2:36 PM - October 30, 2025 - Store inside abandoned mall
Dot [Ellie]
Ellie's arms felt like jelly. Her nose frozen solid, and her breathing was in rampant, irregular rhythms. Snow was already piling around them as she and Clementine dragged Joel through the streets away from the University of Eastern Colorado. By the time the mall had come into view, the snow was deep enough to force them to take breaks, using their horses to drag him the rest of the way.
Once inside, Ellie tore the first store they came across apart, drawer by drawer, cursing after each one. Clementine was nearby, watching over Joel, the tension in the air thicker than blood as Joel's fate hung in the balance. When the final drawer gifted her a roll of duct tape, she let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, here we go…!"
She rushed back towards Joel, dropping to her knees as she exchanged a passing glance towards Clementine. "Okay, I'm gonna put you on your side…!" She directed the statement towards Joel, waving over Clementine. "C'mon!"
Together, they managed to get him onto his side, and Ellie pulled up his shirt, cringing at the sight of the wound left behind by the rebar. "Jesus…" she breathed, cursing underneath her breath as she reached into her backpack, pulling the old red shirt she used to wear, covering the wound with it. Her fingers were stained just as red, the blood from Joel's wound continuing to ooze out slowly. Hopefully, this would stop that. For now.
"Alright, hold it in place," she told Clem, the sound of tape peeling echoing in the store as she pulled it, ripping it off with her teeth. The taste was rancid, but it hardly mattered right now. After she'd laid down three rows of the tape, she finally tried to calm her breathing, a soft "okay…" escaping her lips as she lowered Joel's jacket and helped Clementine roll him back onto his back. Joel grunted. She looked towards Clementine then, a mixture of relief and gratitude etched across her face. "That should buy us some time. We'll need to find something to stitch him up."
He wasn't going to die. He wasn't.
Art [Clementine]
While Ellie searched, tore her way through each store, Clementine could only look over the shop windows in a state of contemplation, watching as her sunken eyes were reflected right back at her. Dirt covered every inch of her face, complementing the empty, hollow stare she gave off.
This. Trying to keep Joel from turning into another one in that endless list. Clem figured it was the only reason she was still functioning.
They eventually settled on an empty store enclosed by this large shutter. It was warmer inside, at least, if only by just a little. Dark and crummy. It was the best they could find, so it'd have to do.
When it came to things like this, there was always a worse part. Seeing the wound oozing with blood, patching it up, doing the stitches... having to watch the person scream out in pain. There wasn't one, that time. Just one chunk of bad all blended together, nothing but more suffering waiting on the other side. Clementine did nothing but follow whatever Ellie asked her to, unresponsive to her very core. Not even the sight of Joel's insides threatening to come out could make the girl flinch. It was hard to really... react to anything, at that point, negatively or otherwise. Even Joel looked like less of a corpse.
He wasn't going to make it through the night. They probably had a few hours tops, actually. Ellie must've known. It was all over her face that she did. "Ellie, I..." There was nothing to say. Nothing she could've said to make it better. Nothing Clementine wanted to say, despite the circumstances. Anything that didn't get straight to the point was just wasting the brief window of time they had.
"We could look for a drugstore? There's gotta be one, somewhere..." Of course, with Lee casting his shadow over every corner of her mind, it was bound to be a thought she'd run into face-first.
Hard not to, when he died because of her.
Dot [Ellie]
She locked her gaze on Clementine as the girl spoke, suggesting that they find a pharmacy. Ellie breathed in and out, nodding her head in a quick jerk due to the adrenaline pumping through her veins. She pushed herself to her feet, looking towards their two horses standing in the far corner of the empty store.
"Callus, Whiskers, keep an eye on him."
Another look towards Clementine, though this one lingered. Through all the panic she was wading through, she knew that Clementine must've been going through something… a hundred times worse. Because of her. A small part of her wanted to believe that Lee was still out there, alive, but she found herself unable to.
What was she supposed to do? Let Joel die? How could she make a choice like that? Choosing between two evils?
She hated herself for it.
Sighing, she stepped past the girl, heading for the metal gate they'd closed when they arrived, lifting it slowly before holding it high enough for her and Clementine to fit through.
