open to all!

[shittybirthday]

Characters: Joel and open!
Date: Mid-April through to... whenever??
Location: All sectors.
Situation: Joel has arrived in Keeliai and is searching for Ellie.
Warnings/Rating: PG. Will edit to a higher rating if necessary!

If you want to do anything specific with Joel, feel free to hit me up at spongebong!

Joel has been wandering lost through the city for what feels like hours.

Ellie. That's all he can think about amid the mess of bewilderment racing through his mind about where he is: Ellie. Finding Ellie. From the moment he woke up in that damn tub of water, groggy and feeling like he'd been heavily drugged and finding himself staring up at a severe looking man staring right back down at him, Ellie is all he's been able to think about. His immediate thought had been that he'd been kidnapped and that Ellie had been-- Shit, he didn't want to think about what had happened to Ellie, what they'd done to her. He just wanted to find her.

And so, with the stagnant taste of water from the tunnel still in his mouth, in his throat, with the mental image of frantically applying compressions to Ellie's chest while she lay lifeless on the wet, water-logged ground, as his strength slowly began to return to him and the heavy fog began lifting from his mind, he started to fight. He weren't gonna listen to any bullshit about some great evil or some asshole called Malicant. He needed to find Ellie, god damn it.

Where is she? The girl? he'd managed to demand, his voice weak and croaky as he was lifted out of the water. When none of the strange people around him were willing to answer his questions, he began wrestling against them with all his might. He threw clumsy punches, tried grabbing them and slamming them into the wall, tried throwing them to the ground to stamp as hard as he could on their faces. Where is she? WHERE IS SHE? All to no avail: he'd been too damn weak to do much more than grope and grab and listlessly shove at anyone who tried to come near him. He was easily overpowered. Soon, he was shoved outside, left to fend for himself with no answers to any of his questions.

And now, here he is: navigating his way through a bewildering maze of streets and crowds. He's dressed in ratty jeans and a dirty, threadbare blue denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up his muscular forearms; his skin is weathered and nicked with scars, scabs and bruises. On his left wrist is a wristwatch, the glass face cracked, the hour and minute hands frozen in time. Strapped to his back is a dirty brown backpack, laden with various weapons: a bow, six arrows, a metal pipe with scissor blades crudely affixed to the end of it with duct tape, a shotgun, a hunting rifle, a flamethrower and a military torch clipped to his backpack shoulder strap. His face is tired, world-weary, the wrinkles around his eyes and on his forehead deep and heavy-set. His dark hair is greying and there are flecks of grey in his dark beard. Not a shred of mirth can be seen in his expression; but there's a look of something resembling barely contained worry, if not panic, in his hard eyes.

It's the first time in twenty years that he's seen or been in urban civilisation. Civilisation, that is, that isn't overrun by martial law, isn't secured into quarantine zones, isn't surrounded by militia, by the constant threat of Hunters, by decayed ruin and despair. By Infected.

He doesn't trust any of it. As he walks through the streets, he keeps glancing over his shoulder in paranoia. It's all too much. Too overwhelming. Too much noise, too many smells, too much stimulation. He's grown so used to the dead, dank silence of a world torn apart by chaos and sickness and terror that a thriving civilisation is completely foreign to him now; much less a civilisation as strange and almost otherworldly as this. Sudden noises make him tense; sudden movements make him defensive; people approaching him or getting in way makes him itch to whip out his pistol from where it's tucked in his waistband and aim it point-blank at their faces.

Comments

[shittybirthday]

Leaning forward to look Ellie right in the eye, an expression of blank confusion crosses his face as she demands to know where he's been. The hell is she talking about, him showing up and then leaving again? His hand grips her shoulder tight, squeezes it, and as she goes on to say she's alright, that she's fine, he studies her closely. Worriedly.

He swallows thickly. God, he doesn't know how he's wound up in this place, but fuck, he'd come so close to losing her that up until a minute or so ago, he'd been convinced that he'd lost her for good.

