7:31 PM

Ledge [Lee Everett]

A few hours after arriving back from what he would deem as a successful rifle lesson with Clementine, the day was finally beginning to die down. With the kids presumably upstairs keeping themselves occupied, Lee finally had some time to think to himself as he went to pack away some of the decorations he'd set up in the kitchen. What a day… Besides Ellie acting up, today had gone just about as he had hoped. All the stress and running around planning this thing was all the more worth it in the end just to surprise Clementine. He was thankful to Joel and Ellie too, of course. He figured them being there made the surprise even more special for Clem. He knew it must've been especially hard for Joel. Maybe I oughta thank him when I get the chance, he thought as he gave a small sigh. Nevertheless, right now he was eager to get this kitchen cleaning done and then maybe have an early night's sleep for once. That sounded nice.

Kentucky [Joel]

He had mulled over his next action for some time; if you considered sometime being half the day. The time he had taken to this venture, to this thought, was more than he should have. Attachment was difficult for him and now it was apt to happen. It was already happening. He couldn't do this anymore, he didn't want to hurt anymore. Joel had been in the kitchen, wiping down the counters with a dirty rag when Lee walked in. He turned, facing Lee and blinking. "Oh... hey. I... I've got something to ask you."

Ledge [Lee Everett]

Joel had presumably beat him to it, since the kitchen was looking pretty spotless more or less. He couldn't say he was necessarily expecting to see him down here given how he'd usually segregate himself for most of the days. It was a nice change for once, but from the first thing that came out of Joel's mouth, it was enough for Lee to get the notion that something may have been aloof. The Texan was never the type to ask questions, unless it was behind the barrel of a gun, so why was Lee getting the feeling that something was... different this time?

"What's going on?" He greeted, but also asked with a tinge of curiosity in his voice, waiting to hear this question.

Kentucky [Joel]

The dirty rag was left in its spot on the counter as Joel turned to face Lee, crossing his arms in reassurance. Reassurance for himself, of course.

"My brother... I think he wants us to stay. He's been... withholding information from us... I..." He paused, looking down at the floor as his feet shuffled amongst the rotten tiles. A harsh huff of breath left his mouth, a sigh that only showcased his anxiety. "I..." He pursed his lips, looking away. "Me and you both know that I... I can't stay here. I've got a job to do. Besides that, I don't belong here." Joel stopped, holding a closed fist up to his mouth as he thought of the next thing to say. "And remember when I told you... I had a... a kid?" He did not continue. His mouth opened, hand accentuating his next statement well. "I need a, a favor. Please, I - I don't ask this l - lightly either. I..."

The next part was an attempt to be soft, yet broken by Joel's own questions, his own thoughts, his own emotions. Not something he should dwell on. Not anymore.

"When we find out where the Fireflies are... could you take Ellie to them? I know her and Clementine are friends, and..." He trailed off, unable to continue.

Ledge [Lee Everett]

And just like that, Joel had bulldozed what was supposed to be a peaceful afternoon right out of the way. The Texan was coming at him with a lot here, more so than Lee thought he could handle. He wants me to finish the job? Me? Lee had caught on that information was being withheld from Tommy, of course, although having actually enjoyed the facilities here he was in no rush to find out, unlike Joel. That's when he put two and two together… the whole reason of getting to Jackson in the first place, this whole time… It wasn't just to get the location of the Fireflies. It was Joel's plan to pass off Ellie to his brother, and he must've refused him… That would explain the weird behavior all week. So, who was Joel's second-best option here? Yeah, of course it's me…

"You can't seriously be asking me this right now?" Although he rebutted with a question of his own, there was no denying that this was all true. If he wouldn't be able to stop Joel from leaving… if it was what he really wanted, Lee wouldn't outright refuse him. But hell if he was going to make it that easy on him. All he could do was start to wonder how long this had been festering for, all that time the four of them had spent together on the road… Lee couldn't allow him to believe that was all fake, and just when he was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, they could all make it work... that it wouldn't fall apart… again. Part of him, deep down, understood where Joel was coming from, purely from the mention of his… kid. It still didn't make abandoning Ellie any less wrong. Joel cared, Lee knew he did. Which only made him angrier.

