A/N: 'If it were you or me, Joel would be halfway to Seattle already,' - Ellie

She'd done it…barely, but Ellie had managed to pull Joel from that fucking lodge and keep him breathing long enough to get him back to Jackson. It had cost them Tommy and whilst Jackson mourns, Ellie's uncomfortably aware of how much more she could have lost, if things had gone differently. She'd told Joel she wanted to try…it was time she made good on that promise.

Rated T: For obvious reason - 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? It was humane, I promise!)

Footnote: Don't Regret This Life You Chose For Me was originally meant as a ones shot (I'm kind of a one shot wonder as I usually lack the motivation necessary for anything multi-chaptered) but after such lovely reviews (I was really touched considering the fandom is so small) I got to thinking that maybe the story could do with another chapter!

Although it did take me an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to add a chapter to an existing story lol

Additional Footnote: Apologises in advance for my shocking medical knowledge, it's mostly information cobbled together from WebMD etc – let's not let a silly thing like facts get in the way of the story!

Also, I blatantly forgot that Joel got half his leg blown to bits by a shotgun…oops, right? So, for the purposes of the narrative here, Abby's band of merry men (and women) just weren't so damn trigger happy!

Holding On With Both Hands

"Hey, take it easy. Drugs are still wearing off."

Ellie's hovering by the side of his bed, hand hanging unsurely in the space between them when Joel's hand reaches out, with almost no conscious effort, and grasps her fingers. Her eyes burn and her vision blurs and she has to blink several times to clear it because Joel doesn't need to come round to her ugly crying by his bedside.

She's surprised by how choked up she gets when he squeezes her fingers and makes a mumbled attempt at her name.

"You were sedated for a while," she offers quietly, slouching back awkwardly into the chair with her arm pulled tight over the bedrail. "Doc thought it would be better that way."

It's mostly the truth. Doc had thought it best to keep him under after what happened the first time he'd come round. He'd been disorientated, eyes wide and unfocused but he'd asked after Tommy, taken one hazy look at Maria's tear streaked face and wildly tried to get up.

He'd lashed out almost instinctively when Callum (one of the younger medical interns) had put a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to keep him in bed.

Joel had almost broken his wrist.

So, whilst sedation wasn't something they did often at the clinic, not when supplies, particularly medication, were limited, they'd ultimately decided it was safest for Joel to be put under.

They'd been able to scrape around half a day more but after that Doc couldn't really justify the additional resources. They'd wanted to restrain Joel, as 'a precautionary measure,' Doc had said but Ellie had put her foot down and derailed that fucking train because the last thing Joel needed was to wake up in shackles.

Doc had given her a wide birth after that, only dropping in to check Joel's vitals and update his chart.

Dina had used Joel's sedation as an excuse to drive Ellie out of the clinic that morning, arguing she'd have enough time to grab a quick shower and a change of clothes without the risk of Joel waking up without her.

Ellie had put up a fight, but she'd crumbled in the end under Dina's unimpressed gaze…it wasn't like she didn't have a point, Ellie was still caked in the same blood stained clothes she'd run from the lodge in the day before.

So after Dina had made herself comfortable in Ellie's chair and promised to watch Joel until she got back, Ellie had made a mad dash back to her place, scrubbed off enough of the shit to keep Dina quiet and thrown on a fresh set of clothes before hightailing it back to the clinic.

Dina had rolled her eyes when she'd come stumbling back into the room, glanced pointedly at the wall clock but she hadn't commented. She'd left shortly after; Dina was running recon with Jesse and Maria…they were going back to the lodge to get Tommy.

…Tommy.

She feels Joel squeeze her fingers again, before his hand slips away from hers, and when she looks up, he's looking at her, and whilst his eyes are tired, he's alert. Joel had always been like that…he'd never been one to come round gently from sleep.

'You mumble in your sleep.'

She doesn't ask how he's feeling, it's clear as fucking day just by looking at him that he isn't doing great (not with several rows of stitches decorating his scalp, even if they were currently buried under bandages) but the silence that stretches out between them is awkward and she's always been a coward when it came to stuff like this.

