Author's Notes: I have to say I'm disappointed with the lack of reviews for the last chapter. Look, I'm not trying to sound needy or pushy, but if I'm not getting feedback I assume that means you guys don't like the story. If that's the case, I don't exactly feel motivated to continue. Feedback is what keeps me motivated and keeps the story going. I've got some big and bold ideas for the story that I don't want to go to waste, so I need motivation. So please, leave something, even if it's only a single sentence.

Now, about this chapter. As you can imagine, seeing what happened to Barry and Adrian in the last chapter would be really hard for Ellie. Like Riley, Tess and Sam, she probably feels responsible for them as well. This is going to cause some tension between her and Joel because of the whole lying about the cure thing. I'm not saying any more, you'll have to read and find out. I hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Last Of Us or the characters in this chapter, except the ones I introduce. All credit goes to Naughty Dog.

Brand New Start

CH. 8: Betrayal

Ellie awoke with a gasp. It was early, the sun was barely over the ridge and Joel was still asleep next to her. Her heart was racing and she was sweating considerably, despite the room being chilly. The whole night had been filled with flashes of horrible memories. Memories of Riley's death, Tess's, Sam's, and most recently Barry and Adrian's. Their final moments replaying over and over in her head the entire night. She got out of bed and walked over to the window, and looked out over the town reflecting on her life.

I should have died with Riley at the mall. But instead I had to watch her suffer, slowly losing her mind while I was powerless to do anything about it. Then the same happened to Tess, Sam, Adrian, and Barry. Why should I have had to watch all those people suffer the fate that should have been my own?

She rolled up her sleeve to look at the bite mark on her arm. It was a permanent reminder of all the pain she watched those people go through when she shouldn't have. Her immunity wasn't a blessing, as Marlene said it was. It was a curse, a burden. And the scar on her arm served as a monument to the burden she must bear for the rest of her life, however long that would be. A year? Five? Ten? Twenty? Sometimes she wished the end would come sooner rather than later, so she wouldn't have to bear her burden any more.

Her mind went back to Joel's lie. Joel had said there were dozens of people that were immune and that the Fireflies had stopped looking for a cure. She didn't believe any of it. She could always push it to the back of her mind, but after Barry and Adrian's deaths she couldn't suppress that thought anymore. She had had enough; she needed to know the truth.

She sat on the couch downstairs for hours waiting for Joel to wake up. When she heard him finally coming down the stairs she thought about how she would initiate the conversation. He got to the bottom and turned to Ellie on the couch. "Mornin' kiddo." She glanced at him, but did not speak. "Rough night?" Again, she did not speak, and stared blankly at the wall on the opposite side of the room. Joel came over to the couch. "Ellie, if somethin's botherin' you, I can help. But you need to open up to me."

"You want me to open up?" she snapped. She stood up off the couch confrontationally causing Joel to take a step backwards. "Fine," her voice was raised. "But you need to open up first. Tell me what really happened at Salt Lake City."

Joel was taken off guard by her assertion. She had never spoken to him in that way before. "Ellie, I told you what happened-"

"Bullshit! You were lying, Joel. I've known the whole time, I just didn't say anything because I trusted you and I knew that trusting you gave me the best chance to have a normal life. But I can't just ignore it any more after watching Barry and Adrian die, so you're going to tell me what really happened. And you better not fucking lie this time. Just saying 'I swear' isn't enough. You need to…" she stood up as straight as she could and looked him dead in his eye. "Swear on your daughter."

That pushed Joel over the edge. He walked up to her aggressively, causing her to backpedal. "Don't you bring up Sarah at a time like this! You are real close to crossing a line that…" He stopped himself before he did anything too rash. He could see that he had scared Ellie a bit with the outburst. "I'm sorry I snapped at you. I shouldn't have lost my temper."

"No, it's okay. I shouldn't have said that." She shook her head as if to scold herself. She should have known that bringing up Sarah was a low blow. "But I don't take anything else back."

