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yelena-bellova · 2 years

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Twenty Years Later: Joel Miller x F!Reader - Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen: Carry You Home

Plot: Ellie and Y/n do their best to save a wounded Joel and survive on their own.

Word Count: 8.6k

Warnings: canon-typical violence, language, blood, injuries, hunting, reference to smut

A/N: Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy…these chapters suck to write for 2 reasons…1: D*vid. 2: We’re getting so close to the end that I want to cry 😫 I’m going to miss this show so much!!

As always, this series is 16+ and I will not be adding anyone to the taglist if your age/range isn’t in your bio. Gotta look out for younger eyes 👀

I hope y’all enjoy this blend of fluff and angst and laughter. I’m going to try to get 14 out on Sunday, but no promises. Read on!

——————

“Protect him.”

Tess’ dying words had echoed through Y/n’s mind more times than she could count. The sentiment had travelled with her across the county, an ever-present passenger on their journey.

And now they were haunting her.

Ellie and Y/n had managed to get Joel into the basement of an abandoned house, laying him down on an old, dank mattress. Unfortunately, he had woken up by then and was feeling the full force of his wound.

“I know, I know,” Y/n tried to soothe him as he screamed, bent over his abdomen. The tourniquet had done a subpar job at stopping the bleeding. If it had been a river, now it was a stream. “Hold still,” she looked to Ellie, “Press down on the wound. Hard.”

Ellie had found an old towel in the kitchen upstairs and tore off a strand.

“Squeeze,” Y/n instructed Joel, who was already squirming in pain, “Hard as you need.”

Joel had lost enough blood for the world around him to spin, the only things in focus were Ellie and Y/n’s faces.

Y/n nodded to Ellie, who pressed down on Joel’s wound, causing him to choke on his own breath. His hand shot out, reaching for Y/n’s arm and crushing it in his grip. She turned her face downwards to hide the grimace of pain.

“Ah, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Ellie cursed as Joel writhed beneath her hands.

“Keep going,” Y/n ordered, blindly reaching a hand out to push Joel’s shoulder into the mattress, “Honey, c’mon, I need you to work with us.”

Joel winced, digging his head back into the bed. Out of all the injuries he’d sustained over the years, this was the worst. Not just because of the searing pain stabbing through him, but because it was the one that was going to take him out.

He was dying, and neither Y/n nor Ellie could stop it.

“Leave.”

They both ignored the word.

“Leave,” Joel strained through it again.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Y/n stated, watching Ellie’s hands, “He’s gonna say some weird shit.”

“Go,” he continued.

“Shut up, Joel,” Ellie’s breaths quickened in quiet panic.

“Take the gun-“

“Joel, shut the fuck up,” she yelled.

“Ellie,” Y/n said forcefully, the girl’s hands were slipping. She pushed them off and held the rag down on Joel’s wound.

With a last surge of strength, Joel reached out and grabbed Ellie by the collar, yanking her to face him.

“You go,” Joel whispered, “You go. You go north. Y/n-“

Y/n shook her head, shutting out the reality of their dire situation. “Stop,” she said without looking up.

Joel was undeterred, “You go to Tommy.”

“Stop,” Y/n gritted out, her hands hanging over his stomach with no plan of action. She wasn’t even sure what there was to be done. At best, she was only stalling Joel’s death by a few precious minutes.

When she finally dared to look up, her gaze fell on Ellie, whose eyes were misting as she stared down at Joel. He shoved Ellie back, releasing her from the burden of caring, and let his arm fall at his side.

Joel managed to turn his head, letting his eyes wash over the woman he loved, had never stopped loving. Kneeling over him and covered in his blood, he thought back to how she’d looked the night they’d first met. Her eyes untouched by cynicism, her laugh deflecting no hidden pain, her smile striking him like lightning and giving him a new pursuit in life; to bring enough joy to her life that her lips were forever turned up.

Now he was going to break her heart. Again.

He thought of their last night together, spent cradling each other’s bodies underneath the sheets in Jackson. How his skin had remembered the feel of hers the moment they touched, how his lips had recalled the roads they used to travel across her like he would an old hometown street. Though bathed in the tears of their sins and all they had lost, he had been reborn at the first kiss. He had a standing reservation in hell, but he could go knowing he’d felt the touch of an angel.

“Rose…” Joel strained out, the word tasted like sweetness.

The four letters burned in Y/n’s ears, sending a new wave of fear through her. “No,” she finally looked to Joel, “This isn’t how it happens.”

“Rosebud,” he pushed with a surprising calm to his tone.

“Joel, no,” Y/n fought to keep her sobs down, “This is not how it happens. It’s not.”

Joel’s hand shakily slid up her arm, needing to feel her as he told her, “I love you.”

Y/n squeezed her eyes shut, the strength of her grip on the towel faltering as she forced them open to look at Joel. Despite his impending death, there was a peace that filled in the lines of his face, one that only graced those who were on their way out.

“No,” Y/n whined, her voice unable to carry further than the distance between them. She reached up to stroke his hair, taking his cheek in her other hand, “This isn’t how I want to hear it, Joel. Please.”

Once he’d said it, he couldn’t stop. He was making up for twenty years in twenty seconds. “I love you. I love you…” Joel drew a shallow breath, “You go. You take her,” his stare gripped her, nearly choking the will out of her, “Go.”

For as prominent as Joel’s abandonment had been in her life, Y/n had done her fair share of leaving. She had left Sarah’s body, at least it had felt like leaving, when they’d sought shelter in the triage clinic. She had left her parents, panicked at what she had done, in the spots where she’d taken their lives. She had left Tess to die the worst way a person could, even if she was only following orders. Her life had been one abandoning after the other, and now she was being asked to abandon the love of her life.