Once the baseball-capped girl ducked under, she directed her eyes towards Joel. Her words were quick, and she lowered the gate soon after. "We'll be back in a flash…!"
The atrium that surrounded them was bitter cold, snow piling underneath a broken window dozens of feet above them. Ellie adjusted the bow that was wrapped over her shoulder merely to have something to do with her hands that wasn't just wringing them together nervously.
They began to explore the mall together, heading upstairs and into a narrower corridor of clothes shops and toy stores. Besides the howl of the wind, silence filled the air.
She wanted to break the silence, to say something, but what could she say that would make up for the fact that Lee was most likely dead? Not a single fucking thing. Nothing that could possibly come to mind would be good enough. Clementine deserved better, and Ellie simply couldn't… give her that.
So the silence stayed, at least for now. She hated every second of it, but tried to focus herself on the task at hand. They still had to save Joel.
Art [Clementine]
The snow made every corner look identical, every old store look like the same abandoned wreck. Had it not been for Ellie leading the way, Clem could've easily seen herself getting lost between all those loud advertisements and rows of white tiles brimming with overgrowth. Signs written in large letters, price tags... nothing but fancy stuff trying to sell them on more fancy stuff that didn't exist anymore.
And not a single fucking pharmacy in sight.
She didn't know, couldn't even tell what and how to feel anymore. Angry? At Ellie, for leaving him behind? At Joel, for not being around to help? It was all bullshit. The only person she hated after what happened was herself.
Now there she was, stumbling around more aimlessly than a clicker in the dark, trying so desperately to hold onto something that'd keep her from giving up completely. A moving husk. Clementine couldn't lift something like her rifle even if she tried, having left it behind with Joel and the horses. She was as good as deadweight, looking for someone else to sink with her. Ellie would've been better off if she just rolled over and died already. At least that way she wouldn't be there to get her killed, too.
Those soft snowflakes fell upon the tip of her baseball cap, melting into drops of water, joining the puddles forming on the ground, running down her arms and making her hands shiver. It wasn't supposed to be that cold inside a place like that, was it? God, she was freezing. Every single gust of wind would sneak through the holes in her jacket, snow piling up inside every tatter.
Focus...!
A lot of places did catch her eye, even with all of'em looking so strange and samey. Hell, the fact that they did played a big part in it, actually. There was one called...Something, something's 'Garage.' Hard as hell to make out the words with all that muck on top of them. Clem couldn't be bothered. It looked like a clothing store, though that's about all she could tell. They ended up crossing through it, using it as a shortcut, keeping a close eye out for any maps, or anything of the sort. The idea came to mind pretty fast, all things considered. Between all the things that could kill them before the sun went down, at least the cold didn't have to be one of them. Reaching for the piles on top of piles of leftover duds, Clementine snagged two pieces of clothing rather haphazardly, only concerning herself with whether or not they could fit in them. A green-tinted coat and a light-blue biker jacket, one for Ellie and one for her. It might've been bearable right now, but they were gonna need something heavy to make it through winter. If they did. "Here," she said as a heads up, tossing one to her friend before silently moving on, not another word spoken.
She watched as Ellie grabbed herself a pair of boots, stashing her sneakers away in her backpack. She guessed that it was better than slipping around everywhere.
Once past the store, on the other side of the mall, things started looking up, if only marginally. 'Weston's Pharmacy,' it read. Their only possible shot at saving Joel, at that point. "See it? Looks doable."
Dot [Ellie]
Weston's Pharmacy. A sense of relief began to wash over Ellie as Clementine pointed out the store down the hallway. "Sounds promising," she muttered, rushing towards the store.
The metal gate was lifted just high enough for them to be able to crawl through, kept in place by overturned shelves positioned underneath it. Ellie ducked through, squinting her eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness before flicking on her flashlight.
They searched through the store for a while, finding nothing of note. Empty pill bottles, useless junk; nothing they could use. That, however, came to an end as Ellie's flashlight crossed over a sign next to a blue door behind the register counter.
PHARMACY EMPLOYEES ONLY
She tried the door, the handle clicking useless. "Ah, come on," she hissed, cursing under her breath as she stood on her toes to look through the glass window in the door. A white and red box caught her sight, left on the ground in the cluttered room. "First aid kit…" She turned back towards Clementine, her brows knitted into a look of impatience and frustration. How the fuck do we get inside? "Any ideas?" There's gotta be a key around here somewhere, right?