"Look, I don't know what you're talkin' about," he says, "'bout me showin' up and leavin', but… I never left you. I've been with you the whole damn time. Some asshole knocked me unconscious and then I woke up here, wherever the hell here is s'posed to be, but--"

He pulls her further into the alley, wanting to get away from the god damned noise. "You sure you're alright, kiddo? Swear to me that you're alright."

[mightythinice]

"I swear, I swear," she answers quickly. But the concerned look on her face grows for a minute. He was gone-- and then he forgot. He forgot everything. She doesn't know what to say after that, and instead relies on pure gut instinct. Get talking. Say something, anything. Were they both dead? Was what she worried about the most the reality?

He was dead too? Say something, she coaches herself, and swallows before she starts talking. "There's a lot you're gonna have to get caught up on again. It's a pretty complicated story, and... Tess can help you. But you were here."

Another swallow, as she keeps talking, not giving herself a chance to get caught up in the emotions. She needed Joel to tell her to shut up before she stopped. "It's on the network, I know. I can show you. It's there." She was almost rambling, and she hadn't even thought about talking about Tess broke the one promise she'd made to him before they knew each other that well.

Fuck, that was a thing that could happen. People could leave and come back, and not remember it at all.

[shittybirthday]

He can see she's getting worked up. She's getting emotional and upset and, damn it, Joel is no good with that kind of thing, especially when it comes to Ellie. Seeing her upset hurts him somewhere deep inside that he can't explain or put in words.

"Stop," he urges her, "stop."

His hands shift on her shoulders. Squeeze again. He draws in a subtle shaky breath, lets it out slowly. Between the weird spiel of bullshit the people who'd pulled him out of the tub gave him and the crazy, frankly terrifying place he's found himself in, and between the seeming… nonsense Ellie is talking - Joel can't make heads nor tails of it.

But what he can make heads or tails of is the fact that Ellie is here. She's alive. She's safe. That, that is all the matters right now. Nothing else.

"Look," he continues after a moment of studying her with hard, worried eyes, "how 'bout you show me where this Earth sector is s'posed to be. I got told by some asshole who brought me into the city that I've apparently got some - I dunno, apartment or some bullshit there. So, how 'bout you show me where that is and then we… we'll talk."

[mightythinice]

"Earth sector..." She nods after a moment. "Okay," her tone lifts upward, almost relief. She could focus on that. "Okay, I know where that is." It'd give her a chance to find out where he was. She could crash on his couch. Bug whoever the other people he was living with.

This was good, this was something to focus on. She looks around, trying to orient herself, as though she needed it. She knew where she was, this was the Metal sector. Not a bad place to start from, she just needed to find one of the weird monuments and then she'd know the right way to go.

"Okay."

That was the third time she said that, and she couldn't even care. He was back, and even if they were both dead-- no. Don't think about that. Joel was a survivor, he'd said it himself. "Let's... go this way." She points back into the crowd of people. There was no avoiding the bazaar at this point. "Don't worry, the Earth Sector's a lot less crowded."

[shittybirthday]

Okay. Giving Ellie something to focus on has helped her ground herself, which helps him. Okay. Good. With another deep breath, he gives her shoulders a final squeeze and lets them go. He stands tall, adjusts the strap of his backpack over his shoulder.

He half-turns on the spot to look to where Ellie is pointing - and his stomach does an uneasy twist. Shit, he really don't like those crowds. "Alright," he agrees reluctantly, and he only agrees on account of Ellie saying the Earth sector is a lot less crowded.

Still, he looks down at her. "But you gotta stay real close. I don't want you outta my sight, not even for a second. Got it?"

[mightythinice]

She looks up at him, and a grin comes across her face. She'd gotten used to handling the crowds-- she was there a lot, after all, selling fresh meat. It was the closest she could get to a 'job.' But damn, was she glad he was there again, and not gone.

"Don't worry, I can handle these crowds." She looked back at them, glancing around, plotting the route. "Okay, ready? I've got so much to tell you, you're not gonna believe it."

She struck out into the crush, navigating it deftly and with practice. And when there was no way to navigate it, she just pushed people aside. No one looked twice at the foreigner girl and her much bigger companion.