In her haze, Y/n hadn’t even remembered Ellie was there. It wasn’t until she felt Joel’s thick coat being slipped over his body that she realized the girl was making her choice. She would decide, for once in their time together, to heed Joel’s words. And as her boots slapped against the stairs, she was also making Y/n’s choice.

Unable to force the words she felt like a sweet sickness inside her soul, she dissolved into tears, pressing her forehead to Joel’s. She didn’t think even if they’d had twenty years ahead of them that she’d have ever found to words to describe the depth of her love for Joel Miller. It stretched two decades of euphorias and tragedies. It was stronger than her hate or his violence. It was forgiveness and redemption and all-encompassing in its triumph over the worst of their persons.

Y/n sniffled, nudging Joel’s nose with her wet one and letting her mouth hover over his as if she could breathe life back into him. Joel took it, letting his eyes fall shut and savoring the the last of her lips he’d ever feel.

Joel had spent twenty years trying to detach from who he’d been, his old skin a constant reminder of all that he’d almost had. Y/n had spent twenty years trying to find her way back to her humanity, desperate to redeem herself. Without ever knowing it, they had been running back to each another, one step at a time.

Protect him.

Perhaps Y/n had only kept her promise to Tess in the beginning out of obligation. But now, now the words were as true as if they’d come out of her own mouth.

Joel had left her once.

She’d be damned if it happened again.

Y/n broke from Joel’s lips, rushing to her feet and bolting for the stairs.

From Joel’s point of view, it was the last he’d ever see of her. There was a duality that Cordyceps had forced on anyone who prioritized survival over anything else. Joel had meant every word with the force he’d said it, he wanted Y/n and Ellie safe. But he also knew he was dying, something that, despite all he’d wished over the years, he wasn’t ready to do yet. He had Ellie, this beautiful, unexpected gift of a child, who depended on him as if she was his own. And now he had Y/n, the miracle that he’d let slip through his fingers, returning to him with the same perfect timing she’d first appeared to him. He wanted to stay, to cherish and protect them like the man they made him feel he could be again. And if that wasn’t in the cards for him, he at least wanted to hold their hands as he faded out.

As Joel watched Y/n head up the stairs, he let a single tear fall down his face. He’d had one last night, one last kiss, and one last ‘I love you.’ It wasn’t a lifetime, but it would have to be enough.

When Y/n got to the stairs, Ellie was nowhere to be found. Was she already saddling the horses? Was it that easy for her to let Joel die?

“Ellie,” she called through her tears, bursting through the door, “Ell-“

The girl rushed past her, one step ahead, raiding cabinets and drawers.

Y/n felt herself breathing for the first time in an hour.

“What do we look for?” Ellie hurriedly asked.

“Something,” Y/n flung a empty cabinet door open, “Anything. We need to get the wound closed up.”

They searched high and low, in every room, until they met in the kitchen. Ellie dove for a set of drawers while Y/n scoured more cabinets.

“It won’t open,” Ellie groaned, pulling against the handle.

Y/n ran over, squeezing her hands next to Ellie’s and tugging with her. “Pull,” she breathed, the two of them shifted all their weight backwards.

The drawer’s internal mechanism released, the momentum they’d built throwing Ellie and Y/n to the ground. The contents were scattered from the drop.

“There’s nothing here,” Y/n panted, on the verge of frustrated tears.

“W-wait,” Ellie breathed, her hand sliding across the linoleum floor to grab something. She held up a rusted needle and thread to Y/n.

“Yes,” Y/n gasped, she took the supplies into her shaking palms. She wished she hadn’t used the last of her own days before, but they could make do with what they had, “Yes, this’ll work.”

Stumbling to their feet, they ran back through the door and down the steps, bringing salvation with them.

Joel was trying, trying to hold the rag to his wound, hoping it made his death a little less painful, but his strength was fading. His whole body shook with shivers, even his lips trembled from the cruel mixture of shock and the cold. He could feel himself slipping away, so much so that he was convinced the thudding footsteps he heard were hallucinations.

Y/n and Ellie kneeled down on either side of him, their faces illuminated by the last bit of light peeking through the clouded basement window. His saviors.

Ellie threw Joel’s coat off of him, catching her breath as she reached for his hand.

Y/n leaned down, interlocking her fingers with his other hand and brushing the hair from his face. She pressed a determined kiss to his clammy forehead, willing him to stay alive a little bit longer.

Joel would never admit to them just how much he’d wanted them to stay. He summoned what was left of his strength and tried to squeeze both of their hands, letting them squeeze back. They were going to fight this, and they were going to do it together.

Ellie reached for the towel and peeled the cloth off Joel’s wound. The bleeding had slowed, but was far from stopping. They had to move fast.

In the midst of their panic, Joel softly reached for Ellie’s cheek, pulling back halfway when he lost his strength. It was a moment none of them noticed in their mad rush.

“Honey,” Y/n began, pressing one more kiss to Joel’s skin, “We gotta get it closed up. It’s gonna hurt like a motherfucker,” she moved Joel’s hands to grab her forearms, “So you fuckin’ squeeze, and try to stay still for us. Okay?”

Ellie quickly thread the needle and tied a knot. Y/n wished she could spare her the pain of having to stitch Joel up, but Y/n was the only one who’d be able to hold him down and keep him relatively calm.

“Keep going,” Y/n directed Ellie, “I’m gonna try to keep him still, but you don’t stop, even if he moves.”

