The east wing of the hospital burns like a candle. A couple of well placed bombs by the oxygen tanks will do that. Most of the Fireflies are evacuating or congregated over there trying to fight the flames. Only the Special Forces are still looking for Joel, but there are a lot of those.
He staggers up the final flight of stairs and takes shelter behind the heavy desk at the nursing station. His thigh bleeds sluggishly - victim of Private Hernandez's switch blade. She'd fought like hell, for a woman with a shotgun hole in her belly. He presses a rag against it and wraps it tight with duct tape. No point in looking back now.
Through the windows, he can see the operating room at the far end of the hall, opposite the clean room that was Ellie's prison for so long. It glows with harsh, artificial light. Good. He was worried they'd have moved her when the other side of the building went up five minutes ago. The long hallway leading there is brightly lit and staged as a kill box with countless sandbags and crates giving the Fireflies cover. But, they'd neglected to pay the same attention to fortifying the long row of offices and exam rooms adjoining that hallway, and the broken windows between them give him plenty of room to work. There's no time for thought as he skitters from one cover point to the next, picking off soldiers with his arrows or luring them to blast at close range with his shotgun or slipping behind them to drive a shiv into their throats. He trusts his instincts and a lifetime of unfortunate experience and, save for a few bullet grazes and bruising hits from a lead pipe, it's mostly enough. Sooner than he expected, the last guard is falling to his shiv with a whimper, and all that's left is the swinging metal door of the operating room. He reloads his revolver, gathers himself, and shoves through, praying he'll be in time.
He's in time. Barely. Anderson and two nurses are already gowned and gloved and focused on spreading out a table of gleaming surgical instruments. And Ellie . . . she sits upright in a steel chair that reminds Joel strongly of the electric chair. Even the peach fuzz has been shaved from her head, leaving her scalp smooth and gleaming, threaded through with blue veins. A series of metal rods extend from her head to lock it to a steel ring like a halo. The rods go right through the skin. One of them bleeds sluggishly. A breathing tube sticks out the side of her mouth, connected to a respirator that hisses and whirs. But, she's alive.
Jerry spins when he hears the door and freezes when he sees Joel. "All that chaos outside . . . I was afraid it was you."
Joel wets his lips and keeps his voice steady. "Back away from her."
Anderson stands his ground. "Anybody dead out there?"
Joel advances a step and cocks the hammer on the revolver. "Fewer than there will be unless you back away from that table right now." He keeps his voice icy. This part has always been easy. There's no room for emotion in survival.
Jerry waves for the nurses to step back. He raises his own hands, but keeps his voice calm. "Think about what you're doing, Joel. This is what she wants. She told you so herself."
"She told me she wanted this to end. Same thing I've been wanting for weeks. But, it was never enough for you, was it?"
"Joel . . . we won't get another chance at this. This could be what saves all of us."
"How many times have you said that? How many times have you believed it? Just one more test, one more trial, one more dead subject and all the rest of 'em will be worth it, right? I think you've been sayin' that since long before Ellie." Anderson opens his mouth to reply, but Joel snaps a warning shot over his left shoulder, silencing him. "Now, I didn't come here to debate. I came for the girl."
Keeping his eyes on Anderson and the other two, he steps close to the table and fumbles with one hand, trying to find the connection that would release the breathing tube.
"You do that, you'll kill her!" Jerry's voice is suddenly frantic. Joel lifts his head and arches an eyebrow. The doctor draws a quick breath and goes on. "Pull that tube out the wrong way and you could rip her throat apart. That halo? It's anchored into her skull, and you don't know how to release it. But, none of that matters because if you take her off that machine, she'll die. The anesthesia has already kicked in. She can't breathe on her own."
Joel's breath comes quick and sharp. "Then, you're gonna fix it."
Jerry shakes his head, though his face is sheet white. "No. I know you don't like it, but this has to happen."
With his free hand, Joel swings the steel pipe down from his shoulder. "I got ways of making you. You won't enjoy them, and neither will they." He gestures at the two women pressed against the wall, shaking in their scrubs.
Anderson's face is grim. Resolute. He's going to make Joel do it the hard way and Joel's stomach is already sinking when a distant voice changes everything.
"Dad? Dad!"
Next comes the horrified scream of a teenage girl who just stumbled upon a hallway stocked with dead bodies, then the light thud of a single pair of running feet down the corridor. Joel locks eyes with Jerry. In that moment, they both know what's coming next. They're both fathers. Joel has just a moment to think God, no, anything but this. But he doesn't get to choose his battles, or how he survives them.
