A/N: 'You know, as bad as those things are, at least they're predictable. It's the normal people that scare me'– Bill.

Things between them might not have been great but the anger she'd held onto since Salt Lake City seemed hollow compared to what Ellie felt when she stumbled across a woman towering above Joel with a golf club. So yeah…things might not have been great; but she's not let him down yet. She isn't going to start now.

Rated T: For obvious reasons - Ellie swears like a sailor

Disclaimer: I own nothing (except my muse)

Warning: Vague spoilers for TLOU II (also sorry Abby fans, if you're out there?)

Footnote: Well…Naughty Dog said it would be divisive…Divisive doesn't even begin to cover it, eh? Ultimately gamers will think what they like about the game - regardless which side of the fence you're on there's no denying there's a buzz about this game (whether its good or bad is yet to be seen, I guess?)

Additional Footnote: This can be labelled as a "fix it" of sorts but it's really just a few ramblings following the conclusion of the game as I was tired of feeling miserable at that point and fancied a bit of respite. One of the little things that just really stuck with me through the playthrough was that on two separate occasions Ellie had a fucking pistol in her hands and didn't shoot? The fuck is that?

…So I'm going to just trample on the entire premise of the game here and highlight that literally everything can be solved with bullets!

Additional, Additional Footnote: Just by way of fair warning - I…haven't written anything in an age but I've always been a sucker for the TLOU. Apologises in advance but I'm going to shamelessly stomp around the fandom again now. Whoa!

Don't Regret This Life You Chose For Me

If Ellie had been thinking clearly…if she'd had more time then she'd have counted the bed rolls, at least then she'd have some idea of how many people were in the fucking group; but she doesn't have that kind of time so she does her best to keep track of as many as she can as she passes through.

She doesn't know how many exactly, but she can tell by the way they've organised their lodgings there's quite a few of them.

The fuckers.

It's not going to be easy as Ellie has no idea what state she's going to find Joel and Tommy in so there's a good chance she'll have to clear the bulk of the building out on her own…unless Dina and Jessie clear their routes fast enough to get there.

The groans have gone quiet and Ellie stops, crouched low behind a countertop and listens. It's so deceptively quiet that if she hadn't heard the voices before she'd have sworn the building was empty. But she knows it isn't, so she strains her ears for any noise at all…anything that'll give her an indication of where to go.

She grips her pistol firmly to ground her as the quiet is unsettling but after a beat she hears a pained hiss and a muffled voice.

It isn't much but it's enough to get her moving because she's worried if she doesn't move now the noises will die away again and she'll be left with nothing to go on.

And she can't afford to lose track of these people because she knows, on some instinctive level that doesn't quite make sense, that Joel and Tommy are here.

'Joel! Tommy! Please be okay.'

The murmurs lead her to a stairwell, dark and barren with no possible cover should she need it, but there's a single door at the base and given that the lodge is empty she'd bet next week's rations that whatever is going down is happening behind that damn door.

The voices become clearer as she nears it and she tries to listen in the hopes that she'll be able to make out something which will give her an idea of how many people are in the room but what she hears is another half-formed groan that trails out abruptly and her mind is suddenly shot back to a winter several years ago. Where she'd had to drag Joel's body through the snow because he'd been injured so badly she'd been frightened he wouldn't make it and then her thoughts give way to fire and a blood soaked blade and when she comes back to the moment her hands are shaking so badly she barely keeps hold of her pistol.

There are times, when things are quiet and there'd been a lull in the infected encounters outside Jackson, where Ellie still slips under the shadow of that winter. Times when the snow had fallen more heavily, and she'd spent several nights at Joel's because she couldn't face being alone.

But this isn't one of those times because she'd know Joel's voice anywhere and right now, he needs help and she'll be damned if she lets him down.

Things might not have been good between them lately; but they'd gone through too much together for her not to have his back.

'We stick together.'

She reaches out and nudges the door open quietly, enough so she can see into the room but not enough to alert the people inside and for a moment her entire body seizes, her mind caught somewhere between now and a time when she'd been fourteen and alone.

For one horrifying second, she's frightened Joel is dead.

But then he heaves a shuddering breath and his battered body rises weakly with the movement and she's flooded with such a sense of relief that she almost barges into the room.

There's a woman towering over him, a bloodied golf club hanging loosely in her hand and it doesn't take a genius to put the pieces together. Ellie can make out the shadows of at least two others but beyond that she has no idea how many of them are in there and she's ultimately going to have to go in blind.

'Listen to me – if I get in trouble down there, you make every shot count.'