[shittybirthday]

Oh hell, he doesn't return Ellie's smile but it's damn mighty nice to see a smile on her face. Shit, he's been worried about her. He's been real fucking worried about her, ever since finding her in that restaurant hacking that guy to pieces. Ellie hasn't told him a thing about what happened, and Joel has never asked. He's not sure he wants to know. He knows he won't be able to handle it. The girl has been through so damn much, and so has he, but there's just something in him that can't bring himself to ever talk about all they've been through.

That doesn't mean he doesn't wonder, though. That doesn't mean he hasn't noticed how that day seemed to have changed Ellie. Broken her somewhere inside.

So, yeah. It's real damn nice to see her smile.

"Oh, I believe it," he replies a little tiredly as he starts to follow her back down the alleyway towards the street. Boy, does he believe she's got a lot to tell him, and something tells him that if everything she has to tell him is about this place, none of it is going to make a lick of sense. As he approaches the maddening throng of people, he sucks in a deep breath, pushes down his unease and pushes on.

He tags behind Ellie as close as he possibly can. He eyes the people, strange and completely human alike, with utmost distrust, a hand ready to dash out and grab Ellie at the slightest hint of danger. And when the crowds finally starts to thin out, he lets out a breath he didn't realise he was holding. Suddenly, he can breathe a little easier.

And there are a hundred things he wants to say to her. A million questions to ask her. But Joel has never been one to talk too deeply about things he doesn't know how to handle, and so he decides to stick to keeping it simple. For now, at least.

"This is a helluva weird place," he finally says now he's able to walk side by side with her.

[mightythinice]

She knew the direction to go, now that the crowds had thinned out, and it was just her and Joel again. There was so much to tell him that she didn't know where to start. So, she starts with the most logical answer. "I've been here almost six months, you know. It gets really weird." A glance back at him.

That was almost how long she'd been without him. "There's a ton of people here from earths that don't have an infection. Buncha superheroes. And space explorers." She says the last with a bit of relish, if not for them, she might not have made the same amount distance between her and everything that had happened in Colorado.

"They started teaching me, all about the classes of planets and navigation with the stars. A lil' bit of history too!" Now, she was just rambling. Eventually, she'd work her way over to the things he needed to know, but then? Then she just wanted to revel in them being together again.

[shittybirthday]

Joel is silent towards her remark about her being here for six months. He doesn't know what the hell to make of that; and the problem is, it's becoming quickly obvious to him that she's telling the truth. It don't make any fucking sense to him, when he'd seen her only hours earlier. When he'd been in that tunnel--

Jesus, he doesn't want to think about that.

Six months. Christ, six months. And while he's trying to wrap his weary mind around that, he finds himself having to wrap him mind around what Ellie tells him next. People teaching her? He throws a quick, almost sharp sideways glance down at her at that. People? What kind of people? Who the fuck has been teaching Ellie things where they got no business teaching her?

"Space explorers, huh?" he echoes with determined calm, deciding to just keep things surface level while he's frantically trying to process all of this. No infection? Superheroes? "Well, I do recall you sayin' you did always want to be an astronaut."

Another glance down at her, dubious and uncertain now. "You sure you ain't been readin' too many of those comics?"

[mightythinice]

"Positive." No comic book she'd read had ever been quite this surreal. She flashes a grin at him, she had every intention of introducing him to her friends, even if she figured he'd be grumpy throughout it. But she also had every intention of not letting him out of her sight any more than she had to for the next couple of weeks.

He wasn't vanishing again.

"No comic book ever went that much in detail, believe me." All the planets and space.. "So, maybe that dream of being an astronaut isn't such a crazy thing now, right?" She could tell him all about it, but she instead turned down one of the main roads, and the scenery started to change, more... earthy.

She looked around, trying to remember which direction the housing was in. "This way!"

[shittybirthday]

"I s'pose we all gotta dream about something," comes Joel's vague reply.

