A/N: 'This is our routine. Day and night. All we do is survive. It never lets up,' – Ellie

Having finally reached Seattle, Joel and Ellie make a start on hunting down Tommy's killers. With bits of a plan in motion, they're attempting to fill in the blanks as they go along…which means getting one of those WLF assholes to talk. Ellie has her doubts, but Joel seems determined to get the name of Tommy's shooter.

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

Disclaimer: I own nothing (except my muse)

Warning: Getting into more concrete spoilers for TLOU II now (also if you're just tuning in, Abby is gone FYI – sorry Abby fans)

Footnote: Shout out to all those who have reviewed, favoured, followed and just taken time out to read this - I've had a brilliant time reading all your thoughts. Also please feel free to throw some TLOU quotes and song suggestions my way – my memory is starting to fail me!

Wage My War

They'd spent another few days, camped out in Salmon-Challis trying to track down Edith, cautiously circling back to where they'd lost her, bypassing Abe's cabin and cutting through the trees, before they'd ultimately given up.

Ellie had been hopeful they might actually find the mare at one point, when they'd come across a couple of track marks, but the trail had eventually dried up; so they'd had to cut their losses and move on.

Since losing Edith, Ellie's been thinking more about Callus and she's debated mentioning him to Joel. She'd entertained the thought for a while, on those nights when they'd both been too exhausted to walk any further and they'd had to find somewhere to haul up, if only to see how much Joel actually remembered Callus.

'What kind of name is Callus, anyways?'

In the end she doesn't say anything because even after all these years, they've still never talked in any real depth about the things that happened that winter. Joel knew the basics, but he'd never prodded, and Ellie had always struggled to give a voice to everything she'd gone through since Joel got impaled at the university. Even five years on she's still wary about what memories might be uncovered if she lets too much slip out.

Travelling on foot had slowed them down, something Joel was visibly pissed about, despite never uttering a word of complaint but Ellie, if anything, was grateful for the delay, because it meant Joel was almost six weeks into his recovery as opposed to just over a month.

She doesn't know much about medicine but as far as she's concerned two additional weeks had to be doing something for Joel's bone durability…she's not as worried as she had been before about some random hunter cracking his head open like an egg.

They'd encountered several patches of infected along the way, usually on the outskirts of former towns so they'd started to keep towards the wooded areas as much as possible. Only venturing into the towns when supplies had been running low.

When they finally did breach the county line into Seattle, Joel had seemed eager to get things moving and while a part of Ellie was still heavily invested in taking down Tommy's killers, there was another, more rational voice in the back of her head constantly reminding her that they're potentially heading into an army of fucking thousands.

The main gate, an old FEDRA checkpoint, from when Seattle had been a QZ, was locked and by the time they'd checked out the area and found several possible entry points, the light had started to fade and even though Joel was anxious to get inside, he seemed to recognise the danger of attempting to work the gate in the dark.

They'd made camp, far enough away from the gate not to be spotted easily on the off chance a patrol route came out that far, but close enough that the outline of the gate was still visible in the distance.

"Better keep an eye on those high spots," Joel comments, rooting through his pack and pulling out a couple of oat biscuits, passing one to Ellie along with an open tin of peaches. "If they've got lookouts, that's where they'll be."

"Trespassers killed on sight," Ellie quotes the messy scrawl across the gate, fishing out several peach slices before nudging the can back to Joel. "Where else are they gonna fucking put them to get a decent shot?"

"That gate's heavy duty; rusted up round the hinges. I don't reckon it gets much use. Lookouts are probably on rotation. Isaac was always a tricky bastard, but I doubt they'd waste putting men out this far every day."

Ellie had noticed the hinges too, it would've been difficult to miss the thick layers of rust creeping across the metal, even in the low evening light. They'd had a gate like it back in Boston, Ellie had seen it a few times while out on drills with the military kids...she'd only ever seen it open once, in all the time she'd been there, when one of the guards had jump started the generator to let a convoy in.

'Call the clean up crew. Next time you come near here, I'm gonna put a bullet in your head. You hear me?'

