"Singularity" Chapter 43: "Complicated" [43/49]
Title: "Singularity" Chapter 43: "Complicated" [43/49]
Fandom: The Last of Us (first game only)
Characters: Ellie, Joel, Tommy, Maria, OCs
Pairings: Joel/Ellie
Warnings: Underage
Word Count for this chapter: 8,513
Rating (for fic as a whole): R
~
Joel had plenty of time to think now.
He had to watch his back (he'd meant it when he promised Ellie he would be careful), and his focus on day-to-day survival took up a fair amount of time and concentration, but he no longer had Ellie around to distract him from... himself, basically. Now, it was quiet. Every thought, every feeling... they felt amplified, or magnified. Like he could inspect them with more clarity, now that he'd removed the filter of the 'Ellie lens.'
Oh, those first couple days, though... he hadn't wanted to inspect jack shit. He let the anger come through (that emotion had never really troubled him much), but anything else? His M.O. was to stuff it in the box for later. And he was plenty angry with Ellie... but he was a lot angrier with himself. Ultimately, he was the one who had created the situation. He was the adult. He was supposed to look out for Ellie, not... whatever the hell he'd been doing, letting her dictate what their relationship should be -- up until he hadn't, and then he'd just... what -- expected her to adjust accordingly, without even explaining myself? Yeah, that wasn't realistic.
He wanted to go find Paul and Karma -- eventually. It just seemed like he ought to get some of his thinking done before he did, and he really wanted to find Tommy first. It was Joel's fault he was out there. If he hadn't left the way he did the first time, Ellie wouldn't have chased after him. And Joel should've known she'd find a way out. That girl can do anything she sets her mind to...
Leaving Ellie the hard way -- actually saying goodbye, instead of being a coward -- was every bit as gut-wrenching as Joel had expected it to be. Being angry with her hadn't made it any easier. In fact, it had probably made it worse, because now Ellie had a reason to beat herself up. He knew that in her experience... with school, with people... you fuck up, and you're gone. Maybe not so much in the past couple years... especially with him. But didn't that just make his leaving so much harder to bear? He was supposed to be her rock. The one who loved her unconditionally. He knew Ellie still struggled with that concept... but she had definitely come to trust him and to believe in his love for her so much more than she had a year ago. He had shattered that trust, in an instant. As soon as she had realized that after promising so many times not to, he had left her. The one thing in her life she could--
-NO. That ain't true anymore -- the ONE THING part... She had plenty of things she could count on -- plenty of them right there with her in Jackson. Joel hoped to God she was finding comfort in that. He hadn't asked her not to confide in Maria... not to talk to her about everything that had transpired since she'd found Joel in the jeep that day... would she do that? ...Would it help her if she did? He should have encouraged her to. There was no one else she could really talk to about it -- except Tommy, of course, if he'd made it back. Neither one of them would be the most receptive audience, given the subject matter, but they loved Ellie. They wanted to help her get over this.
They want to help her get over ME.
She was so young and resilient, he knew it was just a matter of time. How long would that take? A month? Half a year? ...A whole year? He wished he knew how long would be a fair amount to allow her. But he wasn't even sure he wanted her to get over him. In his head? Yes, of course. But in his heart... that was a big HELL no.
Figuring out how to reconcile the two was probably the first thing he needed to work on.
He felt like he owed her at least a month to sort things out on her end. She probably wouldn't be over him by then, per se, but she could be well on her way. That day he'd left... she'd started to harden her heart towards him. He had recognized that, and was willing to let her keep that feeling of control or power or whatever... but damn, was he ever glad to hear her call him back. He wanted that sweet, loving face to be his last memory of her. Maybe not the tears, so much... but he'd take those beautiful green eyes any which way he could get them.
Her suggestion that they have sex again, even if they stayed broken up, was just... I'm a selfish prick, but even I can't be that cruel. She would be over the worst of it, by the time he came back. Whenever that was. He wouldn't do anything to jeopardize her progress, if she had indeed come to the realization that she was better off without him. But he understood the desire to erase that last sexual encounter from her mind. Joel could simply dismiss it; those last few days they'd spent together had felt like some kind of warped... unreality. It wasn't real. (He might label it a fantasy, but that seemed to imply that all of it had been good.) He had plenty of 'real' memories of her. Simpler times. Even the not-so-simple ones... there was a considerable supply of good memories to draw from, should he wish to stroll down memory lane.