It had been so easy to just sit back and hold his hand whilst he'd been knocked out, she'd barely thought about it. He'd been laid out as white as death for hours and that contact, feeling his pulse jump under his skin, had been the only way she was able to convince herself he was still alive.

Now he's conscious, all the tension between them appears to have come flooding back and she isn't sure how to deal with it. From the way Joel recoiled from her, she doesn't think he knows what to do either.

"How much do you remember?"

It's a tentative prod, she isn't sure how much Joel will be able to recollect from the lodge, Doc had said that sometimes, with traumatic injuries, people forgot bits and pieces about how it happened, a trick of the mind to try to protect the victim.

Without a CT machine, Doc hadn't been able to properly confirm the extent of the damage but from what he could tell from an initial examination Joel's skull appeared to be intact, with no visible indentations to the bone. He'd said Joel had compound fractures; which Maria had explained was just a fancy name for an open wound where you could see the bone.

By all accounts Joel had been lucky, Doc had said a couple more blows and it probably would've been much worse…if he'd managed to survive it at all. When they'd been able to clean him up enough to get a proper look at the damage, it thankfully wasn't as dire as all the blood had made Ellie think.

It was still bad…but it was fixable, in theory.

"Enough."

"So you know what happened to…" she trails off, it shouldn't be this hard to say Tommy's name, but even as she tries to force it out she can feel her throat constricting around the word.

Luckily, Joel seems to know where she's heading with this.

"I know."

Of course he did, Maria was difficult to rattle, she'd had to be hard in order to lead the settlement (Ellie's fairly sure the only time she'd ever seen her cry before was when her Dad had died). Her tear stained face and the notable absence of Tommy at his bedside would've been enough to tip Joel off, even if he was still relatively out of it at the time.

Joel's fingers reach for his watch, rubbing the face absently and Ellie can't be sure whether he's just tired, but his eyes are bloodshot and he swallows hard, twisting the watch around his wrist in a smooth, practiced motion.

"How'd it happen?"

Ellie hesitates, she knows enough from what Dina's told her to piece it together, but she hadn't actually seen the body.

"One of those fuckers shot him," she answers at length, short and vicious even if she'd meant to be gentle. She takes a deep breath, noting the dark look that's settled on Joel's face and tries to sooth her voice into something softer. "Single round. It was clean."

And really, if they'd been talking about anyone else, Ellie would be the first to admit it wasn't a bad way to go. Infected kills were raw and messy, other people were usually violent…all things considered there was worse out there.

If she hadn't shot that golf club wielding bitch Joel would've gone out much worse.

Ellie knows there's a lot more she should say to him, she's replayed the lodge over and over again in her head and…she can't help but feel like she should've done more.

She should've assumed Tommy would be with Joel, it was obvious now, when she thought back, that the entire group had been congregated behind that door…a group as organised as they were, there's no way they would've left Tommy somewhere unsupervised.

So fucking stupid.

"You saw their patches?"

It's such a sudden change to the conversation that it takes Ellie a couple of seconds to catch up, stumbling out of her thoughts and back into the moment.

"Yeah. WLF…Washington Liberation Front?"

Joel nods quickly and if he feels any discomfort from the action, he doesn't show it.

"I used to know a guy who ran with that crew. He owes me a favour."

"You can't be serious?" Ellie chokes out disbelievingly, even though it's clear from the look on his face that he is. "Someone just played crazy golf with your skull and you want to go across the fucking country to look for the rest of them?"

"I'm not leaving this, kiddo. Not after what they did to Tommy."

It shouldn't be as easy as it is to agree with him, but Ellie gets it, she's right there with him holding onto the anger…the guilt over Tommy's death. The idea of letting those assholes get away with it just seems insane. Not after what they'd done to Tommy…not after what they'd tried to do to Joel.