The woman readjusts her grip on the club and raises her arms, muscles tensing in preparation for the blow and Ellie clocks her pistol and fires directly into her skull.

"Fuck, Abby!"

The woman, Abby, goes down and her body hits the floor with a soft thud that seems to echo across the expanse of the entire room. It's deathly silent, Joel's ragged breathing heard far too easily in the stillness and then…

…all hell breaks loose.

A man, well built with hastily cropped hair moves towards Abby's body, and Ellie takes him down with a round to the head just as he's about to reach her.

Heavy, erratic footfalls fill the room and Ellie's immediately aware of how many people she's up against.

Another man, this one with a heavy beard, raises his gun but turns his back to the doorway and lines his shot with Joel where he's slumped against the window.

It's…a fucking terrible idea but it's all she's got so she shatters the window, using a good chunk of her clip in the process, and Joel tumbles backwards into the snow along with the glass shards. She's set a timer, it's damn cold outside and there's only so long Joel can lie in a snow pile before hypothermia sets in…that's if he hasn't fallen awkwardly and snapped his neck, it's a pretty steep drop of the other side.

It really was a fucking terrible idea.

"Manny! That bitch is at the door."

She wrenches the door shut and luckily the handle is rusted over enough that a few quick blows with the butt of her pistol brings it away from the door frame. She hopes it'll buy her enough time to clear the hallway, the door's old but it's solid so it should hopefully hold out.

A single gunshot sounds from the other side when she's halfway up the staircase, deliberate in a way that hits the ear wrong and Ellie absently wonders if they'd shot one of their own or if they'd tried to get an angle on Joel.

She hasn't got any more of a plan than she had earlier, but the priority is finding Joel, once she's done that she can worry about clearing out those motherfuckers and finding Tommy. She can hear the group thundering at the door, it's the only way to the main room and she doubts any of them would be stupid enough to follow Joel out the window, it's holding for now but it'll buckle and give way eventually so she does her best to make use of the time.

The gunshots must have given away her position as Jesse and Dina come through the nearest window, diving for the countertops. They stay low, poised and ready to move, weapons drawn. They don't speak, conscious they have the element of surprise and Ellie signals towards the stairwell, making a vague gesture with her fingers to let them know how many people she'd actually seen.

Jesse and Dina have taken down camps before, they'd be able to hold their own well enough for Ellie to find Joel.

She darts out the patio doors, slipping on the wooden porch boards as she tries to vault the fence and clips her elbow hard on the banister but with the adrenaline pumping through her blood, she barely feels it. She makes her way round the building, careful of the snow drift, feet disappearing in the snow as she tries to cut a path.

Swapping her pistol for her hunting rifle, she rounds the corner just in case any of those assholes are waiting for her by the shattered window. It's a steep drop and the angle for a shot on either side would be difficult…but not impossible.

Ellie keeps the tip trained on the ledge as she shuffles her way through the snow and when she's finally able to get a look at the spot where Joel fell she's met with a bloodied patch of snow.

'I'm scared of ending up alone.'

She clamps down on the panic bubbling up in her throat when she notices the bloody trail leading to the woodshed. There aren't any visible footprints so she's hoping that Joel, by some sodding miracle, has managed to drag himself there and that none of her buddies from upstairs had made it down yet. It wouldn't have been easy for them, not with Dina and Jesse stationed up there by way of defence.

She finds Joel propped up against a log pile inside, an axe that had clearly seen better days resting heavily on his lap as if the effort of wielding it is too much for him but when he hears the door creak open his fingers tighten around the hilt.

"Joel"

Ellie's not sure if he can see her, both his eyes are swollen and his vision is probably blood speckled given the sluggishly bleeding wound above his right eye but he must hear her well enough because the axe doesn't leave his lap.

He's…in pretty bad shape, there's so much blood that she can't even begin to make out the extent of the damage but he's conscious so that has to count for something, right?

She's tempted to attempt to bandage him up, to try and staunch the bleeding, but the shed is poorly lit even with the door thrown wide open and she's acutely aware that out here they're too exposed for her to find the kind of time she'd need to even make a dent in his wounds.

'Joel. Ah, shit. Joel – here. Get up, get up, get up…You gotta tell me what to do. Come on…you gotta get up. Joel?'

Getting him up isn't easy, he's barely able to take any of his own weight and Ellie feels the strain as she drapes his arm around her shoulders and tries to hobble her way out. His balance is off, and he trips several times on his own feet, but he manages to stay upright because on some level she's sure Joel knows that to go down again here meant dying here.

She's actually thankful that he's such a stubborn old bastard.