Art [Clementine]
Nothing was ever easy. They searched that place from top to bottom, and even despite the dark having made looking for medicine way more challenging that it should've for Clem, it didn't take a flashlight to tell that they were boned. Figures. The girl's mind immediately tried to come up with what they were going to do next, crossing ideas off from an imaginary bullet list. Worst case scenario... they could try searching outside the mall? Clementine could feel the urge to smash her fist against the counter boiling up like water mounted over a stove. "Fuck!"
Ellie, though, she did find something. Just what they were looking for locked behind a door, because of course it was. The girl kept her cool, at least for now, spelling out the one idea she had by knocking on the glass. Sturdy, sure. Breakable sturdy?
Worth a shot.
Clem went down on one knee, extending her arms to boost Ellie up. "Make it quick, okay?"
Dot [Ellie]
Ellie's gaze bounced between Clementine and the the window, a frown etching its way across her face. It was narrow, probably too narrow, but what other choice did they have? Sighing, she quickly searched around her for something to break the window with, finding a pile of bricks in a corner near the other side of the store. She grabbed one, jogging back to where Clementine awaited her.
"Okay… cover your eyes," she told her friend, pulling back her hand to throw the brick as hard as she could at the window. The glass shattered instantly upon contact, the brick sailing through the gap before hitting the wall on the other side of the locked room. The sound echoed in the cramped space, and she inwardly winced. Hopefully this place was as clear as it first appeared to be.
She grabbed her knife to scrape the rest of the glass shards off of the frame, placing her foot in Clem's cupped hands to be lifted into the hole. Her hands and head squeezed through first, and she placed her hands against the other side of the door to leverage herself the rest of the way through.
That was… until she'd reached halfway through the window, her progress halted around the lower half of her stomach. She tried to push herself forward again, to no avail. The jacket she was wearing had only made things worse, it seemed, making her too large to fit through.
Fuck. Fuck, god, fucking…
"I'm - I'm stuck!" She called out to the girl on the other side, who seemed to still have a grip on her legs. There were a dozen things running through her mind, chief among them being panic and embarrassment.
Art [Clementine]
Clem closed her eyes just as Ellie asked, only getting to hear the outcome of what followed, as the window cracked into pieces above her. A good sign, for once. Making sure she had a solid grip on Ellie's shoe, the next part was meant to be simple. Lift her up, get her to the other side, grab the kit. Easy, right?
"You're stuck?!" Clementine asked, scared stiff, like she couldn't believe what she'd just heard. What do I do...? Clem reached her hands around Ellie's ankles in a rush, frowning, before that glower turned into a sneer. "S - Should I push or pull? Ellie?"
The other girl didn't get to answer.
Violent screeches engulfed the mall in loud echoes, reaching the pharmacy and reverberating through it as though they were powerful shockwaves, sending Clementine's head into haywire. No one alive could mistake those for anything else. They were fucked. "We gotta go. Ellie, fucking- Come on!" The girl bashed her shoulder against her, trying her hardest to get her through.
Dot [Ellie]
She could hear the croaking through the walls, a shiver running up her spine at the speed of light. She felt her legs fall as Clementine let her go, only for a sudden jolt of pain to force her to wince as Clem tried to force her through the window. She dropped her flashlight to the ground, watching as it rolled away before another forceful push against her finally managed to dislodge her.
"No, no no no no-!" Before she could react, her body fell forward, and she blocked her face with her arms before impact. Her body was met with the cold concrete, groaning as pain shot through her. "Uuugh…"
She slowly pushed herself to her knees, crawling to her flashlight before reaching over for the medkit. She clicked it open, her heart dropping as she took in the contents of the box.
Nothing.
"No…" She stood up, clenching her fists, resisting the urge to punch the nearest shelf out of frustration. Of course it would be empty. Of fucking course-! She kicked the box across the room, her attention then diverting to the only source of natural light in there. A broken window overlooking the balcony surrounding a courtyard below. More importantly, there was a helicopter crashed into the building, frozen in place where it landed on the second floor, almost teetering off the edge. Another red and white cross was marked on it.
They had to get there before the infected showed up.
