#and hope this gets some notes y’now

[skoulsons]

Triage Analysis part 2

First part is here since I pick up right where i left off :)

Again, if I repeat smth, i apologize since I wrote this very out of order

“Yeah, I reckon you do.”

“So, time heals all wounds, I guess.”

He does know she knows. Surface level, he knows she does. But, personally, I think he wants to hold her (maybe im projecting a smidge, maybe not shh). To tell it to her over and over and repeat it until his throat runs dry. So she really knows. So she feels how much he wants her to know. To feel how much he loves her. How much he cares and wants to carry it all for her. How he wishes she’d just tell him so he can do more than attempt to cheer her up during the day. He can’t solve it, of course not, but to be of more use. To be able to do something more for her. To give every ounce of what he has to her.

“So, time heals all wounds I guess.” Personally, just based on the time I’ve spent on the analysis, that is how I see it. He has opened up to her about this part of him. The same Joel Miller who told her “we keep our histories to ourselves,” is the same Joel Miller sitting here beside her telling a big part of his history. She mentions time. That time is what has allowed him to open up to her. That time has healed enough to talk openly about Sarah, or openly at all. That time is what has made him smile more. She doesn’t view herself as that important to Joel. She loves him (will cover in their roof analysis but who knows when that’ll happen), but she does not think that he loves her the same. She downplays her importance to him. She doesn’t believe she’s played any role in healing him. She doesn’t think he looks at her and sees the person he loves most in his life like how she looks at him. But we, as viewers, know that is so far from the truth. I mean, ten minutes prior to the giraffes? During the giraffes? I know that man's face was sore watching her smile and giggle. I thought he was gonna pass out from smiling as big as he was. But Ellie doesn’t see those types of looks. She doesn’t see him stay up all night to watch over her. She does underestimate what she is to him. Who she is to him.

He, again, does not look at her for a moment. He knows it was her and not time, and very accurate to their relationship, finds a way to beat around the bush of ‘being direct with your words’ when it comes to their more heartfelt and emotional conversations. He fidgets with his mouth again, showing his anxiety in what he’s about to see and the hope that she understands the weight of just how heavy and meaningful it is.

“It wasn’t time that did it.”

My! Funeral! IT’S SO PROFOUND. This is EXACTLY like their porch conversation. Okay, maybe not exactly for obvious reasons, but it’s very similar. I mean that in the similarity of, “If somehow the Lord gave me a second chance at that moment, I would do it all over again.” In an anon ask earlier, I (and that anon) mentioned how the first game and their game relationship in general is more work-based love as opposed to a more spoken or verbal love, which is more the theme of the show. But that line in tlou2 is very much a spoken “I love you,” from Joel, much like Future Days also was. But for this line to happen in season 1 and it being so similar to tlou2 game Joel and how he says “I love you” to her struck me as being comparable.

I mentioned how Ellie has downplayed her importance to Joel. She does not hold an understanding of what she means to him like what he means to her. She believes he cares, sure, but she doesn’t know exactly the weight of what they are. What she is to him. Who she is to him, and how that someone, that family, that daughter, the role in his life that has been left barren for the past twenty years is now sealed again with her.

He has been fidgeting this whole scene. Fidgeting with his feet, hands, biting his cheek/lips and messing with his jaw. It’s the anxiety and being open and vulnerable. But the second he says this, he’s still. He doesn’t move or fidget in the slightest because he is so sure of what he’s just told her. There’s no room for anxiety because he doesn’t feel anxious saying it. There are no nerves attached to it. He has believed it for so long and so strongly that, once it’s out there, there is no fear. He is so sure of it.

The way he looks at her. The tears in his eyes. Sure, he’s been thinking about Sarah, her death, his attempt, his feelings back then, all of that. But those tears are not for that. He’s crying over her. He’s crying because of what they’ve become. That he’s looking at his saving grace. The little girl who gave him something to fight for. How that barren part of his heart has been filled with her presence. Her killer smile he’s grown to love so much. Her laughing that brought him out of a panic attack. The little girl who made him giggle like a little kid until they fell asleep. This little girl whose hands are so tiny compared to his and who fits into his side like she was built for it. How her puns annoyed him at first and borderline uncomfortable, what he then ends up encouraging and even rating them with her.

And instead of an “I love you,” which, truth be told, they really don’t need, he tells her she’s the object of his healing. She’s the reason. After twenty years of endless trauma and baggage and violence, she is what’s healed him. She’s healed the cracked fatherhood in him. It is…so incredibly loud. To look at her this way. To agree with her that he has been healed, is healing, and she’s the reason. She is the reason. She is his reason. He is looking at the little girl who saved his life. His face, everything about it, is full of love and the realization of who she now is and what she’s done for him, and he could not be more grateful for her.