As time wore on, the QZ's had opened their gates less and less, with the threat of infected rising and the refugees slowly dying out, FEDRA had decided to close ranks to protect the settlements. Eventually the gates had closed for good, nobody came to the QZ and nobody left the city...apart from the smugglers and the odd FEDRA foot patrol.

"They never really bothered with the outposts back in Boston either. Guess there wasn't much point after they'd bombed outside the city."

"Yeah. I remember. There was one unit that used to run that circuit though. I used to trade with one of 'em at the mall."

Small fucking world, huh?

"You used to trade out of the mall?" Ellie asks him incredulously, around a mouthful of peach.

"Not exactly. I'd do drops for a guy there."

"Winston, right? Grubby beard and a trapper? Probably always after you for fucking booze?"

Joel glances at her, clearing out the rest of the tin and tossing it.

"You talk like you know the guy."

"Knew," Ellie corrects quickly, and although it's been a while since she'd thought about Winston, she actually finds it easy to talk about him. "Not infected. A heart attack, I think? I used to hang out at the mall."

"Lemme guess, you were one of those smart mouthed little shits that used to get in there smashing up cars?"

"Ah...," she's not really sure where she's going with this, she's still a little amazed that her and Joel had come so close to crossing paths before Marlene had introduced them. "Yeah, technically...but that wasn't my idea."

'I've got an idea. See those cars down there? Red ones yours. I'll be blue. We throw bricks. Whoever breaks all the windows to their car wins.'

And that's suddenly when the air shifts and the conversation dies, because whilst it was easy to talk about Winston, even after all this time, it was still fucking impossible to talk about Riley. Joel seems to catch the change and rather than press, he pulls Abe's map from his pocket and changes the subject. Ellie's grateful for his attempt at tact because although she's let snippets out over the years about Riley, there are still parts of their friendship she isn't able to share.

She wonders sometimes if she'll ever be able to remember Riley without feeling like she's going to tear open from the inside.

She'd lost people before Riley, had lost people since but there was something different about Riley's grief. Marlene, when she'd cared enough to ask, had said it probably felt raw because of the way it happened. They'd been bitten together, should have died together but in the end, Riley had turned, and Ellie hadn't.

Survivors' guilt, that's what Marlene had called it.

She'd handled it back then as best she could, although she hadn't really had time to dwell on it because less than a month later she'd been thrust onto the road with Joel and between him and the promise of the fireflies, she'd kept herself afloat.

Barely, at times, but she was still breathing.

Ellie thinks Joel's hunt for Tommy killers is much the same...it's perhaps the only thing that's keeping him from going under after his death.

She's no doctor, but she'd listened to Doc each time he'd reeled off possible symptoms following Joel's injury and whilst his physical recovery seems to be coming along nicely, Doc had pointedly reiterated that traumatic injuries occasionally left deeper wounds.

Since that fucking clicker incident in Salmon-Challis, she's been keeping a closer eye on Joel, Doc's voice echoing various medical terms in her ear, sometimes overlapping with Marlene's. Whatever happened during that ambush had not been repeated, which was lucky in a sense, but it also means that, for the moment at least, Ellie has little to go on in terms of figuring out why.

She has a vague hunch, rooted in gut feeling and not much else, that whatever had caused Joel to seize up ran deeper that a couple of cracks in his skull.

She isn't sure though as there's a chance she's projecting her own thoughts and feelings onto Joel...

...She knows what it feels like to lose someone close and walk away from something that should have killed you.

"So," she says awkwardly, waving her hand vaguely towards the map in Joel's hands. "What's the plan for tomorrow?"

"Clear the gate," Joel answers simply, laying the map down on the ground between them, pointing to the bottom left corner. "Once we're in, we'll be somewhere around here. Probably be a good idea to lay low, try to find a lead."

They've bounced ideas around a little since leaving Abe's, but they've not spoken much about Abby's group, her father or how they'd likely known Joel and Tommy.