She twisted around, heading towards the door she'd just came through, unlocking it before pulling it open. "Come on!" She hissed the command, grabbing Clem's hand before pulling her inside, locking the door behind her. At least that'd keep the infected from getting to them, if they made it into the pharmacy. She pointed towards the broken window, directing Clem's attention towards their next destination. "Military helicopter. It's gotta have something."
Art [Clementine]
Ellie sure took her sweet time in there, and the clickers just around the corner absolutely did not. Those things ran into the walls, flailing their arms while letting out ear-splitting roars, until they eventually came across the pharmacy they were bunking in, eager to gnaw on the flesh of any bystanders. Clementine's first instinct was to hide behind the counter, though that quickly proved to be insufficient. The girl's sporadic breathing combined with the sound of the broken glass underneath the sole of her boots... It was just a matter of time, really.
The first one leaned its head forward in beast-like fashion, letting its saliva dribble out of its fleshy, bleeding teeth, right above Clementine. She acted fast, against her better judgment. Stretching her arms around the cash register fallen on her side of the counter, Clem quickly got up to her feet and smashed the clicker's head with it, the cha-ching sound it sprung forth sounding a lot more bittersweet this time around. The infected recovered quickly, now charging at her with full-speed. It was a good thing Ellie was there when she did, pulling her out of harm's way and locking the door behind them.
"Shit, that was..." Close. Quite a bit more than she was comfortable with. The infected did their thing, smashing themselves against the door, but thankfully it wouldn't lead them anywhere. Not for the time being, anyway. When it came to her and Ellie, there wasn't a lot left for them besides unmitigated disappointment and another baseless chase they could risk their lives on.
Steady on they went to their next gamble: a crashed helicopter verging on plunging down into the chain stores below. Honestly, Clem wasn't liking this at all. Ellie was... She was way too important to keep dragging herself into close calls like that. With Joel out of commission, it was just her. Just a little girl to keep the freaking cure in check. The responsibility would've crushed her shoulders, had it not been symbolic. Still, they had to help the old guy. That wasn't even up for debate.
Not like she could stop her anyway. Best Clementine could do was make sure she didn't hurt herself trying.
They got there, eventually. The helicopter creaked, the snow having long since accumulated on top of it. There was only one way up there. One far from steady platform. Only a few glass panes away from a deadly fall. Clem could feel vertigo getting to her bad, and it had the girl staring at her friend apprehensively, crossing one of her arms. "You sure you wanna do this?"
Dot [Ellie]
The bone-chilling clicking continued to echo through the atrium, even at this distance. Ellie examined the glass 'platform' to the helicopter carefully, lips twisting in thought. Itmight hold their weight. Maybe one of them. There's no real way to know for sure, and she wasn't willing to risk both of their lives trying to get inside the helicopter only for one of them to fall through the glass.
But they still had to make it there. No matter what.
Eyes faltered, towards Clementine, and she took a step back, away from the platform. She scrunched her nose, mentally chewing on her decision. "Don't think it's gonna hold us both. I'm going across. Just… stay here. I might need help getting back."
Art [Clementine]
Clementine could feel her brows inching closer to one another as the suggestion was made, her expression spelling out concern, not one syllable she found herself agreeing with. Given the set of affairs, frankly, she couldn't give less of a shit about the Fireflies and their stupid fucking cure. If Ellie went there and... that scrap of metal couldn't take it, fell apart like a house of playing cards? The thought made her heart stop. Completely. No way was she losing someone else that day, especially her.
"Ellie, listen..." Clem chose to be cautious about it, even as inflexible as she felt regarding that whole thing. It'd be just... the dumbest thing ever to pretend her best fucking friend didn't feel the same way. They were gonna have to find some sort of middle ground. "At least let me go first, yeah?" The girl counter-proposed, nothing but sorrow in her voice, one tiny bit of pressure away from straight out begging Ellie not to go. "That way, I mean- If it goes to shit..." It hit her, of course, how scared out of her mind she was. How high up that helicopter was. It did so hard enough, that she had to swallow the rest of her words. "You get it."
For Ellie, though, she'd go anywhere in the freaking world.
Dot [Ellie]
She should've seen that coming.
