A/N: Ah, nothin' like a good cliffhanger to keep everyone on the edge of their seats. I had a few people ask if I was actually going to kill Ellie. Come on now, I wouldn't kill arguably the best character in TLoU universe... or would I? I guess you'll have to read on to find out...

Broken-record announcement: thanks for all your reviews and messages! Your support has been invaluable to me, and it's touching to see how I've inspired other people to get back into writing in very much the same way that I was inspired to. I'm glad you're all enjoying this fic so much. I'm pretty excited about where it's going, and where it might end (I still don't quite know yet myself... I write these chapters right before posting them.) We're in for a wild ride to the finish, I think. Stay tuned!

DISCLAIMER/LEGAL MUMBO-JUMBO: I do not own The Last of Us, it is Naughty Dog's property.

CHAPTER 14

TRIAGE

Houser scrambled up the stairs and sprinted down the walkway. Through the wall to his right he heard the unmistakable boom of shotgun blast, followed by the voice of a young girl screaming someone's name. The distraction caused him to stumble, but he regained control of his stride and made it to the doorway. He turned the deadbolt and flung the door open.

The catwalk on the other side of the doorway painted a desperate scene. There were bodies of Infected crumpled here and there, most blown apart by close-range gunfire. Sprawled out on the floor before the door were Tommy's brother Joel and his daughter Ellie. Or, at least, he thought it was his daughter. Seemed like a reasonable deduction. He was trying to stand up and she was splayed out at his feet, reaching out to him, struggling to escape the clicker pinning her legs to the catwalk.

Her scream startled Houser, and his eyes moved from her face to the clicker as it clamped its jaws down on her left thigh, just above the knee. Houser was too shocked to react. Joel swung his leg around and drove his boot into the side of the beast's head, sending it toppling over onto the metal grating. As it's head snapped away, there was a spray of red from the girl's leg and she screamed again, louder than before.

"Houser! Shoot it!" Joel yelled.

Houser snapped out of his state of shock and pulled his .45 from its holster, pointed it at the clicker's head, and fired three rounds into it. The high-caliber bullets ripped the beast's face apart at that short distance, and the creature went still, never to move again. He flinched at the deafening boom of the sharpshooter's rifle from atop the turbine building.

Joel scooped up the girl and carried her through the door. She was bleeding badly, and Joel's arm quickly turned a dark crimson as his sleeves were soaked by her blood. Houser followed them into the building and bolted the door behind him.

"Houser, where's Maria?" Joel asked. Houser didn't respond, still slightly in shock, staring at the bite wound. "Houser!"

"She's - she's in the control room, follow me," he replied, taking off at a jog down the walkway to the stairs.

Joel followed him, heart threatening to pulverize his ribcage into fine powder. Here he was, yet again carrying Ellie in a situation straight out of one of his nightmares. He glanced down at the bite wound and felt his stomach drop within him. It looked horrendous. A ragged, stained flap of denim hung from the bite area, and everything around the wound was being rapidly saturated with blood. A dark ring was expanding through the fabric of her jeans around the bite.

Houser looked back at Joel, noticing the fear in his eyes. His heart broke a bit for him. Joel's daughter was done for. There was no recovering from an Infected bite. All of the impending aid they were going to give her were just formalities. He felt guilty for not making it to the door earlier. The girl was far too young to go out like this. He pushed open the door to the control room.

Joel rushed in and placed Ellie on the table in the middle of the room. Maria rushed over, a look of concern on her face. "Maria, I need alcohol, antiseptic, somethin'… and rags. Bandages. We gotta stop the bleedin'," Joel said.

Maria ran to the next room and came back with a small medical kit. She handed it to Joel and went to Ellie's side. Houser was impressed that the girl wasn't bawling because of the pain. Instead she gritted her teeth, let slip the occasional moan, and produced a string of profanity that would make a sailor blush.

Joel poured some water on the wound to flush it out, revealing the extent of the damage. There was a chunk of flesh that was just plain missing, likely still in the clicker's mouth. The wound was an oblong oval with a jagged circumference formed by the disfigured jaws of the beast. Houser knew that within a matter of hours, white moldy growths would begin to appear around the bite. The cordyceps would spread out to the rest of her body and finally work its way into her brain. It was a horrible way to go.

"I don't mean to be that guy, but what are we doin' here?" Houser asked. "Joel… I hate to say it, but this girl's dead…"

Joel glared at him with such ferocity that Houser couldn't help but let his gaze fall to the floor in embarrassment, as if he had just stated the most ridiculous falsehood imaginable and been called out on it.