Jerry drops his hands and shakes his head in wordless plea, but Joel is already moving back, sliding into concealment beside the door.
When Abby bursts into the operating room, the pipe clangs down hard on her forearms, knocking the machine gun she's carrying to the ground. She screams and turns to fight, but before she can get her bearings, Joel is behind her with his arm locked around her throat. She screams again, and kicks, and struggles, but her teenage muscles are no match for his bulk. She claws desperately at his face, scratching at his eyes, so he tightens his arm against her carotid until she starts to go weak and woozy. He releases the pressure as soon as she starts to relax and speaks, his voice low and steady. "Easy, girl. I'm not gonna hurt you. Least not as long as your dad does as he's told."
She recognizes his voice and stiffens. Her eyes finally take in the bright operating room, her father back against the wall, Ellie strapped to the chair in that nightmarish contraption. "Oh, god," she pants, "Oh, god . . ." Her head thuds against Joel's collarbone as she looks up at her father. "I'm sorry!" she cries, "They wouldn't tell me what was going on, they told me not to come, but the building was on fire and I had to get you out, I'm . . . sorry!"
Jerry is gasping for breath, but he tries to steady his voice for his daughter. "It's okay, baby girl."
"What . . . what is this? Dad, what did you do?"
"Don't worry about that now." His eyes find Joel's. "Don't do this. She's just a kid."
"Yeah," Joel says flatly, "She is." Before he can second-guess himself, he shoves the revolver against her cheekbone. "She's a little girl. An innocent. But, what's one little girl against the fate of the whole world, right? That's what you said." He digs the gun harder into her face, drawing a cry from her. "Prove it."
Joel sees the moment when he breaks. Abby sees it too, and she fights and kicks. Joel tightens his grip, hurrying to subdue her before her struggles can cause an accidental shot. "Dad, no! He'll kill you!" She gasps past the pressure on her throat.
"Get her off that machine," Joel tells Jerry steadily, "Safely. And your girl gets to walk away."
The doctor's hands are shaking. He nods and reaches slowly behind him to lift a plastic vial and syringe. He draws a small dose, steps forward, and slides the needle into Ellie's IV. Joel's breath catches. "Anderson, if you cross me, I will not hesitate."
Jerry holds out his hands, placating. "This will restart her breathing. That's all. I swear."
Joel nods and tries to keep his heart from thudding right out of his chest as Anderson depresses the plunger, injecting the medication. For a moment, nothing happens. Then, the EKG starts beating a little faster. Anderson is unscrewing the halo, one cruel rod at a time. When the last one releases, he lowers Ellie's head gently to the back of the chair. Her chest stutters once . . . then twice, fighting the ventilator, making the machines beep in alarm. Ignoring the breathing tube for the moment, Jerry tugs the EKG leads off her chest and Joel has to stop himself from reacting when the monitor rings out the dull tone of a flat line. Joel's arm shifts a little, from wrapping across Abby's throat to squeezing her shoulder. With slow but steady hands, Jerry pulls back on a syringe and then pulls the tube out of Ellie's throat, shining with saliva and foam. She grunts a little and takes a few short breaths. For good measure, the doctor detaches her IV and rubs a little alcohol over the injection site. He looks up at Joel and nods, defeated.
Abby pants. "Not like this, not like this . . ."
Joel gestures to one of the nurses. "You. Over here." She obeys, her hands held at shoulder height, her whole body trembling. When she's a few feet away, Joel shoves Abby at her, hard enough to topple both of them to the ground. Abby comes up with tears streaming down her face.
"No . . . not like this, not for me . . ."
Joel's eyes are locked on Jerry's. They both know what's coming. They're fathers. "Don't be too hard on your dad," Joel tells Abby, "He's only doing what any father would. Now, look away, girl." Jerry's mouth moves once, in a plea.
A single gunshot catches him right in the eye and drops him. He's dead before he hits the ground. Abby screams, but Joel barely notices because he's busy gathering Ellie's limp form into his arms.
"You monster! You fucking monster!" The other girl hits him from the side, and Joel reacts instinctively with a shove that knocks her to the ground. The nurses hurry to grab her, but she's trying to shake off their hold. "We trusted you! I trusted you! And you fucking do this!" She shakes off the women's hold and charges him again. Joel's half unbalanced by Ellie's weight, but he manages to sweep her leg, dumping her to the floor again. His revolver swings into line with her face and she glares up and spits at him. "Just kill me then. Just go ahead and shoot me because if you don't, I will fucking kill you!"