"Does she know...? What you're trying to do?" Lee's brow furrowed, looking at Joel in complete disdain.

Kentucky [Joel]

Joel continued to stare at nothing in particular, wincing as he glared at his own feet, but then those same tired, angry stares came sweeping upwards and into Lee's own face. "Goddammit, Lee." He muttered, scowling for a second before his expression turned into one of... desperation, perhaps.

"She doesn't know. I don't... I didn't plan on telling her..." His mouth agape for a second, he looked off to the side and faltered. "Lee... I need this, Lee." He held back tears, struggling to not cry as he begged Lee to do this for him... it wasn't a matter of what he wanted. He couldn't experience another little girl under his care, not again, never again would that happen.

Dot [Ellie]

Ellie wasn't really sure what she was getting into when Clementine had suggested playing some board game she'd found stuffed into a closet in the living room of their home, with the words MONOPOLY marked in bold letters across the front of it. Though, one thing became distinctly clear after an hour had gone by, and that was that the baseball-capped girl had already managed to thoroughly kick her ass in it.

Ellie put up a valiant fight, though it hadn't been enough. She'd lost Boardwalk after landing on one of Clem's hotels, and was forced to mortgage the property in order to stay alive. It had only marked the beginning of her downfall.

And she fell hard.

Bankruptcy happened within ten minutes, and Clementine celebrated victoriously. Cursing under her breath, Ellie had only been able to smile and admit defeat, yet silently promised to herself that she'd win next time. Eventually she was going to win something against Clem; the girl's luck had to run out sooner or later.

She'd excused herself shortly after the game ended, her stomach growling loud enough to be heard. By the time she reached the door to the kitchen, she stopped in her tracks, listening to Lee and Joel's voice from the other side.

"When we find out where the Fireflies are… could you take Ellie to them? I know her and Ellie are friends, and..."

"You can't seriously be asking me this right now? …Does she know? What you're trying to do?"

"She doesn't know. I don't… I didn't plan on telling her..."

What…?

The room felt like it was spinning around her, a sense of dizziness and nausea that washed over her suddenly and violently. Her hand hovered over the doorknob, shaking slightly as she found herself unable to grab it and push the door open.

When this journey began, back in Boston, she'd found herself wanting nothing more than to get out of Joel's care as soon as possible. He'd been an asshole from the very beginning, and sometimes, she found herself wishing that she had stabbed him when he came through that door with Marlene. But, with time, he grew on her. For a short while, he was the only other person she had, after Marlene handed her off and Tess died. For a while, she thought-

She thought that, maybe, he actually gave a damn about her.

But... of course he didn't. He was a smuggler, hired to do a job. Why would he care about her? Why would he care about anything other than himself? She got Tess killed, and forced him on this journey across the country. All those moments they've spent together were simply part of the job for him, despite how Ellie had grown to look up to him.

And that's what hurt the most. That she actually thought that he was a good person, and actually wanted to be here, when he didn't. He never did.

Her hand retracted from the doorknob. She took a step back, then another. Three steps then turned into twenty steps, and she'd turned towards the front door, angrily ripping it open before slamming it closed behind her.

If he didn't want her around… then, well, fuck him.

Ledge [Lee Everett]

"Lee... I need this, Lee."

Lee ran a hand down his face as he let out a groan of frustration, pressing his back up against the fridge as he averted his gaze elsewhere. The man always kept things so bottled up, and Lee was convinced it'd never come out… until now. At this point, it didn't really matter what Lee was going to say… Joel was leaving anyway.