"No she ain't," Joel said.

"What do you mean, 'no she-'"

"She's immune," Maria interjected.

That gave everyone in the control room pause. They all blinked stupidly and looked at the girl writhing in pain on the table. "What do you mean, 'immune'?" one of the engineers asked from beneath a yellow plastic hardhat.

"I mean immune," Joel said, reaching up and pulling up the girl's right shirt sleeve, revealing a scarred wound that was unmistakably a bite mark. He stared hard at the others in the room. "This is over a year old, and nothin'."

Everyone around them was too stunned to do anything but stare as Joel and Maria worked to staunch the bleeding. Joel grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol and removed the cap. "Ellie, this is gonna hurt like hell, but we gotta disinfect the wound," he said. "Brace yourself."

"Just do it," she replied evenly, remarkably calm, all things considered.

"Alright… here comes." He poured the alcohol over the wound and Ellie's reaction was immediate. She writhed violently and clenched her teeth to keep from screaming out.

"Ah, fuck! Motherfucker!" she seethed through gritted teeth.

"That's it, all done... it's over… it's over," Joel soothed as he placed a sizeable piece of gauze over the wound. Over that he placed some more clean rags and gestured for Maria to join him at his side of the table. "Maria, keep pressure here, we need to stop the bleedin'." Maria positioned herself beside the table and clamped down over the wound with both hands. Ellie grimaced in pain.

The room practically shook as another round left Lakyn's rifle on the roof above them. Whatever model of rifle she was using, it had to be high-caliber and not even remotely silenced. Joel picked up the radio. "Tommy, what's goin' on out there?" A few seconds passed with no reply. Joel looked up at Maria, seeing concern begin to seep into her eyes. "Tommy!" Again, the radio was silent. The sound of gunfire penetrated through the walls of the control room, telling that the battle was still underway.

"Joel," Maria began, the look of concern becoming one of dread, "I've got Ellie. Go check on Tommy! Please!"

"Sure thing," he said turning to leave.

Ellie reached out and grabbed the back of his shirt, stopping him in his tracks. He spun to face her. "Don't be gone long," she said simply.

"I won't. I promise."

"Lakyn, do you have a visual on Tommy?" Joel barked into the radio. He was running through the yard towards the gate, hurdling over bodies of slain Infected.

"Standby," she answered, as she presumably scanned the grounds in search of him. "I got him. He's pinned down with a couple other of our people. I'll try to help them out." A moment later there was another ear-splitting crack from her rifle.

Joel hopped over a Jersey barrier in his path and continued toward the gate. He was determined and single-focused, the rest of the world rushing past on his way to come to his brother's aid. He didn't notice the bandit that charged from his left until another shot from Lakyn's rifle downed him mid-stride. He'd have to buy her a drink for that one, or at least the post-apocalyptic equivalent of buying someone a drink.

He rounded a corner and his brother came into view. Tommy was behind cover with three other men, each taking turns volleying bullets back at the bandits. One of them took out a bandit peeking out from behind the truck that still sat protruding through the gate. Another round from Lakyn's rifle thundered into the other remaining bandit and Tommy peered over the cover, giving the all-clear to his men. Joel strode up to check on them.

"Y'all okay?"

They each gave themselves the once-over and nodded. "Yeah, I think we're good," Tommy replied. "How about you?"

"I'm fine. You weren't kiddin' about that sharpshooter of yours. She saved my ass on the way over here."

Tommy nodded. "She's the best," he said. "Where's Ellie?"

"She's with Maria. She got bit."

The repercussions of what that would mean when others found out about her condition registered with Tommy. "Shit. How's she holdin' up?"

Joel shrugged. "You know her… tough as nails. Missin' a decent chunk out of her leg, but she'll be fine." The three men with Tommy looked rather confused at his apparent state of denial.

"I'm sure she will," Tommy said. He picked up the radio. "Crow's nest, sitrep."

"All clear from up here. Looks like the remaining bandits are hoofing it."

Tommy nodded to no one in particular. "Alright, y'all, let's get back to the control room." He spoke into the radio once more, "Everyone in a guard tower, stay put until further notice. Everyone else, rendezvous in the control room. We still have a turbine to get back online."

The five men hustled to the turbine building. The grounds of the hydroelectric plant looked like a warzone. There were bodies strewn about; Infected, bandit, and citizen of Jackson alike. Bullet holes pocked the cement walls of various buildings and the perimeter wall of the plant itself. Later they would have to dig several graves for their dead and drag the Infected and bandits into a pile to be burned.