Joel spoke in a much softer voice now. "No, you're right. I did lie to you. But I only did it to protect you."

Ellie wasn't buying it. "Protect me from fucking what?"

"The truth. I knew the truth was too horrible for you to accept at the time. But… now you're gonna hear the truth… but you ain't gonna like it. Sit down." Ellie sat down on the far left cushion on the couch, and Joel sat next to her in the middle. He folded his hands in his lap as he prepared to tell her the truth. "Do you remember when we were in the tunnel with the rushing water?"

"Yeah, I fucking fell in. How could I forget that?"

Joel paused. He wasn't sure how he was going to explain the next part in a way she would understand. "When I pulled you out you were… technically you were... dead."

Ellie had no idea what he meant when he said that. "What do you mean I was dead? I'm still here aren't I?"

"You weren't breathin', and you had no heartbeat."

She understood a little bit now, but she didn't know what this had to do with what happened at the hospital. "Okay. So what does that have to do with the Fireflies?"

"I'm gettin' there. I tried to revive you, but these two Fireflies came up to me and knocked me out. I woke up on a bed in the hospital, Marlene was sittin' next to me. She told me that they had brought you back, and I was really relieved. But when I asked to see you, she said I couldn't. You were bein' prepped for surgery."

"Surgery? For what?"

Joel hesitated again. "To get the cure… they would have had to cut out your brain. No way in hell I was gonna let that happen."

Ellie grew concerned over where this was going. "What did you do?"

Joel hesitated much longer this time. This was the part he feared telling her the most. "Massacre. Anyone who stood between me and you… I killed them. Even Marlene."

"Everyone?" she asked worriedly.

"Fuckin' everyone."

Joel looked at Ellie and saw that she was afraid. She stood up quickly and stepped away from him. "Fuck, Joel! Do you have any idea what you've done?!"

Joel was surprised at her reaction. "The hell I do, I saved you."

"Well, did it cross your mind that maybe I didn't want to be saved?"

Surely she didn't mean that. "What the hell are you talkin' about?"

"There would have been a cure, Joel. We had a chance to save mankind."

"Ellie, did you hear what I said? You would have died. They didn't even give you a choice."

"It's what I would've chosen."

"You don't mean that."

"Yes, I do."

Joel lowered his voice and tried to reason with her gently. "Ellie, look me in the eyes." She did as he instructed, looking him right in the eye. "Now, can you tell me… honest to God… that you would have let yourself die given the choice?"

She hesitated, still maintaining firm eye contact. "It would have been for a greater cause. I would've done it without second thought."

"Well then I'm glad you weren't given that choice. Because there is no way I was gonna lose you."

Ellie snapped again. "Joel, this isn't about you! It isn't about me either!"

"Then who's it about?"

"Mankind," she said without hesitation. "Joel, we could have saved mankind."

Joel shook his head. "Mankind ain't worth savin'."

Ellie's voice was still raised. "That's bullshit and you know it."

"I've seen the lows mankind can reach. I've seen how mankind can destroy each other. If you'd seen what I've seen, you'd see that it ain't worth savin'."

Ellie became very defensive. "So are you trying to say the people of Jackson aren't worth saving? What about Tommy and Maria? Are they not worth saving?" She was crying at this point. "And besides, getting the cure meant more to me than you could ever know. Ever since Riley died, all I've wanted was to find some kind of closure. And then when Tess and Sam died, it made me want it even more. The only way for me to get that closure was for a cure to be made, even if it meant I had to die for it. Now, thanks to you… I can never have that closure. I'll have to live with this guilt for the rest of my life. And I'll have this…" she rolled up her sleeve, showing Joel the scar on her arm. "…every day for the rest of my life to remind me that they didn't have to have died in vain. Don't you see Joel… the only person you helped by getting me out of there was yourself. You didn't think about me at all."