Ellie nodded, apologetically seeking Joel’s eyes one last time before turning to his abdomen.

Y/n put both her hands to Joel’s shoulders, bracing herself for what was to come.

“Go,” she said,

Joel let out a sickening groan as Ellie thread the needle, the pain giving him strength enough to squeeze Y/n’s arms so tight, she couldn’t help but wince. In his daze, he could sense he was hurting her, but couldn’t fight past that which his own body was bringing him.

Tears sprung to Y/n’s eyes as she forced Joel down into the mattress, taking the searing heat in her shoulder as a good thing. It meant Joel still had enough fight inside him to push through.

“I know, I know, I know, I know,” she muttered as Joel threw his head to the side, trying to hide his grimaces from Ellie, “I know, honey. Just hang on.”

Joel’s vision was going dark around the edges, the pain dulling all his senses. The only thing strong enough to cut through was Y/n’s voice.

“I’m here,” Y/n assured Joel, his eyes fluttering but fighting to look at her, “I’m here. I got you.”

“It’s stopping,” Ellie announced, still hard at work.

Y/n wasn’t able to sigh in relief yet, Joel had finally lost the battle and had slipped into unconsciousness. She’d expected it, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t still filled with dread.

It only took Ellie a few more minutes to finish sewing Joel’s wound, Y/n helping her to tie a clumsy knot at the end. They dabbed and tried to clean the blood off him as best they could before laying his shirts back down. When they were done, they slid off their ankles and onto the concrete, watching the rise and fall of Joel’s chest.

“Is he…” Ellie began before realizing it was a stupid question.

Y/n was fighting off the same thought, wondering if their efforts would be enough, or if it was a losing battle.

“I hope so,” she whispered, it didn’t matter to her if fate was calling Joel Miller home. She would rage against it regardless.

The next hour was spent waiting and watching. Ellie, eventually, went upstairs and collected their backpacks.

Y/n kneeled above Joel’s head, her hands resting over each of his ears. She combed her fingers through the ends of his hair, not trying to wake him or soothe him further into sleep, but simply providing what little comfort she could to both of them.

Ellie clunked down the stairs with their packs and sleeping bags, depositing them on the floor. She had spent the last three months watching Joel and Y/n fight, and the last week watching them drift back together. This was new. She hadn’t seem them vulnerable, on the verge of losing one another when they’d finally found some sort of peace. She didn’t have twenty years of experience, but she understood why Y/n was hunched over, cradling the man, who didn’t even know she was there.

Ellie settled against the wall, working up the courage to speak. “How’d you guys meet?”

It was perhaps the only thing said in the moment to make Y/n smile. “At a bar,” she answered, remembering the night like it had just passed, “A guy hit on me, couldn’t take the hint that I wasn’t interested…Joel threw a punch, Tommy threw the next…” she nearly laughed, “Then they threw him out.”

“So…he’s always been like that,” Ellie commented.

Y/n soothed a thumb over Joel’s cheek, the skin was so pale it almost brought on a fresh batch of tears. Or maybe it was the reminder that they’d once lived in a world where violence wasn’t a necessary evil. Where Joel’s laugh was an every day occurrence. When he kissed her as if it was the last time he ever would, with the end nowhere in sight.

“No,” she whispered over the lump in her throat, “He wasn’t.”

Ellie sensed she was getting to close to shattering what was left of Y/n, and she couldn’t do that. She needed one person left to look to, to hold her hand through these impossible problems. She rubbed her hands together anxiously, nearly choking on the words she wanted to say.

“Riley.”

Y/n dragged her eyes away from Joel to look up at Ellie, “What?”

Ellie drew a shaky breath, “Riley. She was my…she was my friend,” she rubbed her knuckles together, “She got infected and…”

All of Y/n’s longing told her to stay with Joel, not to move from her spot, no matter what. But her duty was to both him and Ellie, and she knew where she was needed at the moment. She inched her hands off of Joel’s head and crawled over to Ellie, coming to sit next to her against the wall.

“I knew Riley,” Y/n admitted, hugging a knee to her chest.

Ellie’s eyes widened, “You did?”

Y/n nodded, “She only joined a few weeks before…” she trailed off. Marlene had been the one to find them, Y/n had been back at base. But she’d met Riley, had even tried to take her under her wing before the fatal night at the mall. “She was fucking fearless,” Y/n shifted gears, “And fun.”

“Did she ever mention me?” Ellie asked after a beat of silence.

“No,” Y/n replied, looking over her arm to Ellie’s expectant stare, “I think she wanted to keep you safe,” she cracked a smile, “Bloodthirsty demons that we are.”

Ellie’s lips turned up the slightest bit, but they fell just as quick. It was one of the first times she had allowed herself to grieve her best friend, and there was something about the setting that made it all hurt worse. Across from her, Joel lay on the brink of death. To her side, Y/n was sitting with her in worry and in comfort. The last two people on the planet that she loved.

Y/n’s maternal instincts caught the change in Ellie’s demeanor just before she broke. She slipped an arm around her shoulders as the first tears fell, Ellie willingly sliding into Y/n’s side and curling her face into her body. It was the first time Ellie had allowed anyone, apart from Riley on that dreadful night, see her fall apart, and Y/n didn’t take it lightly. She pressed a kiss to the top of the young girl’s head, reminding herself that the journey had started out the two of them, and if even if tragedy intervened, it would end with the two of them.

—————————

Deep into the night, Y/n stayed awake, telling Ellie she’d press on until morning. The girl needed a break from the world.