But from the look on Joel's face back at the cabin, he definitely had an idea.

Ellie had tried to bring it up but they'd been travelling on foot and the days had been long and by the time they'd made camp, they'd had just about enough time to plan for the next morning before one of them had passed out.

Joel wasn't the easiest person to talk to on a good day, and if he didn't want to let you in then his guard would go up and he wouldn't budge for shit. Ellie has more luck than most wheedling her way in, even if it takes a couple of weeks.

She's aware they don't have weeks to dance around this particular issue.

"You think we'll be able to find one of those assholes?"

"Anyone who's WLF should have some intel. Shouldn't be too difficult to find a WLF guy."

"So we're just going to jump the first WLFguy we see and hope for the best?" she asks tightly, biting her tongue in an attempt to keep her tone smooth. "How many guys are we going to have to fucking go through before we get anything we can use? Pretty sure Isaac's going to notice when the bodies start piling up."

"I know you're worried-"

"Damn right I'm fucking worried," Ellie interrupts hotly and although she'd tried to keep her irritation in check, it's starting to seep out. "One wrong move and we could be leading an entire army to Jackson."

It's an extreme worst case scenario, she knows that and whilst she realises it's unlikely Isaac would go through the trouble of chasing after them, she still has no idea what they're walking into. Until they have a better understanding of how the land lies in Seattle, they can't afford to rule anything out.

A small part of her also wants for Joel to actively acknowledge the risk, because although he's been hardened by years of survival and could usually spot an ambush a mile off, he's starting to narrow his focus to a dangerous extent on Tommy's killers.

"I'm betting that girl's vendetta was personal," Joel says pointedly, and from his expression, Ellie can see it's not some bullshit line…he genuinely believes it. "There ain't no way to be sure right now but there's a chance her father was at the hospital when..." he trails off, awkwardly clearing his throat. "What I'm sayin' is the WLF might not have anything to do with this."

It's the first time Joel's willingly made reference to Abby and her father since they'd left Abe's.

The strange thing is that, if Joel had popped Abby's old man, Ellie thinks she might actually get the other girl. It's something she has a hard time reconciling because she's not particularly sold on the idea of having any common ground with that golf club wielding bitch but regardless of whether she likes it or not, there's a degree of understanding there which won't be ignored.

It…might not be quite the same for her and Joel, there's no blood between them but she figures that it's close enough for her to understand Abby's motivations. Ellie's had some time to think about it and she's uncomfortably aware of what she would've done if Joel had died in that fucking lodge.

She'd have hunted Abby much the same way Joel is hunting the remaining members of her group…

…Even after the distance between them over the last few years, it's evident she's picked up a lot of Joel's traits. It had bothered her before, when she'd been trying to craft a life away from him, but when she'd finally let go of the anger, she'd realised those traits were probably why she'd survived as long as she had.

She can admit now, that for a long time after the fireflies, she'd survived for Joel.

He'd help to keep her going and sometimes, in her darker moments, she's relieved they'd taken Tommy out over Joel. She immediately feels like shit every time the thought resurfaces...but she can't bring herself to kill the feeling completely.

Ellie knows losing Tommy has fucked with Joel's head…his death has cut Joel in a way few others ever had, at least in the time she'd known him. But they're out for blood in Seattle and the people they're hunting are survivors who'll fight tooth and nail for their lives, so she's making a real effort to curb her impulsiveness and try to be the voice of reason until Joel get his head back on straight.

"Maybe," she replies cautiously. "But even if that's true, the WLF won't stay off our backs if we start killing their guys."

"According to Abe we're walking into a war. They won't think anything of a few soldiers going missing if we do this smart."

Joel has a point, if they play their cards right and there actually is a war raging in Seattle to help cover their tracks, then they might be able to slip in and get it down without too much of a risk...but there's a lot of things that could go wrong in that scenario and they still don't really know enough about the group that had come for Joel and Tommy to completely write off the idea the WLF were involved.

He'd crossed a lot of people in his heyday.

Joel lets out a breath, swiping a hand across his face, before quickly folding up the map and returning it to his jacket.