That wasn't what he needed to do now. He just needed to a) clear his head, and b) figure shit out.
He already knew he would be able to forgive Ellie for tricking him. He understood what had driven her to do it. If she had thought it through, he believed she would have made a different choice, but she'd been trying and trying to get through to him and having no success -- and since she had felt like she needed him to survive, the panic had started to set in there, at the end. Her fight-or-flight response got triggered -- and Ellie was a fighter at heart. Essentially, it was his fault for putting her in that position. Understanding that didn't excuse what she had done... but it counted for something. It softened his anger around the edges. Made him sympathize with her position... the abject desperation she must have felt.
Hopefully now she realizes that she does NOT, in fact, need me to survive. That was important. Hell, if there was one thing he wished for her to take away from this whole experience, it was that.
He also had to give her credit for confessing when she did. She could have accepted his proposal. Continued with her scheme. Let him go on to mourn what he thought was an actual child instead of a pretend one.
...Had he actually mourned the pretend one? That was all mixed up in the surreality of those last few days they'd spent together (...which he supposed he would have to untangle, eventually, but first things first). He had definitely felt disappointed. ...Not just disappointed -- more like punched in the gut? The sense of loss he'd felt had been extraordinary, considering the person he'd 'lost' had never existed.
But he felt like he was over that now, for the most part. Because none of it had been real. He knew what it felt like to lose a real child, and this... wasn't anything even remotely close to that, he was certain. From a logic-driven perspective, it had to be the equivalent of watching a sad movie and getting caught up in the drama for a little while, but when it was over, so were the feelings it conjured up. This movie was written and directed by Ellie herself, and his heavy emotional investment in it had caused him... what amounted to phantom pain. If it hurt, he just had to tell himself that it shouldn't, and that was that. His heart had synced up with his brain on that account, and he accepted that the whole family-of-three thing was just a goddamn fantasy (and yes, 'fantasy' was applicable in this instance, because he and Ellie had been galloping off into the sunset on a white horse towards a rosy future that could never exist in the real world).
What he couldn't brush off so easily -- even with its part in the fantasy world -- was the fact that he had asked a sixteen-year-old girl to marry him. He had asked a child to be his wife. He didn't think of her as a child much of the time, but technically, that's what she was. And he hadn't thought that decision through at all. He'd had the impulse, and immediately given into it -- not unlike a child. I guess Ellie really DOES make me feel like a damn teenager sometimes... He couldn't even blame it on the imaginary baby forcing his hand -- because hadn't he learned, a lifetime ago, that 'doing the right thing' was not always the right thing?
That was the crux of his romantic relationship with Ellie, really. (He would have to chew on that later.)
When Joel got tired of spending time in his head, there was always another matter he could turn his attention to. A whole list of them, actually. Searching for Tommy. Finding fuel for the jeep. Hunting. Skinning, cleaning, prepping... making a fire... cooking. Eating. Sleeping.
That last one... that was a bitch.
He did sleep, of course. At his age, it was impossible to go for days on end without it. He never expected to get good sleep Outside to begin with, but this time around, the nights were... just plain torture, really. It was always hard to shut his brain down for the night out here, since he couldn't do it all the way. Like his mind had a dimmer switch left on its lowest setting rather than switched off. With his thoughts as heavy and troublesome as they were lately, the light seemed to want to stay a little brighter in there... it kept him from the soothing dark calm of nothing -- of the peace one needed to feel in order to succumb to sleep.
And it wasn't just that, of course -- it was Ellie. His heart so full of love for her... his arms so empty they physically ached. To say he missed her... well, there needed to be a stronger verb for it.
Joel didn't know what to do about that, other than suffer through it. His first plan -- reverting to his pre-Ellie self, hastily rebuilding all the walls she'd torn down -- had failed. Backfired, even, because maybe that boomerang had compounded the whole... instant family thing. The other extreme. And he just couldn't do that this time. Again, he'd taken the coward's way out the first time, but now he was ready to do things right. He owed it to Ellie to do what he'd told her he would: sort shit out. Not... try to pretend she didn't exist, or whatever the hell he'd been doing before (at this point, he couldn't even say).
