In my opinion, this chapter turned out real nice. More of a dialogue chapter, but be not afraid, more action will follow!

Chapter 23

After the hefty duties of the passed day, it was easy for Joel to lie on his back and close his eyes. Everything was still the same in the bedroom as he got back, and Ellie was still asleep. She seemed to be sleeping more calmly once Joel got back, and he was no longer afraid she would wake up before he would get the chance to doze off.

Joel puffed his pillow after lying down on the mattress, and stared at Ellie the meanwhile. His arms slowed down as he saw her turn a bit, and instantly frown her face afterwards. Joel furrowed his brows, for he knew she was frowning because of the pain.

"Hang in there" he whispered to her, putting his head down on the pillow. He sighed deeply after setting his eyes on the ceiling before finally closing his eyes.

A cold body. A cold, bloody and way too small to be a corpse. And yet, he had to carry it.
"Where...?" Joel murmured, as he turned his eyes to see around him. A tranquil silence. There was absolutely no movement around him. The air was heavy and misty, and he could barely recognize the buildings around him. But he did.

"Fireflies!" he shouted yet again. Even though no signs of the fireflies had appeared, he was hoping to come across even one. Just to finish the deal.

He was there. Salt Lake City, and Saint Mary's Hospital showing right in front of him. Yet he could not see a single firefly. No guards, no nothing.
"Help!" Joel shouted, feeling oddly hazy.
"Fireflies...?" he tried to shout again, but his head flipped upside down. He shook his head while trying to take another step forwards. Joel eventually lost his balance and fell to his knees, still trying to hold on to the corpse.

"Help!"
But no-one heard it. Joel let his eyes slide down to the corpse, and he recognized it. He was afraid to see the person he was carrying, but he had to. His eyes weighed him down, and he could not hold on to it.
"Ellie..." he whispered, as his surroundings seemed to reform.

Her eyes were black, and she was getting lighter and lighter by the minute.
"Ellie!" Joel shouted, as he couldn't help but stare at the body. Her eyes were open, but dead.

Suddenly Joel had to lift up his gaze to see better. He had to turn his eyes away from the girl, as the weather was radically changing.
"What...?" he whispered once he felt the first drops of rain on his hands. Suddenly it was pouring down heavily, and it was way darker than a minute ago. The situation started to resemble a scene he had already experienced once.

"Daddy.." the corpse suddenly whispered in his lap. He turned his rain wetted face down to see her, but it wasn't Ellie. He swore to God it had been Ellie just a minute ago. He was at Saint Mary's Hospital.
"Sarah..?" Joel gasped, and her eyes were no longer black. She was breathing, but bleeding heavily from her stomach.
"Sarah! Stay with me!"
"Daddy.."
He tried to hold on to her, but she was getting more and more lighter. Once she turned lighter than air, Joel noticed she was falling apart.
"What... no!"

Small pieces of her suddenly turned into ash. Limb by limb, she was blown away by the wind.
"Sarah! Stay with me!" Joel shouted, holding her more tightly to make her stay. She was no longer speaking, and her face was turning into ash. He tried to catch the pieces of ash, pieces of his daughter before they were blown away. As he looked at his hands, he couldn't see the smallest bit of them. Sarah was soon completely gone, and the ash had disappeared to the rain.
"Sarah! No!"

"Joel… Joel…?"
"Sarah..." he sighed after opening his eyes. He was panting, and instantly sit up after hearing the girl speak.
"Joel... you OK?"
He had to sit for a minute before being able to answer the girl's question. He looked at his hands, then at Ellie. She was Ellie. Sarah wasn't there, and he was neither in Salt Lake City nor Boston. He was in the camping area, and Ellie was lying next to him.

After Joel turned his head, he saw Ellie holding her eyes open towards him. She was alive. Her eyes were green and bright, full of light. Her condition was bad, but she was alive. She was alive.

As Joel turned his eyes away from her, he could finally breath normally again, closing his eyes for a minute. He gave out a last sigh before nodding a few times, and he suddenly noticed he was covered in sweat.
"Oh, yeah... Did I... did I wake you up?" he asked, opening his eyes and turning to look at his legs, trying to shake off the bad dream. He had no idea for how long he had been sleeping, but it would have to be enough for now.