They stumble pass the garage door and Ellie notes, with some alarm, that it's open and when she sees a shadow bolting through the doorway towards them, she almost shoots on sight.

"Ellie!"

It's Jesse and although his rifle is still locked and loaded, he's not on high alert so whatever threat he and Dina had come up against must be gone.

He comes round to Joel's other side, pitching his arm up under Joel's shoulder and taking some of his weight. It's a welcome relief, Joel is still conscious but disorientated and Ellie's worried he's going to pass out. It'll be easier to move him with Jesse if he does.

Jessie is talking and by the time she realises she's missed most of what he's said and the words she does catch struggle to make sense.

"What?"

Jesse casts her a look over Joel's head, it's the usual one of faux irritation he throws her way when she's zoned out.

"The fuckers ran," he repeats quickly. "Dina dropped a bloke, but the rest scattered. They took the horses."

If they took the horses they'd be long gone by now and while she knows that should be a relief there's something dark in her veins that's singing to her to go after them. Joel mumbles something but the words are muddled and he trails off, with a pained grunt, before he reaches the end. It's enough to pull her back from the brink, finding Joel had been the priority but now that she's got him; she needs to come up with a phase two.

Jesse is usually good with plans, he'd had to be when running the patrols, but he seems silent and grave and quite happy to follow her lead on this one.

Ellie has no fucking clue where to lead him.

She's just about done tying the logistics of what definitely isn't much of a plan together (Jesse could take Joel to Shimmer and get him strapped onto the sled and she'd do a quick sweep of the lodge for Tommy and Dina. With the group gone it shouldn't take that long) when Dina makes her way into the garage.

From what Ellie can easily see, she isn't injured, there's no blood or visible bruising on her skin, but the expression pinching her delicate features throws Ellie off kilter. She looks likes she's been nine rounds with a clicker and lost.

"Dina?"

She stops just shy of them, eyes scanning worriedly over Joel before meeting Ellie's and before she opens her mouth to speak Ellie's heart sinks because she's seen that look before on countless other faces.

"I found Tommy," Dina says quietly, mindful of Joel's attempt at speech at his brother's name. She lowers her voice further, raising her fingers to her temple and mimicking a shot. "I'm sorry."

Those assholes.

"Where?"

Dina seems to hesitate before she answers, her hand coming up to grip her elbow in what Ellie has long since pegged as a nervous tick.

"Downstairs."

The anger gives way to a hot sense of guilt because Tommy had been in that room and although she hadn't known it at the time, she'd left him there. She'd signed his death warrant the minute she'd bashed in the door handle.

Her mind is thrown back to that single gunshot, the one she'd assumed had been fired in pursuit of Joel or met by one of the group (tensions had seemed to be running high)…except it had been Tommy…and she hadn't even thought of him at the time.

…What the fuck was she meant to tell Joel?

Ellie's vaguely aware of Dina's hand on her shoulder, deft fingers squeezing gently against her jacket. They're all waiting on her. Whether she likes it or not she's somehow ended up in the driver's seat for this one.

Much as she hates herself for even thinking it, there's nothing they can do for Tommy now and whilst the group appear to have moved out, they can't afford to risk them returning, not with Joel in the state he's in and not when they're all running low on supplies.

"We've got to get Joel back to Jackson," Ellie forces out, although Jesse and Dina appear to know this already. They've lost people on patrols before…they both knew the drill. "We'll get him patched up and we'll run recon. Come back tomorrow."

She just hopes the infected won't have found their way to the body by then.

Between the three of them they're able to make it back to Shimmer and get Joel strapped to the sled with reasonably little trouble. Luckily whilst the group had made off with both Joel and…Tommy's mounts, they'd stashed their horses far enough away from the lodge they'd gone unnoticed.

Joel's head is still bleeding sluggishly through the bandage, despite Dina's quick attempt at first aid and although he's still conscious he seems pretty out of it. Ellie's grateful for it, given what's gone down, she figures Joel is probably better off not knowing for now.

Despite how far gone he is…he seems to recognise her voice.

They debate whether one of them should ride ahead, it would probably do the clinic some good to know Joel would be coming in but given they have no idea which direction the group would have gone in, they decide against it.

'Safety in numbers and all that.'

Ellie doesn't holster her pistol the entire ride back, they're exposed out here and it's not like they can move all that quickly with Joel laid up behind them. Jesse and Dina keep casting her looks over their shoulder and she knows she must look fucking psycho but she's on edge and she's been jumped before after letting her guard down and she'll be damned if she leaves them open to something that like again.

It isn't until the heavy entrance gates slam closed behind them that Ellie starts to relax, hands shaking as she swings herself out the saddle.

