A/N: Alright, here's the next chapter. Yeah, sorry about that whole cliffhanger thing. I lied. It happens. It probably won't be the last time I lie. Fair warning.

I don't have terribly much to say about this chapter. Just read it. I also don't have a soundtrack choice picked out for it. Yeah, I'm really slacking these days.

Most useless author's note ever award goes to... this one.

Oh, still haven't decided if this will go 15 chapters or 20. I know what you're thinking... how could it end at 15? Well... start speculating. That always turns out well. Heh.

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


CHAPTER 12

ABANDON

"She didn't have to die."

Sally's lifeless body hung limply in his arms. Joel hadn't moved from his place on the couch for the last hour. Every fiber of his being had started to tingle until he was saturated by a consuming numbness. He lost track of how long he had been staring blankly at the clouded reflection in the television screen. The sorrow he had felt for the little girl had melted away into an emotional nothingness. Marlene stood before him, arms crossed over her chest, giving him her best disgusted look, punctuated by the glaring bullet hole in her forehead.

"She didn't have to die," she repeated, but her words had no affect on him. "You could have prevented this if you had just done the right thing. Do you really think this is the last little girl that's going to die because of your selfishness? News flash, Joel: this happens every goddamn day. And you could have put an end to it."

He shook away the cloud that had gathered over his mind. He stood, carefully cradling Sally's body against his own, and walked to the staircase, pushing past Marlene on the way. He turned down the hall at the top of the stairs and went into one of the bedrooms. He carefully lowered her body onto one of the beds, crossing her arms ceremonially over her chest.

He stood at the foot of the bed looking at the little girl's body for a long time before eventually heading back to the first floor. Marlene was there to meet him, and went right back to her badgering.

"Do you even realize how much blood is on your hands? It's not just the hundreds that you've killed yourself. It's not just that little girl's. Anyone who's been infected since Salt Lake City… their lives are on you, Joel."

He pointedly ignored her, focusing on clearing his burdened mind. He shut his eyes and embraced the numbing blankness that began cascading over him. He let himself sink into a dispassionate state, becoming like a stone. This was the only way to survive anymore. Shut the world out. Shut the emotions out. One's humanity was a small price to pay for survival and the retention of sanity.

Marlene's voice faded away until only silence met his ears. He opened his eyes and found himself alone in the living room. In that moment, he felt true solitude for the first time in months. Ever since leaving Jackson, the harrowing presence of his subconscious had manifested itself around him. But now, he was truly alone. This was the way to survive. This was the way it had to be. Cold. Emotionless. Alone.

The past was dead. Sarah was dead. Tess was dead. Lakyn was dead. Ellie was gone. There was no sense in revisiting those memories. Once upon a time, I had somebody that I cared about. A partner… somebody I had to look after, and in this world that sort of shit's good for one thing: gettin' ya killed. So y'know what I did? I wisened the fuck up, and I realized it's gotta be just me. Bill had been right all along. It was time to stop dwelling on the past. He had to let her go.

Joel steeled himself, threw on his pack, and pushed the door open to a cold blast of air. The rush of arctic wind over his face was refreshing, further cleansing his mind. He breathed deep, relishing the prickling icy sensation in his lungs. It's gotta be just me.

He turned himself west and pushed on into the forest, leaving the past behind.


Ellie lie panting in the snow, trying to catch her breath. Her legs had given out beside a creek, and she had collapsed onto the base of a tree leaning over the frozen water. Her side was burning from the exertion, and she opened her coat to check the wound. The rag was soaked with fresh blood, and she added a handful of snow over the wound before re-tying it, trying to numb the pain.

As far as she could tell, they had either lost the bear or it hadn't elected to chase after them. The only problem was that there was no telling what had become of Joel's trail. She had just picked a direction and ran without giving mind to keeping his trail nearby. Finding it again would undoubtedly be a challenge. The upside was that it wasn't snowing, so the trail would remain visible for some time.

Titus was a little ways off, rooting through some vegetation that the snow hadn't fully covered. She watched him fondly as he searched about, chomping down on a bit of snow to quench his thirst. She let him wander for awhile as she regained her wind.