He might not have to think about protecting Ellie now... providing for her... measuring the words he said to her... considering her well-being with every decision he made, gauging how it would affect her... but she was never far from his thoughts. Which was to be expected, given that the whole point of this little... excursion... was to evaluate their relationship. ...There's also the fact that I love her so damn much?!
And it was rather surprising how long it had taken him to get used to not putting her needs before his own, seeing as how she wasn't even with him. He found himself idly wondering where she was at. As if she were just around the corner taking a piss or something. When cooking up a rabbit, he automatically set aside her favorite part -- the liver -- before realizing he needed to eat it himself. Whenever he cleared a place for a break or overnight stay, he asked himself is this safe enough for Ellie?
"Pretend I'm with you," she had told him. Yeah... she needn't have bothered advising him that -- she was with him, in his thoughts every minute of every day.
Everything should have been easier, ensuring the survival of one person instead of two. But it sure didn't feel that way to Joel. The unrest that he felt... the disquiet... the unnaturalness of it all, just eating at him... that had to offset any benefit of halving the number of survivors he was responsible for. Besides, Ellie was hardly dead weight. She more than held her own.
Even so, it should have been easier, with her not there to worry about. So why am I worrying about her MORE? I've already established that she is NOT safer with me than anyone else. He had figured that out long ago, then conveniently forgotten. Because he preferred the fantasy. Ellie did, too...
"I know shit happens, Joel, but... ugh, you DON'T UNDERSTAND."
"I don't?"
"You don't! You don't even know how awesome you are. Obviously this shit is scary and everything... but I feel a thousand percent safer with you than I do without you."
"A thousand percent? There's no such--"
"Yes there is and it's how I feel!"
"...Then you're forgettin' the fact that I HAVE let bad things happen to you."
"Not really -- the only bad stuff that's happened has been out of your control. Like we weren't even together at the time, or you were hurt--"
"No, we've been together and you still--"
"Then we just weren't together ENOUGH. Nothing bad has happened to me when I'm like... right by your side -- or even closer. You can't name ONE TIME."
"...Is that a challenge?"
"No because you fucking CAN'T. But... okay, fine, I dare you -- name one time!"
And he couldn't. But only because every instance he thought of, she could counter with Ellie logic. Like the time she nearly drowned in Salt Lake City -- he'd been right there, but she said the water had separated them and that if she had been able to grab his hand, she would have been fine. Whatever he came up with, she could refute.
About the only thing he truly had going for him over anyone else was that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would give his life for hers. In an instant. He couldn't say the same even for Tommy: his brother loved Ellie enough, sure, but he had his own family to consider. Whereas Joel...
What was it Ellie had said to him, when she was trying to change his mind about leaving... and she called out his reasoning on where he was going... "do you really think that's all your life is worth?" The spare tire thing.
Damn, she's smart as a whip. Joel hadn't looked at it that way, exactly, but it was true enough: latching on to another pre-made family kind of signified that he was giving up on the idea of having one of his own. He really did think Paul could use the help... that the guy deserved a break... and Joel felt he could have a somewhat-fulfilling life being his sidekick. After all, you didn't have to be blood relatives to be family. (Ellie would always be family to him, even if he couldn't define their exact relationship to one another.) Ellie was probably right about the little girl inadvertently torturing him, but maybe that would go away in time. Once he got to know Karma better in her own right. Anyway, Joel felt like this plan was definitely a step up from joining a band of hunters or something.
As far as what his life was actually worth...
It was pretty much nothing, at this very moment, simply because he was alone. A lone person... really didn't do anybody any good, including themselves. His thoughts drifted to Ron, the crusty old dude they'd met on the way to California... what purpose did he have in life? All he was doing was waiting around for his long-lost family to return. And let's face it -- after fifteen or twenty or however-many-it-was years? They ain't coming back. Was the poor old bastard deriving any pleasure from life whatsoever? If he was... then, perhaps that was enough. If he wasn't...
The way Joel saw it, there was absolutely no point in going through the daily task of survival with no one either going through it with you (to some extent, at least) or waiting for you at the finish line. Maybe if I'd never met Ellie, I wouldn't give a shit about that... maybe I would be more like Bill?