None of what Ellie has said about space explorers and damn superheroes has in any way sunk in, and why would it? To him, it just sounds like the girl's found some way of getting herself lost in imagination, in fantasies, in order to cope; and maybe that ain't such a bad thing. It's what kids do, right? It's better than Ellie seeming to get lost in… nothingness. In brooding, distant silence, where she seems so far away in dark thoughts that she don't even hear him calling her name.

Her talking about this weird space explorer stuff is better than that… right?

Okay, stay focused, he tells himself. Deal with how Ellie really is once they're somewhere safe and away from all these untrustworthy assholes milling about the place.

As Ellie points out the direction to head in, he silently tags along after her, glancing all around him at the changing hues of this new sector, the earthy vibe, the earthy scents. It certainly calmer than that industrial bottleneck terror he'd found himself in back there. Still, his paranoia is still on red alert, and every now and again, he throws a paranoid glance over his shoulder to make sure they ain't being followed.

They're now approaching a bunch of sandstone buildings. A neighbourhood, Joel realises. The guy who'd given him the direction to the Earth sector had mentioned his suite would be in a sandstone building; this must be it.

"EA-2B," Joel says to Ellie. "Got any idea where that is?"

[mightythinice]

She looks at all the buildings, doing a slow turn around. She could figure out where they were, all she had to do was remember the last foreigner she saw coming from a building. This was easy peasy stuff, no problem what-so-ever. So of course she'd take a little bit longer to survey the buildings, to make sure she was right.

"Uh-huh." After a minute. "I think it's over there," said with a point. She just saw some random foreigner leave, and that was as good a guess as any. She needed to find his place, though, to make sure she checked up on him as often as she could. While she wasn't nearly as paranoid as he was, there was still paranoia there.

And then, there'd be Tess and Sarah. She'd totally forgotten to talk about Sarah at all...

Wait. Place of residence first, Ellie. That was some heavy shit, and she knew how heavy it would be. So much of the conflict they'd had before... Well. She glances back at him. "C'mon!"

[shittybirthday]

With a quiet sigh, Joel nods and follows Ellie. It's not sitting well with him that his is, apparently, where he's going to live. What he wanted to do, where he wanted to take Ellie, was back to Tommy's settlement.

Maybe he should've fought with her harder about that, he thinks with a sinking feeling as he approaches the building. When he'd seen how much she'd lit up at those giraffes wandering wild through the streets, the awe in her eyes, the childlike wonder that had broken through the silent prison he'd watched her sink into, it made him truly realise how much he didn't want her to suffer anymore. He wanted to just… scoop the girl up in his arms and tell her it was all gonna be okay, that they could just go back to Tommy's settlement. Have a halfway decent life. Fuck the Fireflies. Fuck trying to save humanity when it don't even deserve to be saved. Ellie deserved to be saved. Shit, it had hit him real damn hard how terrified he was of losing her.

But she'd insisted she wanted to go through with it, and… Well, he should've fought harder with her about that. Then he wouldn't have had to pull her out of the water, he wouldn't have had to--

Fuck. Stop thinking about it.

EA-2B. He spots the number on the door. "Well, I guess this must be it," he says, reaching for the door handle.

He turns it, pushes the door open - and stops in the doorway to survey the inside. "Shit," Joel says softly as he takes a few careful steps inside. "This ain't somethin' you see every day."

Talk about weird. Not just how unusual it is inside, but just the fact that it's a home that isn't overrun with rot and urban decay. Just the fact that it isn't frozen in time, with the final moments of families lives abandoned and forgotten and caked over in layers of filth and dust.

It looks lived in. Like someone else already lives here.

"The, uh," Joel continues, taken aback by how… civilised and normal it all looks, "the guy musta made a mistake. Looks like somebody already lives here."

[mightythinice]

She shakes her head, and takes a step inside, casually inspecting it. "Isn't a mistake! We all get people that live with us. Most of the time, I never even see the people that live with me." Because she's usually out hunting, or something. She was even trying to learn the language, just so she could start reading again. The things she missed from home, where everything was easy to understand.

But she turns to face him, realizing that this might be a lot, though she doesn't know how to make it any easier. It was just something she got used to with time, or something like that... She exhales, and then points at the couch. "Soo... I can crash there, right?"