Of course Clementine wanted to put herself in harm's way for her. Under normal circumstances, Ellie might've been moved by that, but… the fact she was the cure didn't matter right now. All that mattered was making sure Joel lived. Fuck everything else.
"No." Her voice was more stern than she'd intended it to be, her head shaking from side to side of its own accord. "If that thing falls, I'm not - I'm not losing you, too." She took a step back, towards the glass platform.
A part of her knew that she wasn't thinking logically about this. That, out of everyone in their group, she was the least expendable, but she didn't care. Either she got a medkit from that helicopter, or their chances at getting to the Fireflies would be fucked anyway.
Art [Clementine]
Why was she always like this? It was one thing to want to help Joel, but this was plain crazy. They didn't even know if there was anything in there! The girl tried to think of something to say, something that'd get Ellie to change her mind, but there really wasn't a something, no magical set of words that'd get her to give up. In fact, part of her - the loudest one - was pretty convinced she wasn't talking the redhead out of it. It made her frustrated to no end, the girl's eyes trailing to the floor.
They were both too scared to let each other go through with it, weren't they...?
Clementine sighed through her nose, something resembling a pout forming on her lips, her hands rested on her hips. For once in her life... Clem wasn't going to fight Ellie on it. It sure wasn't an easy thing to consent to, and she felt pretty dumb for doing it. Then again, knowing Ellie... she should be counting her blessings over the fact that her friend hadn't already jumped just to prove a point, or to keep her from doing it first.
She looked her in the eye, 'cause that's all she could do at that point. Clem forced a smile through all that worry, asking Ellie the bare-minimum before she went ahead with the stupidest plan they've ever had.
"Promise me you won't die?"
Dot [Ellie]
Ellie closed her eyes as Clem's question settled in her mind, clenching her right hand into a fist before relaxing it. They both knew that she couldn't promise that. In anysituation. Nevertheless, she opened her eyes once more, letting her lips stretch into a genuine smile.
"I promise."
And she intended to keep it.
She turned towards the platform, taking each step towards it slowly before grabbing onto the ledge, pulling herself up and onto it. The glass crinkled underneath her feet, as if about to break at any moment. She let out a breath, a quiet "oh fuck" following suit. "Okay… be cool…" She took another step, then another, each one getting faster than the last as the glass made more and more noises.
She reached the other side after only a few seconds, eyes falling to the ground beneath her, way beneath her. She gulped down the fear, turning her body to walk along the metal rebar that extended towards the downed helicopter.
This was the hard part.
She gave herself a running start, leaping into the air. Her stomach dropped, and for an instant, the world around her became a blur, the ground quickly getting closer, before her feet found a solid surface. She fell to her hands and knees on the metal floor of the helicopter, breathing rampantly as adrenaline flooded her system. It was only exacerbated when the helicopter lurched to the side, colliding with an ornate pole that held up the roof over the second floor.
The crash echoed in her ears, leaving a ringing noise in its wake. She held onto a metal bar inside the helicopter, her feet dangling out of the opposite end of the aircraft.
Holy shit…!
She pulled herself deeper into the helicopter, taking a moment to wait and see if the aircraft would continue its plunge towards the ground. It remained in place, and she let out a sigh of relief.
Her eyes found the medkit in an instant, lying on the ground next to the skeletal remains of the co-pilot, and she scrambled towards it. She planted herself on the ground, desperately clicking the kit open to peer inside.
"Please be in here, please be in here…!"
Alcohol, a syringe, bandages, a suture, and a half dozen other things.
She closed the kit, holding it close to her chest, closing her eyes. This was going to save him. She wasn't going to-
"I'm not letting you go." She breathed. "I'm not letting you go…!"
It was harder getting out of the helicopter, but ultimately, she made it back to the ground level, clutching onto the medkit for dear life. When Clementine joined her, she rushed towards the baseball-capped girl, wrapping her arms around her in a tight embrace.
"Holy shit…" the words escaped her, how totally fucked that situation almost turned out to be finally weighing down on her. She'd been seconds away from dying, seconds away from losing her last chance at saving Joel…
Seconds away from leaving her best friend alone.
"... Never let me do that again, okay…?"
