Chapter Text
"So, um..."
The seconds-hand had just passed over the number 12, marking four hours since Joel had been attacked. Ellie had been watching the seconds hand twitching its way behind the shattered watch face for the past ten minutes, waiting. Waiting for this triumphant halfway point through the incubation period of the CBI.
Subtly, she looked across at Joel without lifting her head, as if she expected him to go all Cinderella at the stroke of midnight. During the initial horror of the moment, she hadn't allowed herself to acknowledge the wound on Joel's wrist. Now, her thoughts were looping exclusively around that very thing. She needed to see for herself if it was worsening.
"Do you think maybe I could... take a look at it?"
Joel sounded so, so tired. "Not sure what that'd help.”
"I'm not sure anything's gonna help," Ellie frowned, watching the heel of her Chucks idly dragging back and forth over the concrete. "But considering the worst fucking thing that could possibly happen already has," she muttered. "I don't think it can possibly hurt, either..."
Joel felt his stomach twist. That girl still didn’t get it, did she. The worst thing that could happen wasn't him getting bit and dying. The worst had yet to come, and it wouldn’t come at all if Ellie would just give it up, listen to Joel and leave. He knew her better, though, than to think that stubborn girl would concede.
And so, the sigh on his lips was little more than the waving of a white flag. He beckoned Ellie over to him with an impatient roll of his hand before he could think too much about it. As soon as he saw the shock, the eagerness on Ellie's face, he regretted it. It was selfish. Dangerous. Why had he done that?
As Ellie got to her feet, he busied himself by rolling back his sleeve. It was impossible to ignore that it stung less than it did the first time his scratchy flannel rubbed against the fresh wound. Don't you fucking buy into this immunity bullshit, Joel chastised himself as Ellie's cautious steps brought her to stand before him
Though her steps were indeed careful, it wasn't because she thought Joel was actually going to lunge at her and rip her apart like he seemed to believe. She just expected him to suddenly think twice about it, to abruptly tell her to keep her distance like the world's most fucked up game of Red Light, Green Light. In the end, her journey went uninterrupted. It ended with her standing at his feet, gazing down at his outstretched, upturned arm. Joel himself looked absolutely anywhere except the bite he was putting on display for her.
After rallying herself, Ellie crouched down in front of him, watching his face until the two were eye level. Only then did her attention turn to the bite mark. It was red and angry, blood dried around the dark crescent indentions of teeth marks, raw flesh still a vital crimson. What she couldn't see was anything milky black running under his skin forming those disturbing veins that definitely should have sprouted by now.
"Well," she concluded after her examination, the words riding in on the tail end of a relieved exhalation. "It could look worse. Much fucking worse."
Slowly, like one might reach for a trapped animal to free it, Ellie extended her hand toward Joel's forehead. She could see him begin to protest, at which point she insisted, "just let me do it. I'm already here."
Joel couldn't make himself argue. He watched her expression with a rather helpless one of his own while she pressed the back of her hand gently to his forehead. After very scientifically testing a few different areas along his forehead and temple just to be sure, Ellie removed her touch and met Joel's gaze. She did her best to disguise the shock she felt as she wordlessly shook her head: No fever.
Ellie's observations sparked a reluctant curiosity in Joel. He couldn't resist the urge to look, but not before rationalizing the decision away beforehand: if it was getting objectively worse and Ellie was just blinded by her hopefulness–if Joel was well on his way to being a monster she was trapped in this room with–he needed to know.
To his surprise, Ellie hadn't been embellishing what she'd seen. Joel had witnessed several bites by now, some of them a few hours old. None of them had progressed this slowly, looked this good after this long. With an inclined brow, Joel looked from the bite to Ellie, who was gazing down at him in waiting, clearly hoping to hear him agree with her assessment. To say that everything was going to be okay.
He was torn between the hopefulness in her eyes–and, truthfully, the hope beginning to bloom in his own spirit–and remaining realistic about his fate, regardless of how things might look. In the end, he chose neither path. Joel just started to roll his sleeve down more quickly than he'd rolled it up, as if this baseless faith would diminish as soon as the bite was out of sight. All the while, Ellie rocked on her heels, building herself up to speak.
"Got somethin' on your mind?" Joel asked tentatively.
"I was just thinking... maybe I should stay here. Keep an eye on it."
"Ellie–"
"Just hear me out, okay? I know how–"
"No."
"--but I could just--" she motioned down to the area beside him, indicating she wanted to sit.
"Ellie." There was a tension in Joel's jaw. "No."
"--but I'd still have this gun--"
"It's. Not. Safe."
Sure, Joel admitted in the privacy of his own mind that the bite wasn't as grotesque as he had been expecting. And, sure, he didn't feel delirious with fever…yet. But that was the thing–there had to be a "yet" lingering close by. There had to be. He couldn't bear the thought of Ellie anywhere near him when it finally dropped into view.