"Look, kiddo. If I'm wrong and I get wind that they're on to us, then we'll pack it up and head back."

It's a promise she never would have asked him for but the fact that he's offered it up so readily, when she knows that walking away from Tommy's killers would fucking kill him, speaks volumes.

If she's doubtful that Joel would be able to pull himself away from the hunt before it was finished, she keeps it to herself.

For now, she's just hoping that Joel's hunch is right, that the WLF aren't involved…because if it is just the five remaining members of Abby's group (even if there was the risk of retaliation from them) there's a good chance she and Joel can take them out relatively quietly.

"Okay."

They make a start on hopping the fence at first light the next morning, and after they've attempted several of their possible entry points and come up short, Ellie spots a ladder overhanging from the side of a gate pillar. It's on runners but the bolts are rusted over so Ellie doubts even with her weight the ladder will budge. It's worth a shot though.

"You think you can get me up there?"

"Yeah," Joel replies easily, glancing up at the ladder before bracing his hands against his knee. "That ladder ain't coming down though," he grunts as Ellie presses her boot into his hands. "So, when you get up there try and find somethin' to throw down. No point in opening the main gate unless we have to."

He has a point; the gate is heavy set and would probably make one hell of a crash if they were to go in that way. She doesn't know what's waiting for them on the other side but she's pretty sure activating their main gate would bring every WLF asshole in earshot running their way...doing this quietly is definitely the better option.

With a bit of a boost, she manages to pull herself onto the ladder. It leads to several wide metal railings, but after a quick poke about she spots a crack in the wall. It'll be tight but it looks large enough for them to squeeze through.

"I think we can get through this way," Ellie calls down to Joel, gripping onto the nearest railing and peering over the edge. "Hang on. Let me find something to get you up."

There's not much to work with but she manages to find some cable, wrapped loosely around a broken floodlight. She secures it to the top rung of the ladder and tosses it down to Joel. Luckily there's just enough room for them to squeeze through the wall crack and when they climb down on the other side, the gate posts are, unsurprisingly, abandoned.

They keep an eye on the windows and balconies of the surrounding buildings as they venture further into the city but it's deceptively quiet, practically deserted and Ellie wonders if it's all just a clever rouse to lure people in or whether the WLF have written off this part of the city.

There's a lot of ground for them to cover, looking at Abe's map Ellie hadn't expected the city to be quite as large as it is and they spend a good chunk of the morning exploring what used to be downtown Seattle. Scratching little additions onto the map to mark gate posts and generators. There's a system of automatic gates dotted around the city, each one with a keypad disconnected from the power supply, but Ellie dutifully marks the codes they come across next to the relevant gate just in case.

They also manage to scrounge a couple of discarded posting orders along the way and although the papers are for locations city wide, there are several for "Serevena Base", and the comments noted under the deployment description suggest it's likely a WLF safe house.

It's not a lead but it's more than they'd had this morning...it's a start.

As they make their way deeper into the city, the Serevena hotel, with it's tacky sign, looming in the distance, Ellie can't help but notice the sorry fucking state the entire city is in. The buildings are in a state of disrepair hardly ever seen in residential settlements (the only buildings like this back in Boston had been condemned ones which the soldiers had either burnt down or bordered up), and the streets are littered with burnt out cars and powder marks.

As the reach the Serevena, large metal railings fencing off the hotel from the main street, she spots an array of graffiti and worn posters on the far wall and she supposes that whilst Boston hadn't been perfect, they'd never had to contend with a full blown civil war.

The WLF refer to themselves as "wolves" and the printed slogans are all short, snappy phrases used to stir unease. It's obvious the WLF had started off as a resistance group, a bit like the fireflies...although the cause, the message had been very different.

'When you're lost in the darkness, look for the light.'

'They think we're sheep! Bare your fangs.'

The other images are of a woman, exquisitely painted and bordering on beautiful, althoughEllie has no idea what to make of the words.

'May she guide you. Feel her love.'

