Chapter 13

Joel took a brief look at the girl's face before lifting the leg of the jeans as carefully as he could.
"Shit" Ellie mumbled as the jeans scratched the spot. After he saw the issue, he was rather relieved.
"It's just a spiderbite" Joel announced, nodding once while checking it. Ellie smiled briefly, reaching the leg of her jeans to put it down.
"Great! Only a spiderbite.. " she repeated, trying to pull down her jeans. Joel had only lifted it a bit above the ankle, but he got a feeling that Ellie was hiding something. As the smaller hands reached his, he didn't budge. There was still something strange in her behaviour, and she didn't seen normal.
"Wait" he said, and her arms stopped. She looked at him while he looked at her, and they both stopped for a while.
"Let me have a look at the rest of the leg" he said just a second before doing it, and Ellie was clearly objecting.
"No, you don't need to..." she tried to convince him, but he had already lifted the cloth.
His eyes widened, and he got the feeling that he had been tricked.
"What are all these?" he asked, as he saw the huge amount of bruises with different shades of blue and violet, all the way to the healing yellow. The most worrying thing was that it was only her leg. How bruised was she overall?
Ellie looked disappointed, slowly pulling her leg away from him. Joel didn't loosen his grip right yet, as he was still going through the damage she had suffered. After a short while of shaking his head, he let her put the leg back down, as she probably had nothing else to hide.
Joel lifted his eyes to meet hers, she didn't answer the gaze.
"Maybe we should talk" Ellie admitted, nodding a few times with a strange look on her face. Joel still stared her while slowly getting up from the floor.
"We sure as hell should" he whispered, standing in front of her with a serious look in his eyes. Ellie still didn't want to turn to see him, but she knew she had to at some point.
"They aren't all new" she said, crossing her arms while a bit nervous. She pushed herself a bit further away from the edge of the bed, pulling her legs on top of it. The fact that Joel was tall and standing right in front of her made her uncomfortable while she thought about what she would say and how. Joel looked at her for a good while, as a huge wave of thoughts leapt through his mind. She was brave, but greatly ashamed. Maybe he hasn't showed that he cared enough to listen. Or maybe she just didn't trust him. The truth probably lied somewhere behind his strict attitude.

"What do you mean by that?" he inquired, taking a step back. There was an armchair right behind him, and he slowly sat on it while looking at the girl.
"Most of the healing ones are from David and his pals. Not that those bastards hadn't given their own effort to it" she almost whispered towards the end, turning her head to the direction of the village. Even though it was far away, she could sense it's presence in her bones. Maybe it was Andy who sent those chills.
"I thought that bastard only broke your rib or somethin'" Joel frowned his face, leaning forwards. He searched the girl's face, and it showed more emotion than ever before.
"It ain't just your leg, I assume?" he continued, as it was obvious that the rest of her body would look quite the same. Her black eye was no longer black, but a bit yellow as it had almost healed. Maybe the cold air was good for a pack of ice.
"Well, I broke his finger for fucking touching me" she burst out, still thinking about the moment when she woke up in the cell. She ignored the second sentence by only answering the first one.
"And by touching you mean the hits, right?" Joel inquired again, getting real angry at the guy. Even though Ellie had told that Frank and his pals didn't do it to her, she hadn't said anything about her time at David's. He had known that David captured her, but he hadn't known about the rest before now. Ellie smashing his face with a knife couldn't mean any good, but the fact that he didn't know had kept him less angry at him. Not that beating a little girl wouldn't make him angry enough.
Ellie doubted, putting her face back down while thinking.
"I don't know what that creep was gonna do, but he laid his hands on mine and claimed I was 'special'. Hmph" she muttered, nodding a few times. Joel instead shook his head, getting up from the armchair with his teeth bitten together. Suddenly all the hate he had felt towards Andy was back, and he took some quick steps towards the door. Ellie quickly got up and grabbed the tail of his shirt. He stopped and turned.
"Joel, don't lay this on Andy. He's as innocent as you are"
He could not argue with that, although he truly wanted. He bit his teeth together for another while, putting his face down. After a moment of silence, he had to give in.
"I hate the fact that you're right" he answered, sighing out while closing his eyes for a moment. He was already holding his hand on his waist to reach for the gun, but he released it as the girl backed down. He also realized that the gun was on the table, and it probably should stay there for the rest of the night.