Joel was shocked by her speech. He wanted to believe that she didn't mean any of it, and that it was just her emotions talking, but she sounded serious during all of it. He tried to reason with her and calm her down. "Ellie…" he moved to her slowly, trying to be rational with her.

"Stay away from me!" she screamed as she ran upstairs.

Joel followed her. "Ellie…"

"Leave me alone!" She ran into the bedroom and slammed the door, locking it.

Joel banged on the door. "Ellie, unlock the damn door!"

"Go away!"

Joel decided it would be best to let her calm down, but he was still angry at the way she reacted. "Fine, I'll leave you alone. But just remember that you wanted to hear the truth! You brought this on yourself!" He banged hard on the door one more time before turning and walking downstairs.

Ellie sat up against the door crying. All along Joel was the reason there was no cure. He had saved her against her will, and now she wished more than ever that she actually had died with Riley. For the first time, she felt like she couldn't trust Joel anymore. She felt betrayed, and she couldn't bear it anymore. She had been bent, and bent, and bent, and she had finally broken. She stood up and walked around to the other side of the bed and grabbed her pistol out from under the mattress. She made sure it was loaded and tucked it in the waistband of her jeans.

Joel sat on the couch thinking about the conversation he had with Ellie. If she wasn't lying about not wanting to be saved, it made Joel feel like he had let her down. But at the same time, even if she had been happy with it, he knew he wouldn't have been able to go on without her. He heard her come storming down the stairs and walked quickly to the front door. "Where do you think you're going?"

"For a walk." She opened the door and turned back to him. "And I don't want you to follow me!" She slammed the door shut. Joel didn't even try to stop her. He thought if she needed time alone, he should let her have it. He sat there for about fifteen minutes before he heard a knock at the door. He got up to answer it and saw Tommy standing there.

"Did you tell Ellie she could go for a joy ride?"

Joel looked at his brother confused. "What the hell do you mean?"

"I asked Ellie where she was goin' and she said she was gonna see if she could take one of Andrew's horses for a joy ride. When I asked if you gave her permission, she just ignored me."

Joel stood for a moment before he realized what she had done. "Goddammit! Not this shit again!"

He turned to run upstairs and Tommy followed him. "Are you thinkin' she ran off again?"

"That's exactly what she did." He ran into the bedroom and grabbed his revolver out of his bag.

"Why the hell would she do that now?"

"We had an argument. I'm leavin' it at that and I ain't sayin' a damn thing more."

They rode out of the gate and up the road chasing after Ellie. The first time she rode off she managed to narrowly escape a bandit ambush. Joel feared she wouldn't be as lucky this time. The greater fear was that something would happen to her by her own design. After what she said about wishing she had died, he feared that she would ride somewhere isolated and… he didn't want to think about it any further than that. They kept their eyes on the road while also scanning for tracks going into the woods, without seeing anything. They had ridden for miles without finding any sign of her or the horse. "We're getting' close to the outpost at this point," Tommy said. Sure enough, less than two minutes later, they got to it. They stopped out in front to ask one of the men if he had seen her come through.

"Have you seen a girl on a horse come through here?" Joel asked nervously.

"Yeah, about ten minutes ago. She came through real fast; she could be miles away by now."

"We gotta keep goin'," Joel said.

They rode a little bit further and Joel heard a sound that made his stomach drop… a gunshot in the woods. "Mother of God," he said to himself.

"Joel, you hear that?" Tommy asked.

"Yeah, I heard it." They continued to ride and saw tracks going down a trail into the woods… straight towards where the shot came from. "She went through there." Tommy and Joel turned down the trail and Joel was already preparing himself to find Ellie's dead body in the woods. He prayed she was alright, but was petrified of what he might find. They went down the trail and saw the first sign that the worst had indeed happened. Her horse had been shot dead, with no sign of her anywhere. "Christ! No, no, no, no!" He hopped off his horse and ran over to the carcass of hers. Tommy was quick to follow. "This is bad Tommy," he said with his voice breaking. "This is real fuckin' bad." Joel began to break down, and he was crying. His brother came over to try and lend some support.