From what Abe had told them, she's assuming it's the scars. Must be nice to have that kind of faith.

The sound of hurried footfalls echoes loudly from the alley behind and Ellie's just about to reach for her pistol, half expecting a WLF foot solider, when the faint grumbling of infected carries out from between the narrow walls.

Joel must've heard it too because in the next moment his hand is at her elbow and he's tugged her off the pavement. They crouch down behind a car, watching the runner dart across the street before clambering onto a dumpster and vaulting over the fence.

"Guess the WLF and the scars are the only people not sprouting fungus in this town," Ellie comments lightly, watching the runner disappear from behind the fence railings. "We can probably get in that way."

The courtyard is overgrown and when they drop down on the other side their runner is still there, stumbling past the derelict water feature towards the hotel entrance. As they get closer, Ellie can hear the jittery mumbling of infected, and although the entrance way sheds little light beyond the hotel lobby as their runner disappears inside Ellie can count at least three other bodies amongst the shadows.

"We never catch a fucking break," she says exasperated, voice low.

"We're better prepared this time," Joel mutters back, pulling a molotov out of his pack and lighting the rag. "It ain't gonna be like that ambush in Salmon-Challis."

Although the hotel is crawling with infected, they're mostly runners and Joel's able to torch the majority of them from the doorway. Ellie gets the clicker by the check in desk and the other stumbles into the flames and goes down with the runners, convulsing and shrieking.

The infected had mostly been clustered together around something in the lobby, it's partly why it had been so easy to get rid of them, and as Ellie and Joel clear the room, they catch sight of the body slumped against the bench, chest open and shirt blood sodden. As Joel pats the guy down, fingers searching through the jacket pockets for anything useful, Ellie clocks the patch on the guy's arm when Joel nudges it out the way.

"He's WLF," Ellie notes sourly, and given that Seattle had used to be a QZ, she's a little surprised to find so many infected inside the walls. Lazy bastards can't even clear out their infected. "Fuck! What if those assholes who killed Tommy were taken out by some random infected?"

Joel's shoulder tense, and his hands still against the body briefly before his muscles relax and he continues his search.

"Then they'd still be dead."

They would be but given what they'd done in Jackson, how they shot Tommy in cold blood and tried to beat Joel to death in one of the most brutal attacks Ellie had witnessed (and she'd watched James fucking butcher someone that winter)…she doesn't know how she feels about them going out to a runner on an off day. It seems too quick.

If it had been anyone else, other than Dina, she probably would have held her tongue, but she knows Joel doesn't like the thought of it either.

"I'm not sure that's justice."

"Neither am I," Joel replies, almost too quickly, voice a mixture of something tired and dark as he abandons the body with a handful of bullets and a power bar. "But there ain't much we can do about it. C'mon, we better check the floors."

There are more bodies littering the floors upstairs, although these ones don't look like infected kills, the wound are too clean, too well executed and as they cautiously move past an open window ledge Ellie spots a few with arrows protruding from their backs, chests and, in one case, neck. The bodies all sport WLF patches...it doesn't take a genius to figure out this was a strike. Guess Abe was right about the scars.

There's a room at the end of the third corridor, sunlight streaming in through large windows, door thrown wide open when many of the other hotel suites had been locked. There are voices echoing from inside but their unnaturally distorted and riddled with static. It's obviously a radio.

There's a body in the room too, a girl, strewn out across the floor, WLF patch clearly visible on her arm. She isn't dressed liked a solider, she's in borrowed clothes which are a size too large and Ellie can't help but think she looks more like a hunter than a solider.

Several arrows are embedded in her too large jacket, and there's an unusual amount of blood pooling by her face...Ellie's pretty sure the girl's throat has been slashed.

Something about the girl seems familiar and although Ellie hadn't really got much of a look at Tommy's killers back at the lodge, she's had more than enough time to troll through Abby's photographs to learn their faces. She kneels down by the girl, careful fingers angling her face so she can see her features better.