She still wasn't getting to the point about Sarah, or Tess, and she hadn't started talking about all her friends there. But she was sure Joel didn't want to hear about the people she'd lost. Especially when she couldn't say they actually left for anything worse. Some people were actually resentful about being in Keeliai, but not Ellie. This place was by far better than the hell she'd left behind.

Without being able to save it. Everything was for nothing.

And the only person that could understand her feelings had already left once, and come back. She wasn't planning on letting him go again easily.

[shittybirthday]

Joel reels around quickly to look at Ellie at that. He's gotta share this place? With people he doesn't know? Even in the zone, he had his own space. It was a shitty, awful place, smelled of mildew and decrepit age, but at least he could be there on his own.

Not that he hasn't had to share living quarters with people before. When the infection first broke out, he was piled into overcrowded triages in military tents with families and elderly people and children, hardly any space to lie down, much less any privacy to even take a shit. He'd been stuck in that quarantined triage for days, weeks even, numb with grief and shock and surrounded by grieving and shocked and terrified people. Riots broke out. Food was stringently rationed. The smell of sweat and people not being able to properly wash for days on end started to permeate the air. Military had seized control and shot whoever caused trouble. Sickness started to spread from stress and from being trapped in such confined spaces with so many people; and those who got sick from cold or flu were shot, too. Survival of the fittest.

This suite sure isn't that. But still. Joel likes to be alone.

He follows with his eyes to where Ellie is pointing, to the couch. "I said I don't want you outta my sight, didn't I? Don't like the idea of you sleepin' out here on your own, though. Not if there are gonna be people I don't know livin' here."

[mightythinice]

As a pointed end to that response, she kicks back on the couch. So, that was a yes. And being out of the crowds, and apparently alone, allowed for them both to relax. She knew, knew she had things to tell him, but she didn't know where to start. Talking about space had made her feel better, but it didn't actually tackle anything serious.

Anything difficult.

Poor Sarah, she was going to have to go through this again, and Ellie felt bad. She liked the other girl, had tried to take her under her wing and show her how to shoot because it seemed like a necessary life skill, even in Keeliai. But she also knew that Joel wasn't going to take it well and she cast her face downward as she tried to think about how to tell him.

"Joel... I gotta tell you a few things. And I don't think you're gonna like them."

[shittybirthday]

As Ellie takes a seat on the couch, Joel eyes everything around him warily. He slowly walks further into the room, eyes landing here and there on furniture that isn't his, personal effects that aren't his, a sense of lived-in-ness that certainly isn't his.

Well, fuck it. At least, it's safe. For now, anyway. Better than being outside, hell of a lot better than being caught up in crowds and noise and potential danger, which is more or less imminent danger as far as Joel is concerned. He turns, shuts the door behind him, locks it, turns the deadbolt, puts on the chain. He shrugs off his backpack with a low sigh and sets it on the floor by the couch. Damn, his shoulders are aching.

The windows. He gives his shoulders a quick roll and then he's making his way over to the windows; he looks out first, gauging for escape routes in case they'll need them, then snaps the curtains shut. He does the same on the other. He turns back around and does another quick sweeping glance over the room; he quickly calculates what furniture can be used to barricade themselves in if need be. Bookshelf. Chairs. A table. Okay. Good.

And then he's starting through the living room to check the rest of the house out, to find out other escape routes, lock up any other doors, secure the place.

He comes to a short stop at the door leading to the kitchen at Ellie's words. He turns and quickly looks at her. His brows knit in a flicker of a worried frown. He takes in the way Ellie is sitting there on the couch, all liveliness and excitement she'd just been exhibiting now replaced with a pensiveness that makes Joel's stomach do a nervous clench.

She's gotta tell him things he's not going to like? That don't sound good. He shifts on the spot, hands balling into subtle but nervous fists at his sides. "What is it?"

[mightythinice]

Watching him pace the room, and the changes he'd made to shut out any prying eyes, Ellie was reminded of home, and everything that they'd left behind. It was so strange to think of it now, and yet she knew Joel was right. She'd seen what people were capable of when pushed to the edge, the same hadn't happened there. But it could.