Art [Clementine]
That glass floor was a death-trap waiting to happen and they both knew it. Seeing it start to give in under Ellie's feet had her heart racing, every new fissure making it harder to keep watching. "Take it slow, you hear?" Clementine urged the girl from afar, dreading every second of Ellie's balancing act. Soon enough it came the time to make the jump, and by then, Clementine was already long past the point of saying stuff to cheer Ellie on. All she could do was cross her fingers and hope she didn't plunge to her death.
And even that wasn't enough.
The helicopter gave in to the weight in the matter of an instant. Clem's face went frozen pale, and she could only imagine that so had Ellie's. As awesome as it would've been to actually check on her first, by the time she heard the sound of screeching metal dragging across the snow, Clementine had already dashed to the other side of the mall, where after that nasty dive the helicopter now so precariously hung onto. Who knew for how long. She wasn't gonna wait to find out.
Everything seemed to work out in the end. Fucking barely. Ellie was crawling out of the helicopter when she got there, scared shitless. Both of them were... and that only made the hug easier to welcome. "You're too much of an asshole to listen anyway..." The girl uttered through a faint smile, hugging her back. That was the dumbest thing they'd ever done and she couldn't be happier about it being over and done with.
Clem let go pretty quick, the urgency of their situation not escaping her for even a moment. "Ready to go check on Joel?"
Dot [Ellie]
Ellie took a step back as they broke apart, responding to Clementine's question with a quick nod. Hopefully the way back wouldn't be as treacherous as the way here.
They continued through the mall in relative silence, though it wouldn't last long. Inside an old sports shop, they found at least a dozen dead bodies littering the place, their supplies left behind. Bites were evident on their necks and bodies, and Ellie quickly went to work on stabbing each one through the head before they'd search them. Last thing she wanted was for these things to turn into walkers before they got a chance to go through their stuff.
She couldn't tell if they were from the same group as before, but if they were , that meant they might've been trailing them. The very thought of those assholes being so close… it was unnerving. They had to get to Joel, and quickly.
These guys were carrying much more than Ellie had been expecting. She managed to scrounge together another four bullets for her pistol, while Clem found herself a couple bullets for her revolver. The biggest find, though, was a couple bags filled to the brim with food.
"Holy shit…" she breathed as she looked through one of the bags. There was just so much . How long were these guys planning to be out here that they were carrying around this much? Did they have a home somewhere? As long as they weren't close to it…
She grabbed the bag, stuffing the medkit inside before clutching its handle tightly. Clementine grabbed the other, and together they kept moving through the mall. Ellie let out a heavy breath as the store they'd left Joel in finally came back into view, dropping the bag next to the gate before lifting it for Clem to duck under. The girl held onto the gate next, allowing Ellie under before pulling the bag inside. When the gate closed, she turned her attention towards Joel's sleeping form, her breath shaky.
"Alright… let's get him back on his side." She grabbed the medkit from the bag before jogging towards him. When she kneeled, she glanced towards Clementine, worry lining her features. "...I don't… I haven't done this a lot… think you can stitch him up?"
She remembered how Clementine had to stitch up the dog bite on her arm, and found herself trusting her to do it better than Ellie ever could. She probably would've just made things worse...
Art [Clementine]
Corpses, like a whole jumble of dead bandits. It looked like those Clickers from before found something to keep them occupied. Good riddance. Cathartic was probably putting it lightly, considering, though it did feel pretty good to steal all of their shit. Looking over those assholes, she just wanted to obliterate every single one of them. Had Ellie not been there with her... Suffice to say, maybe it was a good thing that she was.
Back at Joel's, things weren't exactly looking up. All that blood he lost, it was gonna be a struggle and a half to keep him kicking. It wasn't something worth bringing up to Ellie, obviously. The least crap she had to deal with, the better. Sadly, that sort of thinking couldn't really go both ways.
Me? Clementine froze at the suggestion, despite it being more than its fair share of reasonable. That fleeting hope that she wouldn't have to look at... it again, that went down the drain pretty fast. She nodded quickly, shifting her focus towards her future patient. "Okay." No use wasting any time. The faster they stopped the bleeding, the better.
"We got any water?" She nudged her head in Ellie's direction, who made sure to fetch her some. "Thanks." She used it to rinse Joel's... injury? God, she didn't even know what to call it, and honestly? She was scared of looking at it too hard, worried of getting a peek at the guy's insides. Don't freak. It's just a hole. Just patching up a hole. It was hard not to get a little concerned over pouring that stuff over it. Water wasn't exactly clean. The wince in the girl's expression was somewhat hard to contain thanks to that. Sorry, Joel.