Dina's gone for Doc and Jesse helps Ellie drag Joel to the clinic and that's the last she sees of him before Doc hurries him away inside. She knows she should probably find Maria, that in the commotion word is bound to get back to her that they're back in town and she shouldn't have to hear about what happened to Tommy through the rumour mill.

But even as she thinks this her feet move her deeper into the clinic, to the makeshift waiting area and she collapses into the nearest chair. Jesse disappeared after Joel was taken in, probably to log the details of the encounter – get the group's descriptions down whilst things were still fresh but Dina is still there, hovering by the seat next to Ellie but making no move to sit down.

"I'll talk to Maria," Dina offers, voice deceptively light, and Ellie is struck with an almost overwhelming appreciation for her. Ellie would face off against infected, hunters, bandits and god only knew what else was out there without flinching but when it came to something like this Dina…Dina had always been the braver of the two. "Stay with Joel."

Ellie immediately feels guilty for burdening her with this, it shouldn't have to be Dina, not when Maria and Tommy were family…but the ugly truth of it all is that right now it is Dina because Ellie honestly doesn't think she'd be able to prise herself out of the clinic for anything until she's been given some kind of word on Joel.

"Okay."

It's not enough, not nearly enough but she's fucking tired and with the adrenaline simpering off she doesn't have the energy to do much more than wait. Dina reaches out and gently tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, fingers lingering on her cheek. She looks as if there's something else she'd like to say, her expression flickering between several emotions Ellie's too exhausted to pick up on, before settling on something warm but solemn.

"I'll be back later, alright?"

The 'don't go anywhere' is heavily implied but not spoken.

With Dina gone, Ellie shrugs off her pack, dropping it to the tiled floor beside her chair and slumps forward on her knees, buckling down for what's likely to be a long night. Her clothes, which had been in a pretty sorry state to begin with, are speckled with rapidly drying blood, most of which she knows is Joel's and she finds herself swallowing thickly against the bile tickling the back of her throat.

Joel was in a bad way, but he'd been in pretty rough shape that winter and he'd made it through…

…Right?

If Ellie wasn't so afraid of what they might tell her the waiting would probably be worse but as it stands she'd rather spend her time hauled up in the clinic than risk confirmation that she'd lost Joel for good. After everything they'd been through together…to lose him now, before they'd really had a chance to rebuild…

When they'd left Salt Lake City, she'd been angry and it had been easy to stay angry in the relative safety of Jackson, without the immediate threat of infection or death looming directly over them. On the outside her anger probably would've gotten them both killed.

She'd held onto that anger fiercely, not wanting to explore it or understand it because for a long time it had given her purpose, outside of Joel, and at the time she'd felt like she'd needed that.

It had done her some good, being away from him, it had helped her get her feet back under her but he'd never really been gone from her life, he'd always kept an eye on her and her patrol schedule even if she'd tried to pretend he hadn't.

Even at her worst, when everything she'd done had been to push him away, he'd still tried to look out for her.

'If the Lord somehow gave me a second chance at that moment; I would do it all over again.'

Fuck…he really did love her.

And regardless of what had happened between them, Ellie loved him and she'd still put a bullet between the eyes of anyone who got the jump on him. It had been true at fourteen, when she'd been armed with little but a switchblade and it was still true now.

Because in the end, it's not pretty and it's not convoluted…they're both just shitty people trying to do right by each other even if it comes at a price nobody in the old world would have been willing to pay.

She clamps down on that thought quickly because it's bordering dangerously close to acceptance and even if she does understand Joel's motivations a little better, she'll be damned if she condones his past actions. She'd like to think if the roles had been reversed, she'd have been able to do the right thing but she knows deep in her bones, however much she hates herself for it, that she wouldn't have left Joel behind either.

They've a long way to go to forgiveness and despite her understanding she's aware they might never get there but she'd meant what she'd said to him last night, even if it felt like years ago now. She wants to try…they've been through too much, meant too much to each other for her not to want to try.

'Everyone I have cared for has either died or left me. Everyone- fucking except for you!'

They just needed to get through the night first.

"Don't you dare fucking die on me, Joel."

I'm staring out into the night
Trying to hide the pain
I'm going to the place where love
And feeling good don't ever cost a thing
And the pain you feel is a different kind of pain

I'm going home
Back to the place where I belong
And where your love has always been enough for me
I'm not running from
No, I think you got me all wrong
I don't regret this life you chose for me

No, I don't regret this life you chose for me

Lyrics courtesy of Daughtry

A/N: Review? If you feel like it? It's always appreciated :)