He certainly couldn't say he was deriving pleasure from life right now. Any natural beauty that touched him... a pretty sunrise, a field of wildflowers... it withered immediately because Ellie wasn't there to share it with him. -Actually, it didn't just wither -- it became an icy little spear that jabbed him in the heart. That negated the whole damn thing, leaving him worse off than he'd been the moment before. And it happened a lot, through various means. He couldn't even gaze up at the sky to speculate about the day's weather without wondering what fanciful thing Ellie would have seen in the clouds.
He just plain missed the hell out of his baby girl.
Is she all right? and I wonder what she's doing right now were the refrains on his mind. Sprinkled with other shit: Was she staying out of trouble? Was she happy? Was she getting the support she needed from friends and family? Was she sleeping okay... or having nightmares? Panic attacks? Did she get all the crying out of her system? (He sure hoped so.) Was she doing what he said... not kicking herself for the past, but living in the present? Making new friends, maybe? People who perhaps had kept their distance, when she was with Joel, but now felt like they had more opportunity to get to know her... and who the hell WOULDN'T want to get to know my amazing Ellie?
He didn't need to wonder if she missed him; of course she did. She would for a long time. The one he kept coming back to was does she NEED me?
He knew it was wrong... that it was a flaw in his character... but he liked it when she needed him. Not so big a flaw that he liked seeing her upset, at least, but... he liked being the one she turned to when she was. The one who could make things better. Fix things for her. Make her feel safe... make her smile, make her laugh... There was no better feeling in the whole world, than to do that stuff for her. To make her happy.
How much had his... Ellie-specific hero complex, or whatever-the-fuck, influenced her psyche over the past two years? With her background, was she naturally predisposed to be codependent, or had he made her that way by exhibiting such traits himself? It was a human thing, to need other people... but Ellie was a strong gir-- young woman. She shouldn't be resorting to desperate, unconscionable behavior to... 'keep a man.' That just... that ain't who she IS. I know it ain't.
...Yet I drove her to it.
Joel wasn't sure how much stock to put in that one incident. Granted, it was a huge goddamn incident, but ultimately... it was one mistake, and it had weighed on her heavily until it finally broke her. She had done the right thing, in the end. His mind wandered back to that night last year when she'd first told him she was in love with him... the news had completely blindsided him, idiot that he was... he hadn't handled it very well. He thought about how she had dealt with the rejection: she had made her case, every which way she could, but Joel wouldn't bend, and she had never resorted to any sort of theatrical nonsense to 'win him over.' She had been the one to leave, her pride intact... leaving him with a "please don't go" stuck in his throat. He remembered being impressed with her maturity.
So what the hell happened since then?
Well... lots of things. And, to be fair to her current self, Ellie hadn't acted so maturely in the days following that rejection.
To really be fair -- she was only a teenage girl. She was still finding her way. Yes, she was a young woman in some respects... but in actuality, wasn't she in the process of becoming one? That's what adolescence was all about. Was Joel just so far removed from that, at his age, that he'd forgotten? Was he letting Ellie snow him with her declarations of being older than her years... "totally ready for this"... all that shit she said to him to try to make him see her as an adult? She wasn't necessarily wrong about all of it... but how much was she right about? How much credit should she be given for her considerable life experiences, on the adult-versus-child meter? ...And how much did that not even matter at all because biology dictated that her teenage brain was still under construction?
...Joel felt like his brain was under construction after a bout of asking himself questions like these. One afternoon, it felt like there was a little dude in there with a big ol' jackhammer, just pounding away. It didn't help that he'd barely slept the night before, and was low enough on water that he'd been rationing it more skimpily than normal. I'll just take a little nap in the jeep... then head for the river...
He had already lost track of how many days he'd been gone. Probably at least a week. No sign of Tommy, or anyone else from Jackson. Before Joel had left, he'd gotten a little more information out of Maria about Tommy:
"So his plan was to go west? Is that all he said?"
"He felt like it was the most likely direction."
"And... was he just gonna follow the road all the way to California? You'll remember we went two different ways. One way there, a different way back."
"Right, right -- we talked about that -- he said they wouldn't go far enough that they had to make that choice. That he wouldn't look for more than a few days. Maybe a week, tops."