After they sat back down, Ellie told about everything she had experienced while Joel was lying in the basement. Knowing how the story would end, every thing that David had done through the story made him even angrier at him. She told about the deer hunting, how they tracked them down and how Callus got shot and she had to escape by foot. She told how she almost got away, but later on got caught by David. She also told about biting David when the other option would've been to make their next dinner a la Ellie.
"Damn, you really aren't scared of anything" Joel commented in the middle of her story. As she ignored it, he stayed silent for the rest of the way.
When she got to the part where she was struggling to grab the knife from under the table in the restaurant, she also told about what David had said to her: you have no idea what I'm capable of. She didn't want to know what he meant by that, and luckily she didn't have to.

"That is so typical of them" Joel started with disgust, showing it with his face. He had moved next to her, and they both sat on top of the mattress, staring at their hands. It was a while after Ellie had finished the story.
"Typical of who?" Ellie asked, frowning her face a bit. She slowly turned her head to see him, and more than anything, she saw hate in his face.
"Uh, these... sick psychos. Even before the hell broke loose, there were a ton of these crooks who spent their days trying to get a kid to... oh hell" Joel started explaining, shaking his head. He didn't want to say any those things out loud to her, but Ellie knew what he meant. She didn't look too surprised as she turned her head back to her hands. I guess she knew what David had meant with "special", and Joel for sure knew what his pal had meant with the word "pet".
It was silent for a long period of time, and Joel was still trying to clear up the things he had just heard. He had heard about her time with David, and her treatment in the hands of those hunters in the village, and his head was stuck in just one thought: what would have happened if he had chose differently? If he hadn't dropped down from the second floor at the school? What if they had walked just a bit further instead of staying in the village for the night? What if he had not laid his hands on the girl when the hunters told him to do so? During all these thoughts, he didn't even think of comforting the girl. He wasn't exactly a pro in making people feel better, and he didn't get any training that moment, either.
"Joel?" she suddenly started with a very quiet voice. Joel awoke from his thoughts, lifting his eyebrows a bit.
"Yeah?"
"Do you... I mean... If we were like..." Ellie continued uncertainly, and Joel started questioning whether even she knew what she was talking about. Since she couldn't come up with a clear sentence, Joel turned his head to see her. They both had been quiet for a long while, and the subject had probably changed.
"Excuse me?"
"Uh... nothing" she shook her head as she could feel his gaze in her neck. She felt a bit odd for even thinking of it, and turned her head back at her hands after a bit of wondering.
"Ellie, I thought we had enough of the secrets?" Joel encouraged her to tell, and she immediately knew how bad it would be to keep it to herself. She started thinking about a way to say it out loud, but it was hard. Joel wasn't the perfect person to share these things with, but she had no one other she could trust.
"Okay" she started, lifting her eyes to meet the wall in front of her. Instead of looking at Joel, she seemed to stare at the possibilities she had.
"If the world was... normal, how old would you... like.. ". She faded out again.
"Okay, what are ya trying to say there?" Joel asked again. Even if he hadn't interrupted her, she probably would've paused anyway. Joel got the feeling that her uncertainty was caused by her being too afraid of asking about his past. He was right.
"How old were you when you first time... you know.. " Ellie finally asked. It wasn't crystal clear, but Joel knew what she meant. He lifted his eyebrows, looking at the girl for a while. He was not prepared for that. Thankfully the discussion of David and the others was long gone, and this probably had nothing to do with that.
"I um.. " he started wondering, putting his head down for a while.
It was normal. Ellie had no-one else to talk about these things with. Maybe Maria back in Jackson, but it'd probably be a year before she would see her again. That was way too long for a teenager with her questions.
"I guess I was too young" he answered after thinking it through. Since Sarah had died so young, he had not experienced this kind of conversation before. Joel turned his head to see Ellie again, but she clearly wasn't satisfied with his answer.
"How young?" she inquired, finally turning her head to see him. Their eyes met, and Joel felt odd. He didn't want to tell her that he had been about her age when he first did it, since it would probably encourage her to it. He had been too young, but it didn't mean that she'd have to be.
"The longer you wait, the better" he answered with something in his throat. Ellie seemed to notice how he reacted, and sneered at him as he turned his eyes away. As she had burst out the question, she was more free to talk the way she had been wanting to talk the whole time.
"C'mon Joel. Why are you being all paternal? Even though the others don't know it, I ain't your kid. You don't have to worry about me" she said with a voice a bit more quiet than before. They couldn't be sure whether Andy was awake or not.
"But I do" he said before thinking. Ellie stopped as Joel laid his eyes on her, and her curiosity calmed down a bit. After a very short while of looking at each other, Joel turned his eyes to the wall a few metres ahead of them. He had said it.