"It's Leah," Ellie tells Joel gently, mindful of the girl's throat as she lowers her head back to the floor. She trails her fingers down Leah's back, inspecting the puncture wounds visible beneath the arrows. "Somebody really fucked her up."

Joel spares a fleeting, uninterested glance at Leah before stepping around her to check the rest of the room, rummaging through the papers scattered across the table.

"Looks like Abe was right about there being a war on. Search her, she might have somethin' useful on her."

Ellie grabs at one of the arrows, tugging hard and slipping it loose, she turns it in her fingers, examining the bloodied arrowhead in the light. It's made of stone, but fashioned into a fine point, sharp enough to pierce flesh without too much resistance. Jackson didn't often use stone, the majority of theirs made of scrap metal or bone and although stone is primitive by comparison, Ellie can't knock the craftsmanship.

She wrenches out as many arrows as she can pry from Leah's body, leaving behind the ones which are broken or too deeply embedded to be removed easily. They might not be exactly what she's used to, but they'll fire easily enough and (if they are scars' gear) it wouldn't hurt to be able to pass off a few WLF kills as scar attacks.

Leah's got nothing else on her, but Joel has found a duffle bag stashed under a nearby cot and is going through it. There's another set of photographs, identical to Abby's and several folded notes from Jordan.

They split them to save time and mostly there's nothing helpful in them but whilst she's skimming through, Ellie's reminded of how young the two of them are...they remind her of Adam and Sidney. Just two dumb teens in love.

On one hand it's actually rather sad...but on the other hand they'd trekked across the country to smash up Joel's skull and shoot Tommy in the head so...she's fresh out of sympathy.

Joel comes across one, dated quite recently, which mentions an old school, possibly another WLF safe house where Jordan's been stationed. It's not exactly the most solid lead but it's all they've got.

Radio: Nine, this is two. Do you copy? Over. Nine, do you copy? Over.

"You think Jordan's still there?"

"Only one way to find out."

Radio: Support Unit India en route to Serevena, nine. Repeat. Support Unit India. Please acknowledge. Over.

"Think it's time we quit this place," Joel says gruffly, kicking the duffle back under the cot and stashing the papers in his bag before making his way out the door.

Ellie follows close behind him and they go out through the back, down the fire escape as opposed to through the lobby. With India potentially heading their way, there's no point in risking a confrontation, not when they have the advantage of covering their presence with a scars' kill.

As they cut through the streets, keeping to the abandoned buildings as much as possible until they're clear of the Serevena, Joel digs Abe's map from his jacket, scanning briefly for schools. From what Ellie can make out over his shoulder, there are schools dotted all over the city and whilst Jordan's note hadn't given them a name, he'd referenced a zone and thankfully there's only three schools in that area for them to check out.

They come to an underpass on their way to the first one and the smell as they enter hits Ellie's nose so quickly, it almost makes her gag. The flies gathering in the air are a dead give-away of what's to come, Ellie isn't even surprised when they stumble on the bodies.

They're all infected, all shot and...all scattered around a fallen horse?

The poor thing's been through the ringer, not a far cry from the moose they'd found in Salmon-Challis, but despite the mess, the horse is sporting a leather saddle and a couple of packs, the likelihood is the animal had a rider and none of the surrounding bodies look anything like conscious, non-fungal people.

"Infected are fucking savage," Ellie mutters, crouching down beside the horse, dark fur almost completely caked in a combination of blood and dirt. Ellie tugs open the saddle bag, peering inside, expecting it to be empty. She isn't disappointed. Whoever had ridden the horse had obviously cleared out the infected and then emptied their shit before moving on. "It's one of Jackson's," she tells Joel, motioning to the brand on the animal's rump.

"That group at the lodge rode off with two of ours. Could be either one of them."

"Does it look like yours or Tommy's?"

She can hear Joel shuffling around behind her, presumably checking over the bodies, but he soon comes up on her right, looking over her shoulder to study the remains. He leans over, squinting, before he reaches out and scrubs at a bloody patch of hair between the animal's glassy eyes.