"Take it easy, Joel. I'm sure she's fine."

Joel wanted to believe Tommy, but everything he had seen told him that he couldn't. "I hope you're right." He managed to suppress his fear and crying, for the time being. "Alright, you look over there, and I'll look there." They split up in opposite directions, Joel heading east and Tommy west. "Ellie!" he called out. He waited for a response, but got none. "Ellie!" he called out again, only louder. Still no response. He moved deeper into the woods, hope fading with each step he took. He tried to call out one last time. He took in a deep breath and yelled as loud as he could. "ELLIE!" He waited, but again got no response… until a distant voice called out from the woods.

"Joel!" It was Ellie's voice. She was alive.

"Oh, thank God," he said to himself. "Ellie! Are you okay?!"

"No, I'm hurt!" He could hear fear and pain in her voice, causing him to also feel afraid.

"Christ. Stay there! I'm comin'!" He made his way over to where he heard Ellie's voice. As he got close, he came across a small ledge with two dead hunters at the bottom. They must have shot her horse and she took them out. He climbed up onto the ledge and saw her lying on her back with her pistol out. "Ellie!" He ran over to her, grateful that she was alive. "How are you hurt? Were you shot?"

"No, it's my ankle. I stepped in a hole and twisted it. It really hurts." She pointed her pistol at her right ankle indicating that was the one that hurt. Joel went to try and get her shoe off to take a look, but she stopped him. "Don't touch it! Like I said, it really hurts."

He turned away from her to call out to his brother. "Tommy! I found her, she's alive!"

Ellie gave him her trademark puppy dog face. "So, how mad are you at me?"

"I'll decide later. Right now I'm just glad you're safe. Gimme your hands." He took Ellie's hands and sat her up, then attempted to get her to stand. "Can you put pressure on your foot?"

She stood up, keeping her right foot on the ground until the pain got too great. "No," she said as she lifted her foot up.

"Okay. I'm gonna carry you." He lifted her up and cradled her in his arms like he did when he took her out of the hospital in Salt Lake City. He began running with her back to where the horses were. "I'm gonna get you back to town and take you straight to Brenda's to look at your foot."

"That sounds good."

They met up with Tommy along the way. "Oh, thank God you're okay, Ellie. What the hell were you thinkin'?"

"Not now, Tommy," Joel asserted. "Let's just get her back to town."

When they rode back through the gate, Joel dismounted and helped Ellie off the horse before giving the reins to Tommy to take the horses back to the stables, minus the one Ellie took. He carried her directly to Brenda's and knocked on the door with his foot. "Brenda, I need you to look at Ellie's foot."

"Coming," she said from inside the house. She opened the door and motioned for them to come in. Joel carried Ellie into Brenda's house and set her down on one of the two beds in the back. "Now, which foot and what's wrong with it?"

"It's my right ankle. I twisted it."

"Okay, I'm going to need to take your shoe and sock off to take a look."

Ellie groaned, knowing it was going to hurt. As Brenda took Ellie's shoe off she grimaced, but did not make any sound. When she took the sock off she twisted her ankle the wrong way, causing Ellie to whimper a bit. Her ankle was red and swollen, as they expected it to be. Brenda inspected the ankle, testing it to see what caused pain and what didn't. It wasn't long before she had her diagnosis. "Sprained ankle. I've got a boot and some crutches I can give you. It'll take about a month for it to properly heal if you do everything you're supposed to."

"I've never used crutches before. It's gonna be weird learning to use them."

"They aren't hard to use. You just need to practice the motion a couple times."

Just then Andrew walked in the door, steaming with anger. He went straight over to Ellie in the bed. "You! You know, I was able to forgive you when you ran off with one of my horses at the dam last fall, but you crossed the line with this stunt. I got a dead horse because of you. From now on, you're blacklisted; no more taking a horse out for you."

Brenda looked at both of them in shock. "What did she do?"