She had to find Joel's trail by sundown. Snow could fall at any time, covering it forever, if the wind hadn't blown drifts over it first. If she didn't find it before nightfall, there was no guarantee she'd find it again. She scanned over the area, using the position of the sun to estimate which direction was west. To her rough estimate, she had fled the bear in a southwest direction, so following the creek north should, in theory, meet up with Joel's trail.

She struggled to her feet, placing a hand to her side as she did, and whistled for Titus. He trotted over and looked up at her with his lolling grin.

"C'mon, boy."

They turned and followed the creek northward, making sure to stay off of the ice, as there was no telling how thick it was. After her close call with Joel the winter before, the thought of crossing another frozen stream was terrifying. She knew that if she didn't come across a bridge she'd have to cross it eventually, but finding Joel's trail came first.

She walked north, stumbling through the deep snow along the banks, for what felt like hours. Her mind drifted to Joel as she walked. She still couldn't comprehend what made Joel abandon her. It just didn't make sense. He'd lost people before. What made this time different? Was Tommy wrong when he told her that Joel loved her? What kind of person just abandons someone they love?

A myriad of questions ran through her mind, and she was so enraptured in them that Joel's footprints caught her by surprise. She broke free from her thoughts to find herself standing in a pair of deep indentations caused by his boots. She followed the trail with her eyes and, sure enough, it led across the frozen creek.

She stepped lightly down to the edge of the snow-covered ice. If the ice could support Joel, it should support her. She took a few deep breaths, braced herself, and ran across, determined to be on the ice for as little time as possible. She crossed the creek in a matter of seconds with no hint of cracking ice. She breathed easier on the opposite shore, though the exertion pained her side again.

She gritted her teeth and pressed on, following the trail to the outskirts of a small town. It wasn't so much a town as a gathering of a few buildings in a small clearing in the woods. A single road stretched through the buildings, its position marked by long, thin voids in the trees at either end of town.

Joel's footprints led into one of the buildings, and Ellie committed it to memory before pushing to the middle of town. There were more sets of prints here, erratic and hard to follow, but she traced them to a space between buildings where several bodies of Infected tainted the snow.

She went back to the building Joel had entered and began following his trail. She retraced it as it led to every building in the town. He was thorough, after all. Finally, she came to the last house on the trail of prints. She checked the back door and, as expected, a single trail of prints led into the forest.

Daylight was beginning to fade, and this seemed as good a place as any to spend the night. She turned away from the back door and headed back to the living room. It was then that she noticed the peculiar spatter on the ground next to the couch. Upon inspection, it appeared to be blood, a lot of it, and rather fresh blood at that. She followed the direction of the spray and found a single pockmark near the baseboard on the wall. She picked away at the crumbling plaster to find the deformed hunk of metal that had once been a bullet.

She looked around, but found no signs of a body. There was a single 9mm casing on the ground, but besides that, nothing. The oddity drifted to the back of her mind as she wandered to the kitchen, looking for any food that might be tucked away at the back of the cabinets.

They yielded nothing but dishes and spoiled food, and Ellie slammed them shut in frustration. She rummaged through the drawers and couldn't believe her eyes when they fell upon a can opener. It was rusted in a couple spots, but was the type that had no moving parts to go bad. It would prove much better than the primitive switchblade-and-rock combination she had been using.

She returned to the living room and plopped down on the couch before pulling out the box of pasta and crunching away at a few pieces. She couldn't understand the appeal of this stuff. It was hard and tasteless. She found herself perusing the label while she ate and then became suddenly embarrassed.

"Oh, fuck me," she said aloud, causing Titus's ears to perk up in curiosity. "Apparently, you're supposed to boil this stuff before you eat it, Titus. Pfffft. My bad." He cocked his head, not understanding her frustration.

She put the box back in her backpack and her hand grazed the can she had picked up in the cabin outside of Jackson. She picked it up and read the label. 'Smith's Cherry Pie Filling.' Heartache coursed through her as she thought of that cabin. She had never seen Joel in such a state of shock.

She quickly suppressed those thoughts and, on cue, a rumble came from her stomach. Joel had said whatever was in here was sweet. She punctured the can with the new opener and dabbed a finger on the red syrup that seeped out. She brought it to her lips and touched the dab to her tongue. The taste was sublime, and she was instantly salivating for more.

Before she knew it, she had wolfed down half of the can. She forced herself to stop before she'd make herself sick, and went to the kitchen to find something in which to store the rest of the pie filling. She put the tupperware container in her backpack and dragged herself upstairs in search of a bed to sleep in.

