having nightmares again. So he stands up from the bed slowly. Lucky for him, the pain in his ribs is less now. When he gets up off the bed, he walks toward the stairs, but stops when he sees Ellie wake up abruptly. He can see with the light from the chimney fire how she puts her hand on her face and starts to cry. Now he sees how much Ellie is hurt from what he did. He needs to do something now... he needs to fix what he's done to Ellie, to the person that he loves so much.

The next morning, Ellie opens her eyes slowly. She feels so tired. She had another nightmare. And after what happened when she arrived, those nightmares that she's been having almost came true. She's sitting on the couch now, and rubbing her eyes. When she opens her eyes and looks, she sees Joel sitting in front of her in the chair. Ellie almost jumps up from the couch when she sees Joel there.

"Fuck, Joel!... you scared the shit out of me. What are you doing down here? You're supposed to be in bed," says Ellie while she tries to avoid looking Joel in the eyes.

"I know, but I think we need to talk," says Joel, inclining himself forward while he holds his two hands together and looks at her with a sad face.