It's easier to focus on the anger than it is to feel the hurt…anger can be channelled but grief? Grief festers until it eventually becomes debilitating. She'd seen it before, in Henry, and it had killed him.

'Henry? Ellie! Stay there. Henry? I'm gonna get that gun from you, okay?'

She won't let that happen to Joel, because if there's one thing he'd manage to instil in her over the years it's that even if things were shit there would always be something to fight for. You just had to survive long enough to find it.

So, although she understands and there's a part of her, something dark and twisted that had once buried a machete into a man's face, that wants to buy into Joel's crusade no questions asked…Joel's not thinking straight.

"And what if they stole those jackets? What if they've been ex-communicated and aren't even based in Seattle now?"

It's a weak defence, they'd once put their stock on the Fireflies and travelled across the country to chase a pipedream, running on blind faith and not much else. She knows, even as the words leave her mouth, that it won't be enough to dissuade Joel.

"Ellie!"

His voice has taken on a tone she knows well, a tone that, when she'd been fourteen and in the early months of their travels, would have completely shut down an argument.

'Here's how this thing's gonna play out. You don't bring up Tess - ever.'

But she isn't fourteen anymore.

"Then I'm coming with you."

Joel's unnervingly quiet and Ellie knows he's turning over the words in his head, playing out the various ways this conversation could go and probably weighing up how far he could push her. Before Salt Lake City, before things had become strained between them, they could've said anything to each other and been able to come back from it...now, although she knows they both desperately want to move on from what had happened with the Fireflies, they're not quite there yet and there's still an element of caution between them that'll take time to shake.

"This ain't your fight."

They'd come into Jackson territory, tried to kill Joel...managed to kill Tommy and to top it off her and Dina had already wiped out a couple of their guys...how was it not her fight?

Besides if Joel was going then she'd damn well be there too because they stuck together. It was how they'd survived as long as they had.

She snorts.

"That's bullshit and you fucking know it."

"They knew us," and shit, she doesn't think she's ever heard him sound so worn out. He sounds old. "I don't know from where, but they weren't here by accident."

"How did they even…" she trails off abruptly, realisation crashing over her even as she frantically wants to believe she's wrong…there's just no way they would've been that careless, right? "Please tell me you didn't give them your real fucking names?"

"Tommy made the introductions," Joel answers thickly and Ellie can hear how his voice struggles with his brother's name. "It would've been suspicious to have tried to say otherwise after that."

Next he'll be telling her they invited them all to Jackson because apparently, they were giving people the benefit of the doubt now. Ellie must've missed that town meeting.

At a push, she could almost imagine Tommy slipping up like that, he was proud of Jackson and what it stood for and although he protected the community ferociously, he'd always found it difficult to turn people away – he'd wanted to share what they'd created in Jackson and often waited for people to actually slip up before his opinion of them soured.

But Joel? Who was so distrusting of everyone until they proved themselves otherwise…surely Jackson hadn't made him that soft? Not after over two decades surviving day to day on the outside. Hell, she'd only spent a year on the road with him but even that had been enough for her to learn that you didn't throw your lot in with strangers because they'd probably turn out to be fucking cannibals.

A small part of her wants to tear into him over it, to really drive home how stupid they'd been…how much danger they'd put themselves and possibly every other person in Jackson in, but she's aware that now isn't the time and although she'd pissed, Joel already seems to know they'd made a mistake, so whatever she wants to say can wait until he's not laid up in a medical bay.

"Shit, right, let's just…park that for a second," Ellie breathes out, scrubbing a hand roughly across her face. "You really don't know how they knew you?"

She has to ask…has to give Joel another shot to come clean on the off chance he was trying to spin her a line. He'd done it before and Ellie wonders, not for the first time, how long it'll take them before she'll be able to take Joel at face value again. How long before her brain won't immediately assume he's lying to her.

Joel's expression doesn't shift, he's a practiced liar and any tells he might've had once were long gone but she knows him well enough, at least she hopes she does, to scratch just below the surface. Rationally, if Joel did know for certain, then he wouldn't be bothering with his ex-WLF guy, he'd be making a beeline for Seattle like a bat out of hell.