Joel stirred a few times, letting out a moan or blindly reaching to clutch his wound. Y/n was there each time, holding his hand and soothing him back to sleep. Around what Y/n guessed was 3AM, he stopped slipping in and out and just stayed out. His ragged breaths, creating a steady rhythm in his stomach, were the only thing reassuring Y/n that he was still alive.

While Ellie was awake, Y/n held it together as best she could. But under the cover of dark, she allowed herself to fall apart, her fear for Joel’s life swallowing her whole.

“Do you remember that trip we took to the beach?” Y/n whispered, hanging over Joel’s head, stroking a hand over his hair as her other one cupped his cheek, “For our anniversary? Sarah’s graduation?”

In her weaker moments over the years, Y/n had drifted back to the memory. It was the last time she could remember feeling truly free and yet it was also the first time she remembered feeling tied down. Stuck in the space between Sarah’s dad’s girlfriend and a parent, between Joel’s love of one year and his potential wife. She wanted them both back; the liberation and the duty.

“Remember that night?” Y/n asked Joel’s unconscious form, she’d always wondered how she could recall the exact feel of the hotel sheets. The exact trail of her skin Joel’s lips had traveled. Which of his t-shirts she’d been wearing. “I made you promise that…” Y/n trailed off, bristling, “It sounds so fucking stupid now.”

“No matter how much I hated you,” Y/n slid her thumb against Joel’s cheek, “I couldn’t hate you enough to stop loving you. I tried, my g-“ Y/n chuckled softly, “I tried so fucking hard. Couldn’t do it.”

Her tears were building now, the more she exposed, the more the threat of loss became real.

“I waited twenty years, Joel,” she whispered, her throat tightening up on her, “Twenty fucking years, not knowing if you were dead or still hanging on. And then I got you back,” she sobbed once with nostalgic joy, “I got you back. And I can’t lose you before I get to love you again.”

Y/n lowered her head, dropping her lips to Joel’s ear, her voice barely audible, “Because I do. I love you. I love you so much it…” she bit back a cry, not wanting to wake Ellie, “It fucking hurts. You can’t just…you can’t just come back to me and then leave. You can’t do that to me. To Ellie.”

“I need you to fight,” Y/n begged, tears freely flowing down her cheeks, “I need you to fight so fucking hard, you need me to carry you the whole way to Utah, and I will. I’ll do it. I just need you there.”

Y/n choked on her sobs, digging her forehead into the mattress and letting them shake her. All her losses in life had been so sudden, she’d never had to watch a life hang, the pendulum swinging between a second chance and death. It was tearing her apart.

She wiped the snot and tears away on her jacket sleeve, the same sleeve that was painted with Joel’s dried blood. She leaned back over Joel, pressing the gentlest of kisses to his forehead. Y/n had heard stories of miracles, of voices at hospital bedsides being the thing to bring people back from death’s edge. She’d lost faith in that sort of thing after the loss of her family, but in the throes of worry, nothing was off the table. She’d stay up all night, telling Joel how much she loved him, if there was even a chance it would reach him.

—————————

For two days, Ellie and Y/n kept watch as best they could. With no medicine, there was little they could do to help Joel’s, now infected, wound.

Y/n finished up feeding snow to the horses, moving robotically from the garage to the basement. She hadn’t gotten more than maybe two hours each day. It didn’t feel right to rest when Joel was clinging to life.

She came downstairs to see Ellie kneeled next to Joel, placing one of their last pieces of rations on his chest.

“He wouldn’t want you doing that,” Y/n said softly.

Ellie sniffed away the cold air, “Yeah, well…”

If the terrible series of events was doing anything, it was showing how deeply they cared about each other.

“I’m going to go out real quick,” Y/n announced, heading to pick up her rifle, “Try and find us something to eat.”

“I’m coming with you,” Ellie jumped to her feet.

“No, you’re not,” Y/n replied, “You’re gonna stay here and watch him.”

“I can’t fucking do anything for him here,” the girl gestured down to Joel’s body, “If I can hunt something then…”

Y/n already knew what she was trying to say, she was desperate to feel in control of something. Hunting was a great way to make you feel like you had some power over the world.

“Okay,” Y/n sighed, “Twenty minutes.”

Ellie moved across the room to grab Joel’s rifle while Y/n crouched down and kissed his forehead.

“We’ll be back soon.”

The two of them filed up the stairs, both of their hearts unsettled at leaving without Joel. It was one thing to see someone with no fighting skills or survival techniques be taken down, but to see someone like Joel battling for their life was a quick way to make someone feel entirely exposed. And Y/n could feel the full weight of the responsibility they’d shouldered together the last three months.

Y/n drew her rifle into postition as her and Ellie exited through the front door, Ellie struck a similar stance. They moved down the driveway into the street, scanning for footprints in the snow that didn’t exist. They’d made the right decision to hide in the abandoned neighborhood.

Ellie and Y/n made their way to the forest, trudging through the snow and huffing patterns into the cold air.

“Remember what Joel taught you,” Y/n instructed, keeping her voice low to not spook any animals, “Regardless of what your instincts tell you, pull slow.”

Ellie’s eyes were already drifting ahead, having spotted a white rabbit thirty feet away from them. She glanced over to Y/n, who nodded for her to go ahead. Y/n felt better keeping her gun aimed at the space around them anyway.

Just as Ellie was setting herself up, the rabbit ran off. Ellie took off charging the way it had run.

“Ellie,” Y/n gritted, the worst thing to do when tracking an animal was to chase it.