That was only part of the cleaning, though, and whatever challenge it kindled didn't hold a candle to what was about to follow. "Fuck, this is gonna..."
"Hang in there, Joel."
Clementine took from her backpack the cleanest rag she carried with her, which wasn't saying much. It didn't have any dirt in it, that was about it. Pouring a small bit of the antibiotic on its surface, she held up the wet rag, her hands starting to shake in foreboding. This isn't even the bad part... What is wrong with you? Get it together!
She applied it against Joel's wound, putting enough pressure behind it so that the injury could soak up every drop. She couldn't even imagine how bad it hurt. Like hell, probably. "You're doing good. You're... You're doing good." Clem repeated aloud, unsure if she was talking to Joel or to herself, really. After a minute or so, she threw the bloody rag away, shooting a brief look at Ellie before focusing her gaze back to Joel.
Fun was over. This was gonna be fucking awful.
Clementine started by pulling the needle and its thread out of the package inside the medkit. It looked brand new, or about as much as you could get to that nowadays. At least they wouldn't risk any sort of infection; the non-monster type, anyway.
"Elle, can you... hold him? I need someone to keep him steady." Her heart was pounding the ever-loving shit out of her chest, trying to dig its way out of her ribcage. Was this really okay? She was used to patching up cuts, not- "Okay, okay, okay, okay..." Clem whispered, this time undoubtedly to herself. One mess up and she'd seriously get him killed. Fucking up was out of the question. "Joel, if you're- If you're there, just..."
"...I need you not to make too much noise, alright? I'll be as quick as I can, I swear."
Clem took a bite out of the needle thread. Next, lowering it and puncturing the side of Joel's wound. Blood leaked out like crazy, but Clem kept her shit together. She fucking owed it to Joel. The needle went through the skin and punctured the other side, before being wrapped around the bloody hole for a follow-up. Her hands were soaked by the third time through, though sadly, that was a flimsy excuse to stop. One puncture after the next, she went on, the girl's teeth practically glued together.
You better not fucking die after this...
It was done, finally. Not her best work, not by a mile. It looked pretty horrible, but at least the stitches would hold up fine. That was probably the thing to go for, even if it wasn't a looker. Scar's gonna be awful, though. The girl wrapped the bandages from the kit around the wound, ensuring nothing could poke or sneak into that gaping hole of his. "I - I'm done," Clem announced in what was hardly more than a whimper, letting out the longest breath in her whole life. "I think he'll be fine. No idea when he'll wake up, but..."
"God, I hope he makes it."
Dot [Ellie]
Ellie could only watch uselessly as Clementine worked to save Joel's life, only helping when the baseball-capped girl requested her to do something. The pain written across Joel's face made it difficult to watch, but she forced herself to. She wanted to make sure he'd be okay, to see that he would be with her own eyes.
The process seemed to take forever. She nearly fell to the ground when it was finished, every ounce of adrenaline that she'd been holding on to being released all at once. For now, he was going to live.
He was going to live.
She kept herself on her knees, looking towards Clem with a mixture of relief and gratitude. Despite everything that… everything that Ellie ended up causing to happen, the girl had put that aside to save Joel. She admired her for it. To keep going when her entire world was left in disarray. She still wasn't sure what to say about it… or if she shouldsay anything.
How do you apologize for leaving your best friend's 'dad' for dead?
She closed her eyes, ridding herself of the thought. Right now wasn't the time. Right now, she owed Clementine something much greater.
"Thank you, Clem," she spoke in a quiet, almost somber voice. "You don't know how much... everything you've done means to me."
With those words uttered, she lifted herself off of the ground, checking on Callus and Whiskers. The whole ordeal seemed to have spooked them, but Callus responded to her with a gentle nudge as she tried to run a hand over his muzzle.
In a way, they had both been spooked. Terrified of a situation outside of their control. There was something strange about being able to relate to a horse .
With Joel taken care of, they eventually came to the conclusion of staying the night inside the store. Come morning, they'd find somewhere warmer to set up camp. She only hoped that Joel would be awake by then.