"Well, yeah" Ellie answered quietly, frowning her face as she stared at the man.
"I guess you weren't sleeping to good either"

Joel shook his head. He was not well rested.
"But it's definitely after noon already" Ellie continued, biting her teeth together as the small movement she made was killing her.

After shaking off the bad dreams, Joel turned to the edge of the bed, yawning and getting up. He picked up his belt and the revolver before turning to see her. He quickly observed her wrapped up wounds to see if everything was okay with them. There seemed to be no further bleeding, and more than anything else he hoped that the wounds would start healing quickly.

"You alright?" Joel asked after a quick look at her body, moving his eyes to her face afterwards.
"Yeah.. " Ellie sighed, squeezing her eyes shut as she turned to her side, facing at Joel.
"You shouldn't be moving" he ordered right away, seeing the pain from her face. She sighed while opening her eyes to see him, nodding very lightly.
"I'm fine"

Joel lifted his eyebrows, looking at the teenager while buckling his belt back on. He pushed the gun to it's holster, walking to the window as he turned his eyes away from the girl.
"Fine?" he shook his head, almost as he could not believe what he was hearing.
"You almost... " he started a sentence, but decided not to continue. He should not be painting devils around them, for last night had definitely traumatized them both.

Ellie didn't reply. She wanted to be okay. More than anything, she wanted to be up on her feet. At that point it was really hard to be happy about being alive. Every little movement was killing her, and she could barely hold up her hands.

Joel looked out of the window. He gazed towards Salt Lake City, trying to clear his head.
"Despite you thinking you're okay, we ain't moving for a while" Joel said, taking another long look out of the window before turning his eyes back to the girl.
"We'll get a move on after you're actually fine"
Ellie was staring at the roof, nodding almost invisibly to his words.

Joel couldn't help but feel bad for the girl. As he looked at her, he wanted to delete the past few weeks. It had been a total hell for them both. Mostly for Ellie. It was hard for Joel not to blame himself for her condition, even though there was nothing he could do about it anymore. Since they could not erase the past, they would have to wait.

Ellie sighed, looking down at her body. She was well covered in bandages, most of which had a red spot in them. Her thigh was hurting the most, and as she looked at it, it was no wonder. It had to be the largest wound on her, since the thigh was wrapped up whole and the bandage had a large, red mark on it's surface. It must have been bleeding heavily. She could hardly remember last night, and she tried hard to forget the things she remembered.

Speaking of the Devil, Joel was observing her as she stared at her wounds, trying to come up with words he could say out loud.
"Ellie, what happened last night?"

She was afraid Joel would ask that from her. The sad truth was that she hardly remembered anything, and the rest she didn't want to tell.
"I... " Ellie whispered, lifting her gaze just for a second, and instantly regretted looking him into eyes. Joel's gaze was both worried, angry and confused at the same time. He was leaning against the window, arms crossed while waiting for an answer.

"I can't remember everything" Ellie continued, putting her eyes down so she wouldn't have to look at him. She was on her right side, facing Joel's direction and she didn't want to move for another while.

"Then tell me what you remember" Joel said with an empty voice. It was clearly an order, and she felt odd for having to take the coldness from him. Even so, she knew it wasn't meant to be towards her. It was definitely dedicated to Andy.

"I.. I followed him upstairs" Ellie started with the rewind. Joel instantly put his head down, regretting that he had not walked her up himself. But as he thought of it, Andy might have shot them while they slept, making the ending even worse. It's not like that was the only way he could've accomplished his revenge.
".. but he didn't take me here. He told me he wanted to show something special to me" Ellie scoffed, frowning her face as she thought of it. She felt dumb for believing that, but she had to cut herself some slack. She had been drunk and dead tired.

Joel stood quietly, finally rising up his glance after she'd continued. He looked at her face, and she seemed a lot different compared to yesterday. She was more quiet, yet somehow more angry. Her eyes wandered a lot, probably catching visions from last night.

"Then he tied me up. I can't remember much, but the fact that he knew it was me"
Understanding everything so far, Joel couldn't follow the last phrase, getting stuck on the "it was me". He frowned his face.
"What? He knew you were who?" he instantly inquired. He had already lost the bad attitude, and was merely curious to hear what she meant with it.
"The one who busted David"

And then Joel understood. They couldn't know how Andy really felt about his father. He had told them he wasn't that keen on their lifestyle, making them think he was happy to be away from there. Neither did they know that he'd been told that it was Ellie who killed David. It might as well have been Joel.
He nodded once to her answer, yet there was something Joel still didn't understand.
"Then why'd he help us out?"