"What, and then he'd just... hope she'd guessed right an' caught up to me at some point? ASSUMED she was okay?"
"Of course not. They would come back home and re-assess things. You know the search efforts we make when people go missing... it always boils down to the two big questions when we can't find people right away: how long do we look, and how far out do we go? Tommy planned on following the standard protocol -- at least to start."
"I'm sure he did. That's a good thing... this time, at least."
"Look, that's what he told me... as far as the search parties were concerned. He might decide to send his party back but keep looking himself, though. He was really worried about Ellie being out there by herself... we both were. I suggested he come back and maybe we could discuss getting the military to help."
"The military?"
"Yes -- they can cover a lot more ground in a lot less--"
"Neither of you should EVER get the military involved when it comes to Ellie or me, all right?"
"Why not?"
"...It's just better that you don't."
"O... kay? Is this about the Fireflies? They're two separate--"
"No. Although it's possible they learned what happened with the Fireflies an' got the names of those involved. That's why I asked you to either use fake names or completely omit us if they ever want some kind of... town manifest. Maria, I'm tellin' you, we made a lot of enemies crossin' the country... some of 'em knew our names, word might've got around..."
"All right, I get it. It doesn't even matter now since it won't be necessary."
Of course, those lies had been convincing because they weren't exactly lies. Joel was just far more concerned with recent history than with ancient. And it's becoming less recent all the time... still, he parked the jeep in a grove of trees, where it would be heavily shaded from the sun... as well as anything else up there that might be looking down on him. He had long since passed the area where the Black Hawk had landed -- and found that it was still there, although the soldiers' bodies were not. Joel had kind of kept his ears perked for word about the incident to filter down to him through Tommy or Maria, and when it didn't... he took it as a good sign. Maybe the flyboys hadn't managed to get any word back to their base about what had happened before they died. In that case, they could have landed for any number of reasons... and it could have been anyone who had attacked them. Probably a band of hunters or Infected... certainly not an old man and a little girl.
Ellie would probably be disappointed that they didn't repair the damn helicopter, so it could go fight wildfires and whatnot... maybe they just haven't gotten around to it yet... it wasn't as easy to repair things now as it used to be, even for the military. Whatever damage Joel had done... he felt like it was reversible.
...Yes. She's young. She'll be--
--Christ, I wasn't even thinking about Ellie for a SPLIT SECOND -- yet I was still thinking about her.
He slumped in his seat, trying to get comfortable enough just to have himself a little catnap and hopefully curb the jackhammering, even just a little. He really didn't want to lay down in the back... ever. (That was an Ellie-and-him spot, best avoided if possible.) He was tired enough that dozing off shouldn't be a problem... at all... even with Ellie... obviously never far from his thoughts... ...always right there...
"Poor Joel... why don't you let me trade places with you? Isn't it EXACTLY for situations like this that you taught me how to drive stick? Come on..."
Joel actually turned his head towards the passenger seat, opened his eyes... and, for some reason, was surprised to find that Ellie was not sitting there. I JUST SAW HER... heard her, mostly...
...Shit. He was losing it. One week in, already losing his damn mind.
He dozed off again... and this time when he opened his eyes, he didn't see Ellie -- he saw the little blond girl. The ghostly one, in the white dress... she wasn't crying this time, just looking at him--
But only for a second. When he blinked, she was gone.
Yep... losing it. For sure. He was nowhere near the haunted highway right now. ...Do ghosts travel? I thought they pretty much liked to haunt one place... hell, what do we really know about it, though?
He wished Ellie were here -- and not just on account of missing the hell out of her. Ellie would be able to tell him if he was crazy or not. She was correct in her observation that most of the people they told those stories to tended to just arch their brows and give off a "cool story, bro" sort of vibe. He supposed he would, too, if he were in their shoes, because it did sound batshit crazy. Especially the time warp/changing direction part. The fact that both of them had experienced that the same way is what told Joel that it had really happened. If he had been alone, he would have eventually come to doubt his own recollection of it... and I would've reckoned I was either confused, or just losing my damn mind -- like I surely am now.
Joel ran his hand through his hair and took a deep breath, willing himself not to get shook up over this shit. He knew without a doubt that Ellie had not been there beside him a short while ago. He would probably never know if the little girl was some kind of sleep hallucination or not. Only Ellie would understand...