Ellie tripped on a branch, falling face first into the snow.

Y/n came over and extended a hand to the girl, pulling her up to her feet. “Word of advice…if an animal’s running, you don’t go after it and make more noise.”

“Yeah,” Ellie exhaled, wiping the snow from her face, “I got that.”

“Come on,” Y/n hitched her rifle back over her shoulder, “Ten more minutes.”

The two of them walked a little further, eventually hearing a clicking noise that sent them both reaching for their guns.

Ellie hit Y/n’s arm, guiding her attention to a patch of trees providing shelter to a full-grown deer. Y/n gestured for her to take the nearest log and the shot. It felt like a good idea to keep Ellie as distracted as she could and maybe give her a much needed victory.

Heeding all of Joel and Y/n’s advice, Ellie lined up the shot perfectly and-

BANG!

The deer wailed, limping away into the depth of the forest.

“No fucking way,” Ellie muttered.

“Come on,” Y/n pulled her free hand and the two of them sprinted off after it.

There are certain moments in life that, with hindsight, stick out as forks in the road. If Person A hadn’t have made it to Point A, then Person B wouldn’t have found them and both their lives, good or bad, would be forever altered because they didn’t meet.

Y/n and Ellie couldn’t have known what they were running straight towards.

They tracked the blood trail of the deer 1/4 of a mile before hearing two male voices. Y/n threw her arm out, catching Ellie and holding a finger up to her lips. The two of them drew their rifles and very carefully stepped around the snowbank. Sure enough, there were two men standing over their now dead deer.

Y/n inhaled to speak.

“Don’t! Drop your rifles! Now!” Ellie yelled.

The two men carefully removed their guns from their backs, the taller of them keeping one eye on Ellie and Y/n.

“Turn around,” Y/n ordered, her gun locked on the tall man, while Ellie took the shorter one.

“Any sudden moves,” Ellie threatened, deepening her voice to make her words more convincing, “I put one right between your eyes. Ditto for buddy boy.”

Internally, Y/n grimaced. Ellie was going to get them killed with a poor imitation of Joel.

“You two are quite the hunters,” the shorter man said, his hands held in the air, “We didn’t even hear you coming.”

“Flattered,” Y/n replied, unimpressed, “But this is where you two walk away with your asses still attached and we take what’s ours.”

“Okay,” the man said, making no effort to move.

“Just go!” Ellie impatiently yelled.

“A-all I ask is ten minutes of your time,” the man continued.

“Did you not get that that was a warning?” Y/n muttered, extending her foot ever so slightly to make it look like she was taking a step closer.

“Please,” the man didn’t budge at her non-verbal threat, “Just ten seconds. My name is David. This is my friend, James. We’re from a larger group: women, children, and we’re all…very, very hungry.”

“We’re from a large group too,” Ellie lied, drafting the lie quickly in her head, “Also hungry.”

David sighed, “Well, even so…” he gestured to the deer, “Ya can’t drag this back just the two of you.”

“We’re fine,” Y/n finished the conversation. The world was dead, yet somehow misogyny was still alive and well…

“We’re not asking for charity,” David clarified, “W-we can trade you for some of the deer. What do you need? We have…boots-“

Ellie’s rifle lowered ever so slightly, her voice coming back to its childlike pitch, “Medicine? Like, for infections.”

“We do,” David replied, surprised they’d hit on something so fast, “Back in our village. You’re welcome to follow us.”

“Yeah,” Y/n wasn’t so quick to believe that it was just that simple, “That’s not happening.”

Ellie picked up her gun-slinging persona again, “Buddy boy can go get it. He comes back, you get half the deer. Anyone else shows up, I put-“

“Put one right between my eyes,” David finished for her.

“That’s right,” Ellie finished, sensing that at some point, she should have let Y/n take over the talking.

David turned to James, leaving his hands hanging in the air, “Alright, go talk to Howard. He’s got a case with some penicillin. Bring back two bottles and a syringe.”

James looked stunned at David’s request, as if killing the two women was the obvious option.

“It’s not code, James,” David added, “Do as I said.”

Y/n’s rifle remained trained on James, waiting for him to make the right move. The man kept his eyes on her the whole time till he could safely jog back into the forest.

“Ten steps back,” Ellie ordered David, her and Y/n marched the man backwards, “Keep going.”

Once he was past the deer, Ellie kneeled down to pick up David’s rifle, unloaded the cartridges while Y/n kept her aim fixed on him.

“That your dad’s gun?” David asked, “He the one who’s sick? That’s why you two are out here on your own?”

“This is not a Starbucks,” Y/n bit out, “We are not chatting over a latte. All you need to know is that one wrong move, and your village goes hungry a hell of a lot longer.”

The words hurt Y/n as she let them fly, she didn’t feel cut out for Joel’s intimidation tactics.

“Well, look, uh,” David looked behind them to an old cabin, “It’s a four mile round trip back to our settlement. It’s gonna be…a while before James gets back. I have some oil and matches in my pack, we could,” he gestured to the cabin once more, “Take shelter. Start a fire.”

It wasn’t the most obscene idea, Y/n thought. She didn’t plan on lowering her gun at any point, and if Ellie and her were going to make the trip back carrying half a deer with them, they needed to save the strength the cold was stealing from them.

“You bring him with us,” Y/n decided, nodding towards the deer.

David nodded back, a smile on his lips that Y/n couldn’t decode. She just knew she’d seen the same expression on the wrong kind of men before.

—————————

David tended to the fire he’d started in the middle of the cabin’s living room, sitting back down and warming his hands. Ellie and Y/n sat across from him, rifles aimed and ready to silence him.

