#dont even get me started on when ellie kills david omg

[disaster-nicole]

TLOU ep.8 spoilers

When Joel finds Ellie at the end of the episode, the first thing he says to her is "It's me". Normally, that could read as a comfort, a victorious sentiment of 'it's alright, I'm here now'. But the way he says it, it sounds more like confusion. He doesn't immediately understand why her reaction is as desperate and violent as it is even when she's facing him. He doesn't yet understand why he has to clarify for her that it's him. He is genuinely confused.

Only then, when she settles a little, do the realizations come flooding for Joel. Now he processes just how disheveled and scared and frantic she is. He's never seen her in a state like this, which he knows can only mean one thing - whatever Ellie has just been through, it has been so much worse than anything they've faced together before now.

And he says it again, "It's me", and then he says "It's okay". And this time it is a comfort, a statement of safety.

And Ellie starts trying to explain, but she can't get anything coherent out so she just collapses into his arms and hugs him.

Joel is not stupid, and he is not a wishful thinker. He knows that Ellie is a 14-year-old girl who was kidnapped by unknown men, was gone for hours, and who has now emerged from a burning building covered in blood and so traumatized that she screams and struggles the moment he touches her. He knows what these signs all point to, and the absolute terror that he must feel, fearing what Ellie probably went through. It would be paralyzing to any parent.

So he just repeats "It's okay." And he says "babygirl", and he says "I got you", because that's how he comforts his daughters. As much as he didn't want to admit it, Ellie is his daughter now, and he promised himself he'd do anything to protect her, and that's all he knows how to do in this moment. To tell her that he's here, he's him, she's safe. That it's okay.

They both know that it isn't but, fuck, what else can you do?