-Just like only she and I understand the way we love each other. No one else really KNOWS, from the outside. They don't see our private, most intimate moments. The way we can understand each other without words. The way it feels like we really are the same person sometimes. Even the people who accept us as a couple don't fully understand the depth of our connection... except Sophie, maybe, because she was with us in Sacramento, and afterwards... but still -- she don't know EVERYTHING. ...As for Tommy and Maria -- they understand the least of all. It's possible they're only listening with their heads, not their hearts... that they might come around... but also possible -- and perhaps more likely -- that they just plain DON'T GET IT.
And this... this was not the sort of thing he was meant to be thinking about. He'd been justifying their relationship to himself for the better part of a year now. What he needed to do was extract himself from it, in order to view it more objectively.
He felt the beginnings of a cramp in his right foot, so he slid out of the jeep and preemptively walked it off, grateful that it wasn't a charley horse. Ellie suffered them occasionally, too, but Joel got them regularly if he wasn't drinking enough water. Time to quit tooling around in the jeep and go find Paul and Karma, who would likely be camped out by a reliable water source. Time to assume that Tommy and company had made it home -- if they hadn't, Maria would probably enlist the military's help anyway, and Joel would prefer to avoid any such encounters. If Tommy had followed the highway out to begin with, and then decided to turn around, the logical thing to do would be to take a different way home, with the hopes of finding Ellie along the way -- he wouldn't simply retrace his steps along a path where he knew she wasn't going to be. -Or thought he knew. Unless he'd anticipated Joel's inclination to-- ...ha, no, he's looking for Ellie, not me, and SHE AIN'T HERE. Right the first time. WE ARE TWO SEPARATE PEOPLE.
Joel did notice that his headache had abated some, at least. Instead of a jackhammer, it was more like a regular hammer. I can work with this.
* * * * * * *
Finding the right spot was easy, since they had spent a few days there. I spent a few days there, he rephrased in his head. This was his futile attempt to retrain his brain to separate or distinguish himself from Ellie.
What's the use? Both ways, the statement is true. Changing the pronoun didn't change the facts.
He recognized the area... some of the 'markers' were still intact, or somewhat-intact (a yellow cord tied around a tree, a cluster of rocks arranged like a smiley face... shit like that) ...but no Paul, no Karma. Joel searched the surrounding area pretty thoroughly, to no avail. He wondered if that meant Paul had had a run-in with someone while 'doing the train,' as the little girl liked to put it. Paul hadn't come right out and said it, but he had implied that sometimes that was the motivating factor to leave a certain area, and to lay low for a bit. And he's been doing this now for... almost two years? When is his luck going to run out?
Joel reckoned he would find them eventually if he followed the train tracks west or northwest, like the man had told him previously. Unless they'd moved frequently in the past month -- or perhaps hadn't settled at any one place at all -- they wouldn't yet be aware that the Boise QZ was no longer operational. At first, Joel figured he would save them the trouble of going there... then he figured, maybe he would mention it, but suggest that they still go check things out personally and see what was going on up there.
To say that Joel didn't trust the military to give it to them straight would be an understatement.
And this was one instance where he was glad Ellie wasn't with him: if they did encounter any military, whether it be in Idaho or anywhere else, getting scanned wouldn't be a death sentence. Also, he was less likely to trigger any red flags on his own than he was with Ellie. He was just some grizzly old dude, not unlike any other goddamn hunter out there -- he wasn't some grizzly old dude with a teenage girl in tow.
Following the railroad was simple enough... actually finding two people in the vast surrounding areas was not. Joel still had the jeep (which certainly did make him unlike most hunters... all right, maybe that cancels out the no-Ellie thing), so he couldn't just drive alongside the tracks, hoping he would have enough time to hightail it to cover should a train appear on the horizon. It wasn't even physically possible in some areas to drive right beside the tracks -- even with the versatility of the jeep -- and he wasn't stupid enough to drive right on the tracks. He just needed to follow the basic trajectory of the railroad, using the tracks as a compass while he searched. Besides, Paul also wasn't stupid: he wouldn't set up shop anywhere that was actually in view of the tracks.