"Me and Tommy. We've played both sides," Joel's voice sounds rougher, his accent more pronounced, as it usually is when he's feeling awkward or pressured. They've never really spoken in any depth about their histories, Joel had always seemed keen to distract her from conversations about the early years of his life after the outbreak. "Can barely throw a rock without comin' across something we'd had a hand in."

It's not news. Joel had already told her he'd been on the wrong side of the war at one stage, back along when Sarah had died, and he'd been struggling to find his way after the outbreak had struck. Ellie knew the basics and not much else.

She'd seen it in Joel before though, in that hardened face that had got him (got them) through the shit. In the times when he'd smell an ambush a mile off and crush a man's windpipe with an ease that should've frightened her.

Maybe it had at one time? She honestly can't remember. She's been standing at the heart of Joel's violence for so long that she can't remember what it felt like not to be protected by it.

'Oh, baby girl…It's okay. It's okay now.'

But Tommy? The image in her head just doesn't reconcile with the man she'd known. He was mostly easy smiles and words, a killer shot when he had to be, but it took a lot to get him there. She can't picture him on the other side as easily as she can Joel.

"I get it, you know?" she tells him gently and she knows it isn't what he wants to hear because he'd rather pretend that she wasn't part of this. He'd rather she sit tight in Jackson, tucked safely away from the people who'd taken his brother than run the risk of losing her too. "But you'd have more of a fucking chance if you'd let me help."

"I'm good."

"You're not fucking good, Joel," Ellie snaps, surging out of the chair before she catches herself. Joel's just lost his brother and the last thing he needs from her right now is another argument. In all honestly she's probably just as tired as Joel is and quite frankly the last thing she wants to do right now, when she'd come dangerously close to losing him, was pump all the energy she had left into a fight. "You almost died."

She isn't prepared for the rush of emotion those words send through her body, something hot and sharp to the point it's almost painful. It's gone almost as quickly and she hastily sits down again, bracing herself on her knees. When she looks up at Joel, he's watching her, and she can see in his face that he wants to reach out to her but there's a hesitance there that no doubts stems from Salt Lake City.

"Yeah," he acknowledges slowly, eyes watching her steadily despite his obvious exhaustion. "I don't plan on doin' that again."

'Yeah? Well, Tommy didn't plan on dying either,' the words are there, and she's vindictively tempted to let them come tumbling out because fuck, what the hell was Joel trying to prove?

"I'll go with you," she reiterates instead, eager to show him that she's not going to back down from this. "But I won't support your suicide mission. If you want to do this, then we'll get it done but you've gotta rest up first…I can't-"

She can't do another trip like that winter, when Joel had been recovering from an injury that, if she hadn't been able to score those antibiotics, would've killed him. She'd spent so long on her own just trying to keep him alive that even after he'd started to heal, she was paranoid he'd relapse…that he'd just drop dead one day and there'd be nothing she could do.

She can't trail him to Seattle like he is now…the trip would be hard enough without her having to constantly look over her shoulder to make sure Joel was still alive.

Ellie knows that time is against them, that they don't have months to play around with whilst they wait for Joel to recover. They don't really know enough about the group to assume they'll be stationary for months on end, even if they have gone back to Seattle…they can't afford to waste the opportunity.

But Ellie also knows that moving out now…she doubts they'd survive it, not when Joel's head was still pretty much held together by a combination of thread and gauze.

"At least wait until you get your stitches out, okay?"

It's not ideal, things rarely are nowadays, but it's a better footing than what they've got at the moment and she can tell Joel knows it too. If it were anyone else in this situation, he'd be the first one to point out how stupid they'd have to be to try and start a hunt with stitches and residual head trauma.

But it was Tommy…and the loss is still too fresh, too close to home for him to think about this objectively.

…he'd be halfway to Seattle by now if he was able.

But, whilst Joel might be willing to gamble with his own life in pursuit of Tommy's killers, she knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he won't risk hers on a whim.