“You know, you two really shouldn’t be out here on your own,” David said, his voice soft and concerned.

“Says the man with two rounds pointed at him,” Y/n remarked.

David shrugged, “Fair enough. So what’re your names?”

Ellie frowned, shaking her head in reply.

“It’s hard to trust strangers, I know,” David stated, “But I honestly mean you no harm. And for what it’s worth,” he opened his hands, “There’s room for you two in our group, if you want.”

“You’re inviting us to join your Hunger Club?” Ellie retorted, “Thanks.”

“It’s true, we’re hungry,” David admitted, “But we’re still here. I’m a decent man, just tryna take care of the people who rely on me.”

Y/n gave a nonchalant shrug, “Okay, so you’re the leader of a ragtag group of survivors. That’s nothing special.”

“Wasn’t my choice, it was theirs, but” David replied, “Yes.”

“They “chose” to follow you?” Ellie replied, “Is this some weird cult thing?”

One half of David’s mouth quirked up, “Uh, well, you sorta kinda got me there, I am a preacher, but just pretty standard Bible stuff.”

Ellie smiled to herself and glanced up at Y/n, who had already tuned out of the whole topic.

David looked between the women, “What?”

“The whole world ended, and you still believe that shit,” Ellie replied.

“I actually started believing after the world ended,” David corrected the girl, “Before that, I was a teacher. Math. Taught kids about your age.”

“So you went from teacher to preacher because, what? It fuckin’ rhymes?” Ellie fired back at the man.

David nearly laughed, “Yeah, exactly.”

Ellie smiled, just a little bit, keeping her aim on David but loosening it. He didn’t seem like much of a threat to her. Y/n, being older and having seen a lot more shit, was less convinced.

“But seriously,” Ellie prompted him to continue his story.

“Well, I found God…after the apocalypse,” David told them, watching Ellie more than Y/n, “Which is either the best time or the worst time to find Him, hard to say. But when the Pittsburgh QZ fell in ‘17, Fireflies and FEDRA…I left with a few others, and th-that’s how I ended up with our flock.”

“This is a long fucking way from Pittsburgh,” Y/n replied, perhaps it would have been a comment coming out of anyone else’s mouth, but it was an accusation from hers. There was something about him she didn’t trust.

David chuckled, “Yeah, we’d settle somewhere and then raiders would come, so we’d move again. And as we wandered, we picked up new people along the way until…” he glanced around him, “We ended up here.”

“Well, your luck had to run out sooner or later,” Ellie commented, the choice of words wasn’t lost on her or Y/n.

“Hm? Luck?” David rearranged his face the way some pastors did before jumping in the pulpit, “There’s no such thing as luck. No, I-I-I believe everything happens for a reason.”

Ellie and Y/n both shared a restrained smile, dodging the attempted sermon like it was a bullet.

“It does,” David insisted, grinning back at them, “I can prove it to you.”

“Okay,” Ellie agreed to his attempt.

David sighed, settling into his makeshift seat a little deeper. “We didn’t expect this winter to be so cruel. Nothing’ll grow. Game’s been hard to find. So I sent four of our people to a nearby town to-to scavenge what they could and only three of ‘em came back. And the one that didn’t was a father. He had a daughter just like you,” David pointed to Ellie, “And her dad was taken from her.”

Y/n slowly connected the dots, one step behind David but ten ahead of Ellie.

“Turns out…he was murdered,” David continued, “By this crazy man. And get this, that crazy man…was traveling with a little girl and a woman.”

Y/n was up on her feet, eye peering through the viewfinder, instantly.

“You see?” David smiled unsettlingly at Ellie, “Everything happens for a reason. James, lower the gun.”

Ellie spun around on her heels, both her and Y/n finding James returned, his handgun aimed straight at Ellie. They switched positions, Y/n’s weapon trained on James and Ellie’s on David.

“She is the one that killed Alec, isn’t she?” James asked.

“She didn’t kill anybody, neither of ‘em did,” David corrected, “Lower the gun.”

James and Y/n squared off, Y/n’s breath hanging on the edge of her lungs, just waiting to pull the trigger and release. Reluctantly, James lowered his pistol.

“Did you bring the medicine?” David asked his friend.

“Yeah, but-“

“Throw it to them.”

James hesitated, “David…”

Y/n’s back was turned to the preacher, but his silence indicated his seriousness. James reached into his pocket and tossed the small package at Y/n and Ellie’s feet.

“Back up,” Y/n said from between her teeth.

James did as requested, moving away from the medicine. Y/n moved closer to the man, letting him stare down the barrel of her gun while Ellie grabbed their trade.

“I know you’re not with a group,” David called, his voice creepily calm, “You won’t survive for long out there. I can protect you.”

They didn’t need to hear any more. Y/n fell behind Ellie, keeping her gun trained on the two men while the girl made a run for it. She thought to shoot them, be done with the whole thing and ensure their safe getaway. Except David had talked too much about his position in their town, they’d have twenty people after then instead of two. It was easy math.

As soon as she was certain David and James wouldn’t pick up their weapons, Y/n bolted into the forest after Ellie.

—————————

They made it back to the house, sweaty and out of breath.

Y/n shoved Ellie through the front door, fearfully scanning the street once before shutting and locking the door. When she got in, Ellie was already making for the basement, where Y/n followed her to.

“Are they gonna find us?” Ellie panted, sprinting down the stairs.

“I hope not,” Y/n replied, wishing she could give her more assurance they were safe.