When he turned to face her, she knew she had to go through with it. She had to tell him about Tess and Sarah. What if he ran into Sarah, or Tess, before she told him? Ellie never was very good at probability, and this being a city of thousands wasn't something to dissuade her that it could happen.

She'd managed to find him, after all. What's to say he couldn't find anyone else? And Sarah--

She steeled herself. If she needed proof, she could show him the network. She'd had a few conversations with Sarah there. And she could show him he'd been there before. She just needed to work her way up to talking. She unpursed her lips after a beat, and just blurted out the truth. "Tess and Sarah are here."

She'd never been very good with subtlety, and she braced herself for what she figured Joel's reaction would be.

[shittybirthday]

The words rebound off his ears at first. Tess and Sarah are here. It's such a ridiculous, wildly impossible thing to hear Ellie say that all Joel does for a moment or two is just stare at her blankly.

Again, he shifts on the spot; he shifts his weight from his right foot to his left foot. Tess. And Sarah. The mere thought of their names conjures up things he don't want to think about. Tess shoving him hard, telling him to go, fucking go, terror written all over her hard expression. Him ordering Ellie to get a move on while walking slowly backwards, staring at Tess, grief starting to claw its way up his chest.

And Sarah, oh Jesus, Sarah. Her empty, lifeless eyes staring up at him while she lay in his arms. The cold, numb shock that had sliced into him at realising why she was staring up at him like that. How suddenly heavy and limp her body was as he pulled her to him, despairing grief rising up his throat like bile while he rocked back and forth, sobbing, holding her.

As quick as those thoughts appear in his mind, he just as quickly squashes back down on them. He sets his jaw, clenches it tight. Takes a half-step back, his eyes hardening.

"The hell do you mean by that?" he answers, his tone suddenly low, almost dangerous.

Why the fuck would Ellie say something like that?

[mightythinice]

She had braced herself for it, and yet Joel's reaction still caused a sting. There was no possible way he could take it well, but it was as if she'd never really thought about it, even though she had realized that. But she knew that there were times where she had to jut out her chin and just take one on it. This was one of those times.

She inhaled, and then said more firmly, "I mean exactly what I said. Tess and Sarah are here."

She can't imagine that would get any better of a reaction out of him, and part of her just wanted to yell at him to fucking believe her. After all of the shit they'd been through together, all the things that she'd done, Ellie wanted to believe that Joel knew she wouldn't fucking lie about this.

She swore. She knew she had to have a damn good reason to break that promise, and this was it.

[shittybirthday]

"You just--" A step forward this time, his hand extended and pointed at Ellie like he's moments from losing his shit with her. His voice is still low, growing harder against her insistence that Tess and Sarah are-- "You better fuckin' stop. Stop right there."

His finger curls in, hand balling into a fist. And then, he turns away sharply and goes to pace off, his hand now rubbing anxiously across his prickly beard. He only makes it a few paces away; he turns back to Ellie and begins heading back towards her.

"D'you have," he continues, hand held out again as though to tell her not to damn well interrupt him while he's speaking, "any god damn idea what I've been through? Wakin' up in whatever the god damn hell this place is s'posed to be, thinkin' that you were dead? And you wanna go and pull shit on me like that?"

[mightythinice]

That wasn't what she was expecting, and she quickly shakes her head, spreading out her arms. "It's the exact same fucking thing I went through when I got here! You were gone and suddenly I had no clue where the hell I was, after we got trapped in that fucking tunnel." She swallowed and declined to explain that she was pretty sure she was dead.

She didn't want to throw that out there.

"And it's the same fucking thing Tess and Sarah went through, and they're gonna want to see you." She stands suddenly, and marches towards the console. "Let me... Just let me fucking show you. I've talked to Sarah and Tess on this thing before."

She was flipping through conversations, expertly, her side to him. If she couldn't get him to believe her, she'd show him. The audio rings out soon after.

Oh come on, Tess! Don't be like Joel! 'Sides, I already saw stuff like that in some magazines I stole from Bill. Read the articles and everything.