Ellie puffed out her cheeks and dejectedly relented. "Right..."
With dawdling steps, she made her way back across the room and slid down the wall to sit. The gun was tilted in Joel's direction once more, but only so he wouldn't scold her. There was no fear or anxiety tensing her wrists, leaving the handgun aimed so generally and lazily that it would be a far stretch to say it was aimed specifically at him.
"You have to at least admit that it really does look…" she paused, searching for the word. "...alright. And so do you, for the record."
Joel huffed and shook his head. It felt like he was trying to convince not just Ellie but himself at this point when he grumbled, "don't get too sure now."
"I think I can. I'm kind of the expert here though, Joel," she tried with a fleeting smile. "I mean... who would know better than me. Right?"
He opted not to remind her yet again that his survival was unlikely; Joel accepted arguing any further was futile. Ellie was persistent against all odds when something was important to her. It was a trait Joel had come to admire in her, but one that was inconveniently being wielded against him now.
"Well…" Ellie added, "and those other immune people too, I guess–"
Joel tried not to wince.
"--but they aren't here, so… you're just gonna have to take it from me."
This was it, wasn’t it–the reason for the electric fence Joel had erected around himself. This kind of emotional proximity was never a gentle one. It required trust, and Trust was more violent a word than many people were prepared to accept. Enough Trust could make a person stupid. Vulnerable.
Trust had people doing dumb shit like deluding themselves into thinking they might survive an infected bite, just because they didn't want to hurt someone they cared for. Trust had people forcing themselves to swallow the thick acid of a lie they knew better than to believe, but wanted to believe anyway, because they couldn't bear the thought of anything to the contrary.
Trust was hard. Trust was making all of this even harder.
"I've seen it happen. Remember?" Ellie continued, encouraged by Joel's silence, thinking maybe she was getting through to him. "Just like this. From the very first second, until…"
Neither one of them wanted her to finish that sentence. Joel didn't want Ellie to relive that memory, especially with him in the position he was now. Ellie didn't want to think about Joel ending up like Riley. Both of their eyes lowered.
"I've just--I've done this before," she repeated. "I know what to look for. I know how people start… acting at the end." Ellie picked absently at a thread of her jeans, hesitating. "And I... I know how to pull the trigger on someone I love."
Someone she loved. Was it possible for a heart to shatter and mend all at once?
For a long time, Joel didn't give name to the feeling, because in his eyes, Love could be every bit as dangerous as Trust. Deep inside, he knew he loved that girl. He felt as if he had loved Ellie for longer than he hadn’t. He didn't deserve her love in return, but, Christ, was it wonderful to hear her give it.
After what she'd said, he couldn't help the fresh wave of self-loathing that tainted the moment, knowing he was putting her through something so harrowing. Joel's eyes squeezed shut, but in reality he was actually entering a staring contest with Trust. Daring it to back down. Waiting for it to relent. Both he and his competitor were persistent, but ultimately, it didn't matter. Not when Love was elbowing its way in between them.
Maybe it was guilt. Maybe he just wanted to comfort her. Maybe he was slipping into the trap that Trust laid out; maybe a part of him was ready to fully accept that Ellie could actually be right about his fate.
Or maybe he was just helpless against that which he loved so, so deeply.
"C'mere, kiddo."
Ellie looked up, surprised.
"C'mon," Joel patted the ground beside him. "Before I change my mind."
In an enthusiastic stumble, Ellie tripped to her feet and hurried over to plop down beside him, compromising for his comfort by sitting at least an arm's length away. Silence filled the air as she settled in beside him. Now what? Ellie had gotten closer to Joel. Joel had gotten closer to hope. Neither one of them knew what to say.
The thing about silence, though, was that it was far too frail a thing to endure any pressure for too long. A little bit of tension applied just right was all it took to shatter it, and, given that the air seemed thick with it right then, it was only a matter of who would be the one to break it first.
And then, Joel heard it.
Canvas material of Ellie's backpack scratching as she slid it along the floor.
Metal keychains gently tinkling in motion.
The shuffle of denim.
The thunk of a metal handgun laid upon cement.
That sound was one that typically only ever prefaced surrender. In a dark back office of this consignment shop, there was no fight to prepare for. No white flag needing to be raised.
Just Ellie's head tipping onto Joel's shoulder, and the sound of a hundred bricks crumbling away from his well-worn wall.
"Joel." Ellie's voice was just a wisp of air by his ear. "I'm scared."
An urgency descended upon him all at once when that impossibly brave girl admitted to such a feeling. There was no time to think, no voice of reason to stop him. No better angels preventing him from wrapping his arm securely around her shoulders and drawing her in more closely against his chest.
"Don't be, baby girl. I'm right here."
There was only surrender.
"I'm right here."