Joel had barely moved since they’d left, his head having lolled to the right a little. Y/n knelt down at his shoulder, picking up a piece of rag to wipe the sweat from his brow. His body was working overtime to beat the infection.

“How the fuck do I do this?” Ellie loaded the syringe with the first bottle of penicillin.

“You put it either in the wound or around it,” Y/n instructed, an invisible question mark appearing at the end, “I don’t know, I’ve never dealt with a wound like this.”

Ellie considered her options, rolling Joel’s bloody shirt back and getting a good look at the gash. “Fuck it,” she muttered, just before inserting the needle in the middle of his wound.

Joel’s breathing quickened, his abdomen clenched a few times at the sensation, breaking through his unconsciousness. Y/n was there, pressing a kiss to his slick forehead, ready to hold him down if he woke.

“Okay,” Ellie said under her breath as she extracted the needle.

“Good job,” Y/n reassured her, “Penicillin’s fast acting. He should start to improve.”

“H-how do you know that?” Ellie asked, placing a worried hand on Joel’s forehead to test his fever.

The truth was, Y/n didn’t know anything. She was floating on a life raft in the middle of the ocean, adrift from any and all sense of safety. But she wanted to take solace in medicine, in the science of twenty years ago that a little dosage could stitch the body back together. She was choosing to believe.

“I don’t,” Y/n replied honestly, stroking Joel’s hair and peering up at Ellie, “But I have to have faith in something.”

“What, like the guy who wants to kill us?”

Y/n nearly bristled, “No, not exactly. I don’t believe everything happens for a fucking reason,” she looked back down at Joel, her lips quirking upwards briefly, “But some things…some things, definitely. And I don’t believe that we’d go through all the hell we have just to lose now…”

Ellie sighed, nervously rubbing her hands together as she watched Y/n tend to Joel. It came so easy to her guardian, to care for both her and the man who had abandoned her. Ellie’s walls remained so sky high, she wished that she could simply surrender to the warmth in her heart without fearing it as weakness.

She walked around to the other side of the mattress, sinking down onto its edge and laying down next to Joel. She carefully placed her hand on his chest and rested her head on his broad shoulder.

Y/n knew it was difficult for Ellie to open up, that the connection they’d formed back in Boston was like some eclipse that only came every hundred years. She’d watched Ellie slowly peel away at Joel’s defenses, until it was impossible for either to deny they cared about one another. Y/n wished desperately that Joel was awake to return the gesture, to encourage her vulnerability.

There wasn’t enough room on the mattress for all three of them, and Y/n didn’t dare ask Ellie to move an inch. Instead, she brought Joel’s hand up to his chest and laced her fingers through his. She rested her forehead just above his heart, the soft thudding against her skin filling her body with hope that he’d keep fighting. That he wouldn’t leave them.

Joel, slipping in and out of consciousness, wasn’t aware of much going on around him. But somewhere in his slumber, he could sense the warmth that was wrapped around him. He wasn’t chasing any white light, calling him home, but he chased the heat, leaning his head into it. He knew he was safe, so long as he could feel the warmth.

—————————

But there was no improvement the next day.

Joel’s wound had stopped bleeding, but his fever had yet to break.

Y/n knelt over Joel’s abdomen, sucking the second dose of penicillin into the syringe and injecting it. He didn’t so much as make a sound, that worried her.

Ellie sat on the edge of the bed and watched, waiting for some miraculous transformation to occur that would make Joel shoot straight up and return to his normal, grumpy self. If Y/n was honest with herself, her sleep-deprived mind was also waiting on something similar.

“Thought you said it was fast acting,” Ellie remarked, more bitter with the medication than Y/n.

“It is,” she answered, she was fucking exhausted, “But it’s not magic. He took a fucking…” Y/n let her hand fall against her lap, “Whatever it was. That doesn’t heal overnight.”

They didn’t want to say what they were both thinking.

“Come on,” Y/n sighed, rising to her feet with a groan, “Let’s go serve breakfast.”

The two of them filed out the garage, Y/n going to lift the squeaky door and Ellie carrying out a bucket. They gathered handfuls of the freshly fallen snow and brought it back to their horses, it was all they could offer them.

Y/n looked out on the neighborhood, her fingers nearly twitching in anticipation. They’d left tracks on their way back from the woods. If David decided to come after them, it might not be hard to find them. Then again, if he was a preacher, he could have subscribed to the believe that God might exact some sort of revenge on them rather than dirty his own hands.

“What are you thinking about?” Ellie asked, coming to stand by her side.

Y/n sighed, not wanting to consider dying any more. “How tired I am of fuckin’ snow.”

“You and me both,” Ellie remarked.

Without another word, Ellie leaned her head against Y/n’s shoulder. Y/n interlocked her fingers with the young girl’s and they stood in silence, drawing strength from one another.

A flock of crows cawing, flying away from something, broke their peace.

“Get back inside,” Y/n ordered, stepping into the street and following the direction the birds had fled from.

“No fuckin’ way,” Ellie argued, chasing after Y/n. It was wasted breath, telling her not to do something.

Y/n led them through a line of trees, staying low as they walked along a wooden fence. Through the shrubbery and snow, Y/n could spot several bodies a few hundred feet away and the tips of the rifles they carried.

David.

Neither of them dared to say a word, Y/n pushing Ellie backwards and hurriedly sneaking them back across the street to the house. They ran into the garage, quickly and quietly shutting the door behind them, before bolting through down to the basement.

“We gotta draw them away,” Ellie said, on the same wavelength as Y/n, “If they’re after him.”