"Fine," his voice is gruff, he sounds put out, and if they'd been talking about anything else Ellie might've cracked a smile. "But we're gone after."

It's obvious Joel isn't happy about her tagging along but at least he seems to understand that if they don't do this together, she'd just follow him. She supposes he'd rather keep an eye on her, which is fine by her as it gives her equal chance to make sure he stays alive…and out of as much avoidable trouble as possible.

"You got it, old man."

It would be a long road to Seattle, probably made longer if they had to detour to wherever this buddy of Joel's was hauled up, but Ellie doesn't begrudge the trip. She wants…something…to show for Tommy's death too because he'd still been family and those motherfuckers had stormed into Jackson and wiped him out in cold blood without so much as a second thought.

They would've wiped Joel out too if they'd had the chance.

And if she'd lost Joel with things still unresolved between them, she's genuinely frightened of what she might've done.

So yeah…she might not have forgiven him but she needed to start making good on her promise to try because whilst she'd been angry with him, was still angry with him in part, she'd carried that for so long that it was starting to chip away at her.

It took something like this, almost losing him, to finally get her to stop and examine that anger, when it had been so easy to just thoughtlessly hold onto it before and use it as a means of carving out her own path. Whilst she'd felt like she'd needed it before, she's only now starting to realise that she'd been using it to punish Joel…there needed to come a time when she acknowledged he'd suffered enough.

Ellie glances at Joel and his expression is caught somewhere between that grief-stricken look he'd sported ever since Salt Lake City and something so desolate that it makes her heart ache for him, and in that moment, however brief, the Fireflies, St Mary's, the lies…they all fall away and he's just Joel, the man who kept her alive when she'd been fourteen and afraid…a man who's been through hell and suddenly lost his kid brother.

Someone she cares so deeply for she'd follow him to Seattle and help him murder every last one of those WLF assholes if she thought it would bring him any kind of comfort.

Ellie reaches out, closing her fingers gently over Joel's hand where it rests on the off-white bedsheets and squeezes.

"Thanks for not dying on me," she murmurs softly.

Joel's face lightens, an odd mix of resignation and hope as he lightly turns his palm up and takes her hand.

"Didn't mean to worry you, baby girl."

He hasn't called Ellie that in months, probably didn't think she'd allow him to and the fact that he's tentatively taken the plunge now, as if he's still expecting her to rebuke him, gives Ellie hope that someday they'll be able to make it through the past and just be them again.

"Erm…Ellie?" It's Dina, slouching in the doorway, pack and rifle still hung across her back from where she'd been out. She motions over her shoulder, before offering Joel a smile, which transforms her tired face into something warm and comforting. "Mind if I borrow her for a second?"

Joel nods and Ellie notices how drawn his face looks and thinks he could probably do with a little more sleep. Rest and recuperation, Doc had said pointedly, after he'd finished patching him up.

She's reluctant to leave him because a quiet voice in the back of her head is still worried he'll set off to Seattle without her if she takes her eyes off him…but she knows if they're ever going to move on they both need to take steps to repair the trust between them. They can't do that if they're constantly second guessing each other.

"You better stay in that fucking bed."

Joel raises his hand and makes an attempt at a salute, exhaustion clinging heavily to the movement.

"Yes Ma'am."

Ellie grabs her pack from where it's resting next to the foot of Joel's bed and swings it over her shoulder, catching bits and pieces of the mumbled conversation between Joel and Dina. Joel's teetering on the edge of consciousness and Ellie can see he's trying his best to stay awake until they leave. She pats his shoulder gently, tugging his covers up his chest.

"I'll be back later, alright?"

She follows Dina out, noticing the tension in the other girl's shoulders as they quietly make their way towards the rundown chapel in the centre of Jackson.

"We got Tommy," Dina tells her eventually, when they're halfway across town. "Infected hadn't made it out that far so…" Ellie gets it, Tommy's as good as he could be all things considered, at least his body hadn't become a free for all for every infected in the neighbourhood. "We…we had to bring the other three back too. With that horde around, we couldn't risk it."