She turned into the first room and went to set her backpack down on the end of the bed when she realized that she wasn't alone. She jumped a couple of feet upon realizing that there was a figure lying on the mattress.

"Ah, fuck! Dammit!"

She shook her limbs to rid herself of the burst of adrenaline and anxiety. She looked at the body again. It was a young girl, probably a couple years her junior. There was a grisly exit wound in her forehead, and the bedding around her head was stained to form a dark red halo. Something near the girl's neck caught her eye, and she leaned in to examine it. She pulled aside the collar and found a bite mark dotted with white, patchy growths indicative of an Infected bite.

"Shit…"

Slowly, she put the pieces together, and the heartache returned. Joel must have stumbled across this girl who had recently been bitten, and had been forced to put her out of her misery. She could only imagine how difficult that must have been. Ellie had only seen Sarah in pictures, but this girl resembled her more than she did.

"Oh, Joel… I'm so sorry," she said softly. "Where are you?"

She picked up her backpack and headed to another room, ensuring it was unoccupied before stepping inside. The bed was expansive, probably one of the largest Ellie had ever seen. A bed the size a king would demand. She sat down on the edge of the dusty mattress and Titus walked up to sit at her feet.

She smiled and scratched him around the neck. He licked her hands in return. "Oh, Titus. I'm not sure how I'd get by without you to cheer me up."

She headed down the hall and into the bathroom, cleaned the wound again and wrapped it with a clean rag. She returned to the bedroom and climbed upon the vast mattress. Even while lying on her back, stretching her limbs to their limits, she didn't come within a foot of the edge on either side. Titus hopped up next to her and curled into a ball. She wrapped herself around him and buried her face in his fur, soaking in every degree of warmth she could. Before long, she had succumbed to her heavy eyelids and drifted to sleep.


The firelight flickered against the walls of the cabin. Everything was silent and still. Glowing particles that were either sparks, spores, or fireflies hung heavy in the air. The door of the woodstove hung open and a smoldering log had been dropped on the floor, scorching the rug to the point of ignition.

She was too late.

The cabin was empty aside from the two bodies. The one was lying at the other's feet in a pool of her own blood. Somehow, even in the dim light, the bullet hole was visible in the back of her head. The other body was slumped against the wall, beaten to hell, with a bullet hole in his temple. The rug finally caught, and a blaze began to spread from the foot of the woodstove.

She was too late.

She ran over and shook the body, but he didn't respond. She took his face in her hands and turned it to look at her. His eyes were blank, hollow, and lifeless. Her eyes drifted to the hand at his side, loosely wrapped around a pistol.

She was too late.

Suddenly, the blaze was surrounding her, and there was no way out. The flames lashed out at her, biting into her skin, leaving hot trails of blood from the gouges in her skin. She spun, looking for an escape from the conflagration, but the fire surrounded her, advancing constantly. She backed herself into the middle of the cabin, and the flames continued to press forward, forming a wall of light and heat around her. There was no escape. She curled into a ball and waited to be consumed.

She was too late.

She opened her eyes and she was alone. Everything was white. The frigid wind whipped around her, as if she were in the center of a cyclone. There was ice in the wind, and the shards struck her body, leaving deep gashes in their wake. She cried out in pain from each incision. The frozen wind closed in around her, forcing the heat from her body and sucking the air from her lungs. She hugged herself and waited for the end.

She was too late.


Ellie shot up on the bed, crying out in fear. She tugged up on her sleeves frantically, expecting to find wounds all over her body, but there was nothing there besides the scarred bite mark. It suddenly occurred to her how cold she was, and she looked around the enormous mattress, softly illuminated by morning's light.

"Titus?" The house replied with an impenetrable silence. "Titus!?" she called again, louder this time. She added a sharp whistle and waited. The dog never came.

She ran downstairs and searched the house, but there was no sign of him. She heard the soft howl of wind and turned to look at the front door. She hadn't noticed that the lock had been kicked in years ago, and the door hung slightly ajar. She peered out to find a set of dog tracks leading in the direction of the road.

"Titus!" she shouted. She waited for minutes, but the dog never came. He was gone.

She was alone.


AFTERMATH: PART III WILL CONTINUE

WITH CHAPTER 13