Sometimes Joel is right, y'know. And seein' some stuff in a magazine doesn't make you an expert. Trust me, that shit's not... realistic.

She stops it abruptly, and then plays a video recording next.

"... They're here."

[shittybirthday]

Yeah, that tunnel. That fucking tunnel. Fucking Christ--

"Ellie," Joel cuts in sharply over the top of her saying Tess and Sarah will want to see him. And suddenly, he don't feel too good. Suddenly, between the flooding relief of knowing that Ellie is alive and hearing the unsettling conviction in Ellie's voice about Tess and Sarah, Joel don't feel good at all.

"Ellie, you need to stop--" he begins, his voice suddenly rough, as she's marching her way over to the console.

And suddenly, he's hearing Ellie's voice over the console. Saying Tess' name. And then-- Tess' voice. Joel goes stock still. He goes stock fucking still. Feels a twist of something sharp and terrifying coiling inside him.

"Ellie--"

And then--

Sarah's voice. The glow of an image on the screen has Joel staring at it and he can see, even from all the way over the other side of the room, that it's Sarah. Her voice. Her face. Alive. He starts slowly walking towards it, his face draining of colour, the hardness in his eyes draining into something unreadable.

"Yeah, okay I-- Wait," he's hearing Sarah say, and it's suddenly like he's in a long tunnel, like nothing around him is real, "You found ice cream in this place?" And Ellie replying that, yeah, this place has ice cream, best way to start the day! "Oh maaan, it's been forever since I had ice cream."

He stops. Begins walking slowly backwards, like he can't handle it. His foot connects with the leg of a chair he doesn't realise is behind him; he stumbles, the chair legs scape across the floor, he grabs hold of the chair with a fumble of hands. Eyes still staring at the screen. At Sarah. His little girl.

"Oh, god," he hears his mouth saying in a hitched whisper.

[mightythinice]

"They. Are. Here," Ellie says, pointing at the screen for emphasis. There was no misunderstanding it, there was no faking any of those conversations. She shuts off the console, but stayed next to it. She knew she'd possibly done something cruel. But part of her thinks, Better me than Sarah. Better Joel get the worst of it out with her, than to put Sarah through that again.

But she couldn't make herself move forward, in part because she knew she'd been cruel, just throwing that at him. She knew that Joel had erected barrier after barrier up, she'd had to claw through every single one of them, and there was no getting around that she'd just tried to viciously dispatch them.

For her own ease.

She swallowed, and rocked from one foot to the other. "Joel, I--" a pause while she tried to think of how she could even start. And the only start that was coming was, "I'm sorry. I didn't... know what else to do. To make you believe me." She felt horrible. Not even vindicated, just horrible.

[shittybirthday]

Hand still gripping the back of the chair, Joel numbly, slowly sits down.

This is like those dreams he sometimes has - those dreams where Sarah is alive and everything feels disjointed and like everything is a lie. Those dreams where his grief is confused with the bewildering elation of her being alive. Those dreams where the part of him left hollow by her death is filled whole again. Those dreams where she's looking up at him with those blue eyes and telling him, Why didn't you come to find me? I've been waiting for you to find me, daddy. Or those dreams where she's saying, Why did you leave me, daddy?

Dreams he always wakes up from feeling disoriented and filled with terrifying hope that Sarah is alive, only for reality to come crashing down on him seconds later and the gaping hole of loss to tear open all over again.

He feels like he's simultaneously trapped in one of those dreams and only just woken up from one at the same time. The gaping hole of loss in his chest feels like it's been ripped wide open and bleeding.

He feels sick. He feels... fuck, he doesn't know. Like nothing around him is real. Derealised. Depersonalised from everything.

"Ellie," is all he says, soft, vacant but commanding. An unspoken command for her to stop speaking. Just stop.

Elbows propping on his knees, he drops his head into his hands. It's on the tip of his tongue to tell her to leave. To tell her to get the hell out of his sight. But somewhere within the fog of shock in his head, he knows he can't send her back out there, not after having almost fucking lost her, too.