"She asked to take one of my horses out for a joy ride and got it killed. Now she's banned from taking any more horses."

Ellie hung her head in defeat. "I guess I should have seen this coming."

"Yeah. And you…" he turned to Joel, "…you need to do a much better job of keeping an eye on her."

"I will, Andrew."

He turned and stormed out of Brenda's house. Brenda looked at Ellie. "How exactly did you get one of his horses killed?"

"I… don't want to talk about it." Joel could tell that Ellie was hiding something. What it was, he didn't know. He was going to find out though.

They walked up to the door and Joel reached into his pocket to get the key. "So, am I at least somewhat off the hook for taking out those hunters?" she asked with a pitiful smile. Joel just gave her a blank expression and the smile quickly faded.

"Get in the house and sit down on the couch," he demanded as he pushed the door open. In the walk from Brenda's house to her and Joel's, she had mastered walking on crutches, and walked over to the couch to sit down. "Now, what do you have to say for yourself?"

She bowed her head and sighed. "I'm sorry I ran off again. I wasn't thinking and it was completely idiotic. I should have learned my lesson last year but obviously I didn't, and I'm really, really sorry."

Joel stood there in silence. "That ain't gonna cut it, Ellie."

She picked her head up. "What else do you want me to say?"

"I want you to tell me what the hell was runnin' through your mind when you decided to pull this stunt. You were lucky nothin' happened when you ran off at the plant; this time you sprained your ankle. I'd still say you were lucky about that."

"I'm lucky that I got hurt?" she asked. Again, she tried the puppy dog face while looking down at her ankle as a last ditch effort to make Joel forgive her.

"Are you expectin' sympathy from me? You ran off on me, you got one of Andrew's horses killed, and you almost got killed yourself. You ain't gettin' a damn bit of sympathy from me! In fact, I'd say you had this comin' to you!" Joel's rant had set something off in her. She bowed her head and broke down sobbing. "What are you cryin' about?"

"I've l-lost you, J-Joel."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I've lost your trust. It's not that I ran off, it's why I ran off."

Joel figured that this is what she was hiding at Brenda's. "Then tell me why you ran off."

She began crying harder. "I… I c-couldn't t-take it any-anymore. I f-felt like I w-was living a lie and… and… I j-just c-couldn't anymore. I was… I was going to…" she made a gun gesture with her fingers and put it up to her head, trying to explain what she planned to do without actually saying it. "...but when the hunters attacked I came to my senses and realized that I wasn't ready to die."

Joel had feared all along that was her intention when she ran off. Although he was still mad at her, at least he could empathize with her. "Ellie…" He went over to the couch and sat down next to her, putting an arm around her. She continued to cry with her head hung low. "I know what you're goin' through is tough, but you have to know that killin' yourself is never an acceptable way out. It's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I understand you may feel betrayed by what I did at Salt Lake but you have to look at it from my side as well as yours. Are you happy with your life in Jackson up to this point?"

She sniffled, and answered without picking her head up. "Yeah."

"Are you happy to be friends with Hannah?"

"Yeah."

"Are you happy to be so close to Tommy and Maria?"

"Yeah."

"Don't you see? There's still things for you to enjoy. That's why I saved you. Because I love you and I knew that there would still be things to enjoy. When I said you were like a daughter, I meant it. I still mean it. Now, after hearin' this from me, can you still say that you wish you had sacrificed yourself for the cure and missed out on the things in Jackson to enjoy?"

Ellie took a while to let what Joel said sink in before answering. "No, I can't."

"That's what I thought, baby girl," he said as he wrapped both arms around her. She did not hug back, but accepted his hug anyway. She was now able to accept that what Joel did was in fact the right thing.

That concludes chapter 8 of Brand New Start. In the next chapter: Tensions between Joel and Ellie resurface and reach the boiling point, potentially forcing the two apart.

Remember to leave a review if you want the story to continue. Even if it's only one sentence.