Joel can only stare down at the wreck he's made of her life. He holsters his pistol, pulls his girl close to his chest, and pushes out the door. He doesn't look back.
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The hotwired pickup rattles and rumbles over the broken highway. Joel keeps checking his rearview. He's past the suburbs and miles away from the hospital - if they haven't sent pursuit yet, they probably won't. All the same, he can't stop checking.
Beside him, in a seat reclined as far as it will go, Ellie sleeps on. Her wrist rests between them, palm up, so that he can check her pulse every couple minutes. It's strong, and her color's okay. She almost woke up a quarter of an hour ago, but eventually lapsed back into sleep, mumbling about being late for military drills.
She starts to stir again, and Joel thinks it might be the real deal this time. Her eyes open. She rolls towards him, blinks a few times, and smiles softly. Her smile freezes, though, when she sees him looking back at her. Her brow furrows and her arms, still loose and heavy with sleep, come up to clutch at her head. She seems surprised by the smear of blood from the still oozing holes in her scalp. Pain catches up with her slowly, drawing a muffled groan. "Wha' happened?"
"You're okay, baby girl," Joel says as steadily as he can, "You're just gonna need some time to get your strength back."
She sits up, hunched over with an arm around her belly. "The surgery . . ." Her face clears and she looks up at him again. "Joel. This had better be some kind of fucked up anesthesia dream."
He swallows but says nothing. Horror is dawning on her face as she takes in the state of him - the bruises, the grazes, the clothes spattered with blood that's not his. "What did you do?" she whispers, "Joel, what did you do?"
His fingers tighten on the steering wheel. "What I had to."
"No," she breathes. "No!" A yell. With a wordless cry, she throws herself at him, yanking and tearing at his arms. She's smaller than Abby, but no less fierce, and after a moment, he has to brake to a stop to keep her from wrecking the truck. As soon as they're not moving, she yanks the seatbelt off and throws herself out the door. She stumbles and skins her knee, but before Joel can extricate himself from the driver's seat, she's up and moving in an unsteady run until, after a few seconds that take about a year off Joel's life, she fetches up against a rusted metal guardrail.
Joel approaches, trying to give her space while still staying close enough to help if she were to collapse. Her hands grip the metal, hard. She's bent over and shaking like a leaf. "We have to go back."
Joel sighs. "We can't."
"We have to!"
"Ellie, they will shoot us on sight."
"I'll . . . I'll go back on my own, then. I'll explain it to them. Just . . . I have to go. I have to finish it."
"It's done. It's over. Like it or not, girl, we're goin' home."
"I can fix this! But, only if I go back."
"Wouldn't make no difference." She turns and stares at him, her face white. He can't conceal this forever, not unless he wants her sneaking out in the middle of the night and driving back herself. "Anderson's dead. He . . . he never would've stopped. So, I stopped him."
Breath leaves her in a huff. "Oh, god." She sinks to the ground, hospital gown fanning out around her. Joel moves to steady her, but she flings her hands out. "Don't touch me! Don't you fucking touch me!" He backs away, but stays in a crouch, watching her. "He . . . he was going to save the world."
"He certainly thought so."
"Why, Joel? I told you what I wanted. I thought you understood. How could you fucking do this to me?!"
"You weren't in any condition to be making that kind of decision."
"And why should that fucking matter? Everybody we've known who's . . . died or gotten infected . . . I could've stopped all that. And, I didn't. How the hell am I supposed to keep going, knowing that? Knowing that I didn't?!"
Joel draws a slow breath. "By understanding," he says firmly, "That those deaths are not on you. It's not your fault, Ellie. God as my witness, it's not." He moves a little closer - just near enough that he can lay a tentative hand on her elbow. "Baby girl . . . Did you really want to die? Or did you just think that you should?"
She looks up at him, her face empty, her eyes lost. Slowly, she shakes her head. She opens her mouth, but whatever she was going to say dies in her throat. Before Joel can even contemplate what to say next, she's throwing herself at him and burying her face in his chest. His arms wrap around her as her hands fist in his shirt and her first tears mix with the dried blood there. Joel just sits and holds her for a long time, rubbing up and down her spine while the sobs hit her. At length, her tears dry up. When she finally speaks again, her voice is rough, but less pained than it had been. "I wanted to fix it all. I . . . I tried. I tried really hard."
Joel pulls her closer and buries his face in her shoulder. "I know, kiddo. I know you did."
tbc