They entered the turbine building and jogged to the control room. Maria was sitting on a stool by Ellie's side. The girl wasn't moving. Joel looked at Maria with tangible fear in his eyes. She gave him a reassuring glance and he realized her fingers were pressed to Ellie's neck, taking her pulse. Joel was beside her in an instant.

"She's alive, just lost consciousness is all," Maria said. "She lost a lot of blood." Joel's saturated shirt could attest to that.

He looked down and found Ellie's leg tightly wrapped with bandages. They were freckled red from the blood seeping through, but they weren't soaked, which was a good sign. Joel placed his hand where Maria's was, feeling for a pulse. It was there, slightly weak, but not faint enough to cause concern.

A few of the onlookers in the room were murmuring to each other, especially those who hadn't been around during Joel and Maria's revelation of Ellie's condition. Those who had been around crossed over to the new arrivals and filled them in on the situation. Their faces eased from incomprehension to a state somewhere between concern and confusion upon realization of her immunity.

Tommy spoke up. "Alright, I need all the engineers in the turbine room. We gotta get this turbine online and get the electric fences rearmed ASAP! The rest of you, see to the wounded or begin clearin' the yard."

The onlookers dispersed at once, scattering to their various tasks. Maria offered the stool to Joel and he took it. Tommy crossed over to him and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"She'll pull through."

Joel nodded. He knew she would. She was too tough of a fighter to be done in by a measly clicker bite. In fact, she was the only person in the known world who could survive such an ordeal. The thought gave Joel reason to break a small smile. "Yeah, she will. But I ain't leavin' her side."

"I'd never ask you to. I'm gonna go see to my guys."

"Okay."

Tommy left with Maria in his wake, insisting to her that he was alright but noticeably touched at her concern. Joel turned back to Ellie and took her diminutive hand in his own. He couldn't help but replay the entire ordeal in his mind. That clicker had him dead to rights. He was millimeters from being bitten, and this scrappy little girl hadn't hesitated for a second to sacrifice herself to save him. In light of all of the recent strain he had injected into their relationship, her unflinching willingness to put herself in harm's way to save him struck a chord deep within him.

My little girl, he thought.

There she lay, incapacitated on account of him. It was then that he was reminded just how good Ellie was. How much better she was than him. How even in the midst of relational strife, she would lay down her young life to save an embittered old man like himself. He felt overcome with guilt.

He lifted his eyes to see one of the engineers tinkering away at the control panel, and decided to move Ellie somewhere quieter. The side room where Maria grabbed the medical kit from seemed to be as good a place as any, and there was an old couch in there where Ellie could be more comfortable. He slipped his arms under her neck and legs, being careful of the tender wound, and lifted her gently off of the table.

He set her down on the couch, arranged the pillows to give her proper support, and dragged a chair up to sit beside her. Before sitting down, he walked over and shut the door. He eased his tired body down onto the chair by her side and gazed at her for a long time.

She was still unconscious, but he began to speak anyway, perhaps more for himself than for her. "You saved my life, baby girl. You realize that?" He took her hand in his again. "I don't mean just… now. Not just out there. I mean… you saved me. You… you gave me somethin' to fight for." His right hand slid up his wrist and fell onto the broken watch. "I… I never thought I'd care about anyone like this again.

"Even with Tess… I felt like a… like a husk of a man. Like I was dead inside. She tried… Lord, she tried to make me feel human again, but it wasn't 'til you came along that I really did. I ain't felt much of anything before you. After Sarah, I just… went numb. Until you-"

Ellie began to stir, and upon coming to, the pain hit. Joel felt her tiny hand squeeze his. "Ahhh… oh fuck." Her free hand flew to the bite mark on her thigh.

"Easy, easy," Joel soothed.

She stifled her cries of pain and pushed back tears with clenched teeth. "Shit… this getting bit business is no fucking fun."

"I imagine it ain't, but you're the only girl alive who can take a bite like that and come out the other side. Those Infected should know better than to mess with you," he jested. "Lemme see if I can find somethin' to take the edge off."

He crossed over to a row of cabinets and began rifling through it. Before too long, he came across something that made him audibly gasp.

"What is it?" Ellie asked, turning to look.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he replied, turning around to reveal a full, sealed bottle of Parker's Heritage.

Somehow, through the searing pain, Ellie managed to giggle with delight.

AFTERMATH: PART II CONTINUES

WITH CHAPTER 15