"Doesn't look like I have much of a choice." He sighed out in defeat, his gaze shifting to his feet. Instead of finishing what they'd set out to do, Joel was trying to shift the responsibility onto him of all people? It was already a struggle keeping Clementine safe out on the road, the realization that he might have to add a second life to that was only now starting to sink in.

"If you're really going through with this…" Lee trailed off, realizing there really was no other choice here… he couldn't stop Joel, the man was as stubborn as a mule when it came to doing things a certain way. It was simply out of his hands now, Joel had given him no choice but to accept; if he refused… he'd only be trying to delay the inevitable. "Jesus..." he murmured out softly, before a brief moment of silence followed.

"I'll do it. On one condition." He locked eyes with the man opposite him. "You tell her what's going on before you leave, because like hell I'm gonna be the one to pick up the pieces when the kid reali-" He paused, his speech being cut off by what he swore was the sound of a door being slammed in the other room, averting his gaze in the direction of the noise, then warily back to Joel. Was someone listening?

Kentucky [Joel]

Joel stared at Lee, waiting for any kind of mercy in the man. There was little for Joel, but it was there. He sighed in relief, the moment over as Lee said those three words he had been waiting for. "I'll do it."

He leaned against the counter, not even waiting for any good feeling to come to him. No relief, nothing of that manner were to really every come over him again. It was done, though, and that was all he could ask for. He didn't feel any better, but he didn't expect to. This wasn't a matter of what he wanted to do, this was a matter of what he had to do. He had always had trouble with letting go, and now was as good a time as any to do so.

He listened to Lee lecture him, expecting that as well. Lee was right of course, but if Joel would actually do it was up to him. "Who cares what the hell I tell her, she is the goddamn cure for-" The two's interpolating argument was cut off by the heavy door slam, shaking Joel to his very core. As Lee looked there and back at Joel again, the harsher of the two brushed past and towards the screen door, looking out to see nothing but the wind and the grass of Jackson. He let out a short breath, watching the screen door shut and open over and over again, stuck in the grasp of the breeze.

The gears in his mind started turning and he glanced up the stairs at the girl's bedroom. There was no sound. Normally the halls were filled with giggling or muffled speech, but now there was but an eerie silence.

"Goddammit." Joel swore, grabbing the revolver on the stand beside the door and stuffing it in his pants. "Lee, she's gone. She had to."

He had really fucked it this time.

Ledge [Lee Everett]

"For god's sake... She can't have gone far." Lee's hands instantly went behind his head. Nice one, Joel. It was on the tip of his tongue, he almost said it. The sight of that screen door rattling back and forth enough to send a rush of panic down his spine. Things were spiraling downhill fast, unlike Clem, Lee just didn't know what to expect from that girl… what if she had something reckless in mind?

"Maybe... we can ask-" He muttered towards Joel, cutting himself off as he rushed to the stairs, calling upwards towards their room at the only person that must've last seen her. "Clem!"

Art [Clementine]

Between the agglomerate of awesome things that day, the awesomest one of all had been the fact that Clem's left eye had gotten significantly less swollen. The bruise was still there, and it was ugly, but it definitely didn't hurt as much. The same couldn't be said about the cuts in her cheek, painful stings that came and went when she least expected it, particularly when it came time to switch the bandages. During the minutes that followed since Ellie left, the girl had been checking herself in the mirror, poking the black eye as though that was meant to help it heal faster. She was so sick of looking like some freaky monster every morning…

"Clem!" Someone shouted from out of the blue, the urgency in the person's voice causing her shoulders to bounce up in surprise, and the girl to accidentally poke her own eye. Ow, fuck!

"C - Coming!" She yelled back, rushing downstairs as soon as that purple blob in her face stopped tearing up. Not that it was Lee's fault, but whatever it was, it'd better be important.

By the time she did reach him, Clementine knew something was off. Not only did Lee look a little shaken… he looked like he was trying to hide it. The girl tried not to make a fuss of it, asking the first thing that came to mind, given how late it was. "What? Is dinner ready?"