Another anon in my box the other day mentioned that, in the episode 5 podcast, Craig and Neil say that Joel has this thought of, “this is going to be me and her” when he looks at Henry and Sam’s grave. And, as anon said, this hits much harder knowing his past now. She would die and he would not be able to handle that again. He wouldn’t miss, would not hesitate, and would not flinch. Why flinch? He just lost the light of his life for the second time. Losing her once and then hanging on by half a thread of twenty years until you find her again only to lose her soon after would be too much for him. That grief would consume him for all but two minutes until he did it again, not flinching this time.

And she realizes it now. As much as he means to her, she means the same to him. You are what healed me. To know that she is the reason for the biggest change in him as a man. That she, just as she is, has let her light shine on the Joel Before that has been buried so deep. That that man is brought to life again because of her.

To quote Craig or Neil from The Last of Us podcast: “But never did it occur to her what she meant to him. It was always, ‘What do you mean to me?’ And when a child hears something like that, it is overwhelming to them. And you can see her struggling to process it.”

I think that she does struggle to process it, but I think she also understands what he’s just said. She hears his “I love you” and she settles on it. She accepts it. She accepts that she means way more to him than she ever believed she did. She accepts her importance to him. That she has shone light on him. The reason he is changing is because of her.

She accepts her position in his life now. As family, but more importantly as his daughter. She has never been a daughter. Marlene was not a parent to her and she never knew her mother. She’s never even had any idea as to ‘what’ a father is or what he should even be like. It wouldn’t have been a big concern for her, either. But then this man comes in and he just can’t help himself but protect, provide for, care for, and look after, even though she was just a job. Then, through their time together, that’s what they become. Joel associating Ellie as his daughter earlier than she would’ve viewed him as an ‘actual’ father considering her view on exactly what that is may be a little skewed having never had one, but I think this is what does her in. To hear this man tell her just a fraction of what she means to him. Her eyes go wide for a second when she realizes, and she inhales and exhales, letting the words settle and take root in her heart. She accepts it completely, right then and there. And she tells him it back without words, until she does.

Even after she looks away, he watches because…well he loves her. And you see him swallow the lump in his throat. The type of lump where you’re very emotional and trying to keep from crying and it just builds and builds until it’s burning in your throat and you have to force it down.

And I just. I want to eat a bin full of cotton balls. I want to swallow fiberglass and bite my fingers off like carrots. Waterboard me. Pepper spray me. Bury me alive so I suffocate alone and under six feet of dirt. I’m in agony.

“Well, I’m glad that…that didn’t work out.”

I believe her “I’ll follow you anywhere you go,” is as much of an “I love you” as this is. She wouldn’t have him if he succeeded. They wouldn’t know each other, she would’ve never known or had a father like him, and she wouldn’t have felt as loved as cherished or love and cherish someone else nearly as much. There is so much they would’ve missed out on if he succeeded. And she, as good of an emotional communicator that he is, tells him she’s glad it didn’t work out. She is glad he’s alive and that what they’ve gone through has brought them together in this way. With them, you know, having trouble communicating their feelings and emotions with each other, I think that’s why she hesitates after her first “that”. She doesn’t want to be blatant (because they don’t really do blatant and in your face) and say, “Well, I’m glad you’re here and alive,” because that’s a little too feely, so she changes it to the action not working out and, while understood, his life. But he knows exactly what she’s saying.

“Me too.”

He has…an appreciation for being alive now; and it’s because of her. He has gained a reason for living, breathing, and protecting, and she is it. And he is as glad as she is that he didn’t succeed. That he did flinch. His head turned or his hand shook too bad. His prolific “no’s” and his trembling hands, cursing himself and crying for missing but failing at the courage to try again; to being thankful and crying BECAUSE he missed. Twenty years later, he’s glad he flinched.

And he wipes his tears away as she watches him, similar to episode 4 after he apologized and she used her sleeves to wipe away her tears (except he looked away lmao ep9 Ellie doesn’t care about privacy). He has never been like this with her before, so to see him CRY OVER HER and to wipe those tears away really shows her the love he has for her. She never saw the way he cried to Tommy nearly begged him to take her because he loves her too much and was too afraid he’d get her killed. I mentioned her settling on that love and understanding it, and a part of me believes she does, but to watch him cry OVER HER is, like from the podcast, an overwhelming thing. She means so much to this man, her father, and she doesn’t really know what to do or if she should comfort him or reassure him. I mean, if my dad did something like this, I also think I’d feel awkward about receiving something as profound as that.

“We should probably get going.”

“Yeah.”

She gives him a moment to wipe those tears and lets them have a moment of silence before changing the subject with how uncomfortable the air is getting with how open they just were with each other. She brings them back to what their goal at hand, lightening the mood slightly and Joel immediately grabs his rifle to stand, but Ellie stays for a moment, watching him go to sling the rifle over his shoulder. With everything that was just talked about and revealed and the very obvious confirmed love between the two of them now, she watches him. From slamming her into a wall and threatening her life, calling him an asshole, her being blamed for Tess’ death, their Jackson argument, and anything in between, they’re here. They’re here, bonded and secured fully as father and daughter, as each other’s best friend, and help any motherfuckers who stand in the way of that.