When the grim starts to come away under Joel's fingers, it reveals an oddly shaped white marking and Ellie's feels suddenly weightless, as if the ground has crumbled away from under her feet.

"Japan," she breathes out, shaking fingers taking over from Joel and quickly scrubbing away the last of the dirt. With the marking clearly visible, there's no doubt in her mind. "It's Dina's fucking horse."

For a moment Ellie's head is fuzzy and Joel's voice fades into a muffled sort of white noise as she drifts away. She's having a hard time connecting Japan to Seattle when she vividly remembers leaving Dina in Jackson… it just doesn't make sense.

When the moment passes, she thunders back into her body, swallowing hard against the burning sensation in her throat and fighting down the impulse to drive heave.

"She would've left after we did. Probably figured she could cut us off if she came straight here."

Ellie hadn't left things with Dina on such great terms when she'd left Jackson. When she'd first broached the topic of Seattle with Dina...the other girl had been adamant she'd wanted to tag along. Loudly protested they should do this together because Joel obviously meant a lot to Ellie and Ellie (even if she does still have trouble wrapping her head around it) meant something to Dina.

'You go. I go.'

But when they'd talked things through, and Ellie had explained why it was just her and Joel going...she'd honestly thought Dina had understood.

What the fuck had Dina been thinking?

If she was the type to grasp at straws, she supposes there's a chance that Dina hadn't even been with Japan at all but aside from Maria, who Ellie knows wouldn't abandon the settlement, and Jessie, who wouldn't have been able to get out of Jackson without Dina in tow, she can't think any anyone who'd be a more viable option.

It had to be Dina.

Joel's voice is echoing faintly and although he'd been standing so close to her before, he sounds far away and Ellie's wading through water and darkness to get back to him. She's too tangled up in the haunting images her mind is supplying her, all those nasty thoughts of everything that could've gone wrong since Dina hit Seattle, that when Joel's hands settle on either side of her face it's grounding in a way she hadn't needed for a long time. The warmth from his fingers is enough to pull her back from an image of Dina, bloodied and bruised, facing off against a faceless WLF asshole.

"Breathe, baby girl," Joel's voice, usually so rough around the edges is soothing, the words relaxed and comforting.

They don't have a tactile relationship, they don't touch often, other than a pat on the back or the squeeze of a hand because although there's a deep love there, it just isn't them.

Joel's touch reminds Ellie of that winter, when she'd been hysterical and blinded by an almost bone-chilling fear by the time Joel had managed to find her. When she'd tried to scratch and claw her way out if his grasp because she'd been so far gone, she'd thought it was David back from the dead or one of those other fucking cannibals trying to kill her.

It wasn't until Joel's hands had gripped her face, gentle in a way she'd never known them before, and she'd come face to face with him that she'd finally come back to herself.

Back then she'd thrown herself into his arms, relieved not to be alone and although she'd been frightened, they'd fought their way out of that shitty town and survived.

She's older now though so whilst she doesn't collapse into Joel, she does mimic his breathing and make a conscious effort to calm down because, on some level, she knows she's no use to him or Dina like this.

"I'm okay," she forces out, nodding absently against his fingers and when she hears how breathless the words sound, she tries them again with more conviction. "I'm okay."

She wraps her fingers around Joel's wrist gently and squeezes, hoping to reiterate the point and Joel nods, mostly satisfied, dropping his hands from her face.

"We need to get us a radio, most of those WLF guys carry 'em" he says slowly, rising to his feet. "If Dina's here, if any of them have seen her, they'll be broadcasting all over that channel. C'mon kiddo," he offers his hand to Ellie, pulling her to her feet when she takes it. "Let's go find that girl of yours."

Oh, hush, my dear, it's been a difficult year
And terrors don't prey on
Innocent victims
Trust me, darling, trust me, darling

I wage my war, on the world inside
I take my gun to the enemy's side
Oh, I've been askin'
Oh, I've been askin' for problems So look me in the eyes
Tell me what you see

But I'm a bad liar, bad liar

Lyrics courtesy of Imagine Dragons

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