Ledge [Lee Everett]

Luckily, a response. Clementine came bounding over at the sound of his voice, which probably came off a tad more panicked than he'd intended. Joel was already packing his things to go after her, presumably for the possibility that she wasn't within the walls. "Listen, Ellie's just run off. Did she tell you where she was going?" It was a shot in the dark, but there was a slim chance she might've said something, anything to give them a lead on where she was headed.

Art [Clementine]

To say she was just taken aback would've been wishful thinking. She thought… no, Clementine knew for sure Ellie only went downstairs to grab some of the leftover cake, and that wasn't even... "W - What do you mean she 'ran off'?" The girl questioned with widened eyes, her heart pounding like crazy at the thought, getting more and more restless the longer she spent trying to reconstruct the whole thing in her head. They were playing that board game, and she left for just a sec, that was it! There's no way she would- Why would Ellie…? "She was just here a minute ago."

Clem's head bounced left and right, eyes scanning around the house helplessly in search of her friend. Where the fuck was she?! Her brows furrowed in a fit of panic and the girl raised her voice, Lee's lack of response making her face turn pale. "Lee, she was just here!"

Ledge [Lee Everett]

"Shit." His hands went to his hips as he began to pace for a moment, looking at his feet as he tried to formulate some kind of approach. Nothing was working in his mind, so he guessed they'd just have to do this the old-fashioned way. He heard Joel curse behind him as Clementine delivered the news that confirmed what they'd thought, she must've been listening in. The other man was already making a beeline for the door leading out to the street, and they had to follow. "Alright c'mon, we need to help Joel find her."

Dot [Ellie]

Ellie's breathing was in ragged, short breaths, only accentuating the pain in her legs from sprinting across the community. She'd been lucky so far, having managed to take streets devoid of other survivors that'd try to stop her. Not that she'd let them. She was getting out of here, one way or another.

Even if it was just for a minute to breathe.

The stables near the town square came into view as she turned onto the main thoroughfare, slowing down to a brisk walk. People milled about the square in packs, some heading for stores nearby to buy goods, while others seemed more interested in catching up with their neighbors while sitting on park benches. Ellie avoided their gazes, making her way through the plaza without moving her gaze away from the stables at the far end.

She let out a heavy breath when she finally made it, quickly searching the area to make sure no one was inside to stop her from stealing a horse. It seemed that whoever usually took care of them were gone for the moment. Good. She opened up the first pen she could find, taking in a deep breath as the horse met her gaze.

Its hair was a caramel brown, with streaks of white surrounding its muzzle and backside. It was the same horse that she rode here from the dam, a week ago. It looked towards her, letting out a panicked whinny at her sudden appearance. She slowly reached out for its muzzle, trying desperately to keep her voice calm and quiet.

"Hey boy… remember me?" The horse whinnied in response, though much calmer than before. Ellie took a single step forward, slowly closing the gap between them, before finally making contact with its coat. "I just need to go out for a ride, okay? Do you like the sound of that?" It let out a sound that sounded like a snort, and Ellie smiled. "Good. Alright, I'm just – gonna…" She quickly grabbed a saddle from where it sat in between the stalls, grunting from the exertion as she lifted it onto the horses back and fumbled with the mechanism to fasten it. "Alright, there we go. Now to just..." She grunted as she placed her foot into the stirrup, struggling to climb onto its back before finally settling in the saddle.

She gently urged it forward, out of the stall and onto the street beyond. No sudden cries reached her ears, so she hadn't been noticed yet.

It was a short gallop to the gate, Ellie squinting to make out the figures standing near it. The gate had been opened to allow a group of scavengers in, all eyes facing towards the group as they checked in with the guards at the gate. Ellie urged the horse into a full sprint, hooves clapping against the concrete loudly as she approached. By the time they noticed her, she was already seconds away from galloping past them.

An incredulous "hey!" followed her as she swerved past them and out the gate, following the path away from Jackson.