“We ride back towards the university,” Y/n finished the thought, if there was a fight to be had, that was the best battleground.

Ellie slid across the basement’s floor, smacking Joel’s chest and shaking him by the arm, earning a gasp in return.

“Joel,” she urged, “Joel, wake up.”

“Joel,” Y/n called, she was already grabbing her rifle, “Joel, come on. Wake up!”

“He’s not fucking moving,” Ellie panicked, running off to her backpack.

Y/n took her place, grabbing Joel’s face in her hand, “Joel, I need you to fucking wake up. We need you. Now.”

Everything hit Joel’s ears as if he was underwater, three layers of sea between him and the words. The familiar voices were speaking urgently, in desperate tones. He found the strength to open his eyes, two tiny slits offering him a blurry view of Y/n.

“Keep them open, Joel,” Y/n urged, “Keep them open for me,”

Ellie returned with Joel’s knife, placing it in the hand across his chest, “Okay, okay, look at me. There are men coming, okay? We’re gonna lead them away from you, but if anybody makes it down here, you fuckin’ kill them. You got it?”

Joel’s eyes were beginning to glaze over again.

“Joel,” Y/n slapped his cheeks a few times, feeling him slipping from them, “Do not fall asleep right now. Stay the fuck awake.”

In the end, there was nothing else her or Ellie could do. David was coming and they had to act fast.

Y/n pressed a final, urgent kiss to Joel’s brow, before leaping to her feet with Ellie, praying that he was weakened rather than dead when they returned.

“We gotta block him in,” Y/n said as her and Ellie ran up the stairs, “Grab the china cabinet.”

The two of them maneuvered the hutch in front of the basement door, blockading the entrance as best they could. They ran out to the garage, quickly saddling both their horses and shoving the door back open.

“You ride in front of me the whole time,” Y/n ordered as she mounted her horse, “And if I go down, you don’t stop. You ride back to Tommy, got it?”

Ellie was ready to argue to the death on the point, “I-“

“You ride back to Tommy,” Y/n repeated, feeling the weight of what she was telling Ellie to do. It was the same one Joel had felt two days before.

Ellie rode out first, with Y/n bringing up her rear. She had her pistol off its holster and the rifle across her back, ready to do whatever necessary to keep Ellie and Joel alive.

They rode out the backyard, cutting past a few houses before coming out on the end of the street David and his men were creeping down.

“Hey, motherfuckers!” Ellie yelled just before her and Y/n began to fire. Ellie was shooting to warn, Y/n was shooting to kill.

As soon as the first bullets flew, making the men jump, Y/n and Ellie galloped off the same way they’d come from the university. Ellie listened and stayed ahead of Y/n as they rode. With each foot they gained, a new surge of determination flooded them both that they could make it. Y/n rotated on her horse and prepared to take another shot-

BANG! BANG!

One well timed bullet to Ellie’s horse sent the girl flying, landing harshly in the snow. The horse’s failed body tripped Y/n’s animal, she clutched the reins as she was thrown off, rolling into the snow as her spooked horse ran off.

“I got ‘em,” one of the men yelled.

“El,” Y/n grunted, belly crawling to Ellie, who managed to roll over onto her back. She was in a daze from the fall.

Y/n reached back for her rifle, scrambling to her feet as the crunch of boots began to surround her. She raised her gun at the first set of men, firing one bullet through one of their legs and sending him to the ground. She wasn’t quick enough to swing behind her and avoid the butt of one of their guns being driven into her head.

“Fuckin’ bitch,” the man muttered as Y/n fell.

It was a battle to stay awake through the dizziness, but Y/n managed to get to her knees, shielding the men from getting any closer to Ellie.

“Do it,” the same man who’d clubbed Y/n decided.

Even though they were her last moments, they didn’t feel like it to Y/n. She reached beside her to grab her pistol and cocked it. After twenty years of fighting, she wasn’t about to stop just because death and her were face to face. Not for Joel and certainly not for Ellie.

A shot fired into the air stopped the situation from escalating any further.

David came forward, standing over Y/n and Ellie. He cocked his head towards two of his men before Y/n, his disciples each grabbing one of Y/n’s arms and dragging her back.

“No,” she screamed, kicking wildly as David kneeled down beside Ellie and reached down to take her pulse, “Don’t you fucking touch her!”

David glanced up at Y/n, nearly amused by how aggravated she was. He removed his hand from Ellie, holding it up where she could see it. “Two of you with me,” he ordered, “Drag the horse,” he moved to pick Ellie up.

With all her strength, Y/n slammed her boot down onto one of her captor’s feet, causing his grip to loosen in the agony. She freed her arm and punched the second man at his temple, making him stumble backwards. “No!”

Y/n marched forwards, shoving David’s hands off of Ellie’s body, “She’s my fuckin’ kid.”

David watched every move, thoroughly evaluating the woman in front of him. He removed his hands and stood to his feet slowly, adhering to her demand.

Y/n brushed the loose strands of Ellie’s hair off her wet face, the sight of her unconscious nearly incapacitating Y/n with fear.

“The rest of you go door to door,” David continued his orders, “You so hungry for vengeance? Deliver it.”

Y/n’s head had barely turned before she caught herself. It was better for them to think Joel was up and about and that she had nothing to worry about. Internally, she felt fear spread to the very tips of her fingers.

David began to lead the way as Y/n lifted Ellie into her arms, beginning the two mile hike back to David’s community. She didn’t know what fate they were being marched towards, but she knew one thing.

She’d burn down the whole fucking town before she let anything happen to Ellie.

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