Ellie took another look at Joel, feeling quite odd while thinking of it. She knew the answer, but it felt bad.
"He.. he wanted to do this alone"

Ellie felt awful. She felt so bad for someone actually being so mad at her, he would betray his friends just to get to torture her. It felt unreal she had done something so bad, that someone actually went through all that trouble just to make her feel as much pain as possible.

But Ellie wasn't the only one feeling nauseous about it. Joel instantly frowned his face, putting his head down as he thought of it. He stopped leaning against the window and started walking around the bed, finally reaching the end Ellie had her legs in.

"He... " Joel thought of it, but couldn't even start the sentence properly. He was about to explode, but was able to prevent that from happening. There was still the paternal instinct on the background that knew that Ellie didn't need any of this.

After a while of silence, neither of them seemed willing to talk. Ellie stared out of the window, thinking of the past few days in the light of these new memories. Joel stared at her legs, trying to reach the shore of the endless sea of questions. His mind was overflowed with them.

Suddenly, Ellie's stomach made a loud noise and they both awoke to it. Joel lifted his eyes, and Ellie put her head down to see her stomach. Joel instantly forgot what he was thinking about, and seemed to have calmed down as the new aspect came along.
"You hungry?" he asked with a calm voice, which surprised Ellie. She was stressed and a bit afraid Joel would rush into conclusions and do something stupid.
"A bit"

Joel looked at her for a while, thinking of whether he should prepare another piece of the deer, or give her the canned goods. Trying to eat the deer would probably be real work at that point, and he decided to walk up to his bag.

"I think we can go with the peaches today, yeah?"
"Okay"

It took time before they found a comfortable position for Ellie to start eating the peach halves, but they succeeded. Joel helped the girl sit up and gave her the can. He sat next to her for a while, but his help wasn't needed.
"I can handle this" Ellie said when Joel still doubted if he could move from his spot. He sighed and nodded while getting up, and kept his eyes on the wall as he took a few steps away from the bed.

Ellie did handle the eating pretty well, and she was feeling better while sitting up after the long while of lying down.

But something was bothering Joel. He stared at the wall, and Ellie noticed something was wrong. She frowned her face, slowing down with the next peach.
"Joel?"
Ellie stared at his back, getting the feeling that there was something on his mind. She had a couple pieces of the peaches still floating in the juice, but she put the can down to focus on the conversation.

Joel sighed, frowning his face while still looking at the wall. He put his head down, squeezing his eyes shut. A thousand images flowed through his head, and he tried to figure out how it all had turned out last night. After getting the images out of his head, he remembered the time he almost drowned while being pushed down by the hunter.

Then another image of the University of Eastern Colorado. The last few doors before they were on the ground floor, and they got jumped up by the hunter. Joel fell down, a pole striking through his abdomen. Alone he would have died.

Joel kept his eyes shut for a while, before opening them and swallowing with great difficulties.
"I'm sorry" he whispered, sighing while lifting his eyes to the wall.

Ellie's frowned eyebrows rose back up as she listened to him. Even though she instantly appreciated the gesture, she wasn't quite sure where it was coming from.

"For what?" she whispered with a light voice, moving slightly on the bed. She bit her teeth together, trying not to make a sound. It seemed easier for the both of them not to see each other's faces.

"For this whole damn thing. None of this would've happened if I..."
"Stop"

And Joel stopped. He furrowed his brows, slowly turning around to see her. She was looking straight back at him with honest eyes, truly wishing he wouldn't continue.

"I trusted him. If you did the same, then we're on the same level" she continued with a strict attitude, making him listen carefully. It was rare of him to listen through and obey, but the way she said it could not be ignored.

"... but I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. So... thanks"

Joel stared at the teenage girl, who looked him straight into eyes through the whole speech, and then lowered her eyes to her feet afterwards. Joel's face was as neutral as it would ever get, and on some level he had to stop beating himself up. If the girl was okay with the situation, even he would have to try, too.

"We're square, kiddo"