And while Ellie understands that, she can't help the bitter swell of spite that rises up in her stomach. It was sensible, recovering all the bodies, if they'd left the other three, they would've just drawn infected to the area sooner or later. Jackson could do without having to take on a horde if there was any chance it would eventually just pass through.

But these were also the assholes that killed Tommy…to bring them back to Jackson just seemed wrong.

"And Maria's okay with this?"

"Maria called it."

And that makes sense too because whilst Maria had lost Tommy to that group, she couldn't afford to risk everyone in Jackson over his death. It was a hard truth, but Maria was used to making tough calls to protect the settlement. Ellie doesn't envy her position at all.

The chapel is empty, beside the four sheets laid out on the altar floor, one's the off-white linen Ellie often sees in the clinic and it's evident, even without seeing the well-worn leather boots poking out from the bottom, that it's Tommy. The other three are covered in torn, brown hessian, taken from the sacks that can no longer be used for vegetables in the greenhouses. It's fitting and does a little towards making Ellie feel better about the entire situation.

Dina leads her to the front row of pews, where she can see various packs and bedrolls laid out and Ellie lets out a low whistle.

"They left a ton of shit behind."

Dina squats down beside her, dragging forward a ratty camo-patterned backpack.

"Maria thought you might want to take a look," Dina offers gently, tugging at the zip and peering inside the bag. "See what you could find."

Dina doesn't say it but it's painfully obvious that Maria thinks Joel will go to Seattle, that whilst Maria isn't able to offer him anything in the way of backup, she's expecting him to go alone. She's not wrong; but Ellie finds it leaves a bad taste in her mouth…Maria had no way of knowing what Joel would be walking into, yet she'd encourage him to charge in headfirst? And in his brother's name?

'If anything. Anything at all happens to him. It's on you.'

"I'll bet she did."

Ellie stands up but Dina's fingers fold into a tight grip around her sleeve.

"She's hurting too," Dina reminds her, always the more pragmatic. "Let's just get this done, yeah?"

If it had been anyone else, Ellie probably would've ignored them but it's Dina and she'd always had a soft spot for her even before they'd started…whatever it is that was going on between them. She huffs out a breath and nods and Dina's fingers slowly fall away from her as she goes back to rooting through the backpack.

Ellie makes her way back down the altar, intending to stop at Tommy because she'd told Joel it had been quick, and (for her own peace of mind if nothing else) she desperately wants to confirm that is was, when she notices the braid sticking out from the sheet just on from him and her mind is thrown back to an image of the woman towering over Joel with a bloody club clutched in her fist.

Abby.

She isn't sure what compels her to do it, but she crouches next to her and tugs the sheet down below the woman's shoulders, her pale face glowing eerily in the light of the chapel through the blood. The wound, which Ellie appreciates now, was a damn good shot, has stopped bleeding, the spattering of it having long since dried.

"Should've stayed the fuck outta Jackson."

Ellie's just about to cover her over again when she spots the chain around Abby's neck, the silver dulled after what presumably had been years of wear. She hooks her finger underneath it, tugging it away from the skin and the chain gives way with little resistance.

She can feel her pulse racing as she shakily turns the pendant over in her palm.

Abigail Anderson

000321

A firefly...and wasn't that just her luck? Joel was going to flip his shit when he heard about this.

"Fucking perfect."

Time is going by, so much faster than I
And I'm starting to regret not spending all of it with you
Now I'm wondering why, I've kept this bottled inside
Cause I'm starting to regret not telling all of this to you

So if I haven't yet I've gotta let you knowYou're never gonna be alone!
From this moment on, if you ever feel like letting go
I won't let you fall,
When all hope is gone,
I know that you can carry on
We're gonna take the world on
I'll hold you 'till the hurt is goneAnd now, for as long as I can, I'm holding on with both hands

Lyrics courtesy of Nickelback

A/N: Review? If you feel like it?