Joel was searching, and he was still thinking... he just tried not to do the two at the same time. Occasionally, he caught his focus slipping. Stray thoughts and questions that he didn't much care to think about were easily shoved aside for later... the pain of missing Ellie was harder to ignore. And he didn't know what word to use to describe it, other than 'pain' (although that felt inadequate, too). The desire to see her was eating away at his insides. Or maybe just at my heart... it hurt physically, emotionally, spiritually... and time didn't seem to be remedying it, but he expected it would take a hell of a lot longer than a couple of weeks to notice any damn difference. Probably longer than he intended to be away from her in the first place. Which is... how long?
Hell if he knew. Still.
No matter how long he was away from her, he reckoned he would never recover fully from it... if he decided it was best that they were apart permanently. And he didn't know if he could decide that without talking it through with her first. However, he also couldn't imagine that talk going any better than the last one had. You're thinking short-term, asshole... during this time apart, she might actually come to agree with that decision, if it's been long enough for her to move on. ...She MIGHT. In theory, it's possible.
Given some of the things she'd said, he reckoned she was fighting the idea of getting over him. Then again... if she took his advice and spent time with other people... who knows? Maybe she'll realize she wasn't as in love with me as she thought-- especially since he'd broken her heart. She might find the idea of starting over with someone new - someone who had never hurt her or betrayed her or broken promises to her -- really appealing. He couldn't assume anything. In his weakest moments, he wanted to fly home as quickly as possible and tell her he'd made a huge mistake... beg her forgiveness... take her in his arms--
Fortunately, he was able to curb such impulses with a healthy dose of logic. The whole point was for each of them to become stronger as individuals. If that meant Ellie grew away from him, then... then that's what needs to happen. Good for her, ridding herself of the old man... maybe I just shouldn't ever go back...
Ellie had made it very clear that she did not want this 'break.' He'd had to promise that he would return. She never would have let him leave, otherwise. He'd broken enough promises by now that she might not be surprised if he broke this one, too... but he couldn't do that to her -- she deserved a resolution. She was in limbo right now, and he couldn't leave her there. That would be the biggest dick move possible.
Perhaps the second-biggest dick move possible would be to send word to her somehow... through a guard at the gate or something. "Hey, can you please let Ellie know that I won't be comin' back after all?" ...and then hope they would pass it-- no, he would have to tell Tommy or Maria directly. He had to know for sure that the message would be delivered, and those two would probably do it with gusto -- and perhaps even delay the delivery long enough to ensure she wouldn't come charging after him. "Joel stopped by a week ago. He wanted to let you know he ain't comin' back. It's for the best, sweetheart."
The problem with that method was that she might not believe them. However, Tommy and Maria weren't in the habit of lying to Ellie, so... At least that way she would hate me... she wouldn't be wondering if something happened to me, or wrestle with how long to wait before trying to find me in case I'm in trouble or something like that... no, she would have the luxury of hating my guts. Should make for a quicker recovery.
Except that wasn't always the case. What if the anger consumed her... changed her...
STOP. That ain't gonna happen 'cause I can't do that to her.
She hadn't bought his asshole act when he'd left the first time, and she'd probably see through it again if it came down to it, so that was out. ...Unless... well, if enough time went by, she either might not care enough to fight it, or she might be more inclined to buy it, since she had no reason to believe his love wouldn't just die out one day.
Whatever-- POINT BEING... yes, it hurt like hell to be away from her. The thought of seeing her again someday might actually be the only thing keeping him sane. One thing that actually seemed better now, in terms of his psyche, was that he no longer had to fight off feelings of panic or intense anxiety over not knowing with one hundred percent certainty that she was okay. And those feelings had already abated somewhat, once they'd settled in back home. ...If you can call being home a few weeks being 'settled in'... Shit -- his gut had been right to dread that return to Jackson. Maybe he should have listened to it. Taken Ellie some place else.
What's done is done -- and he could wallow in 'what if's and self-pity later. He had a job to do now.
He was glad they had left the atlas in the jeep. It gave him something to go by... if he had no luck with the railroad, Plan B was to check out the rivers and lakes to the west, towards Boise. Eventually, Paul was going to have to part ways with the railroad to check out that QZ... but when would that 'eventually' come?
Taking catnaps in the jeep had become habit. A bad one, he supposed, because when he put it to the would I be doing this if Ellie was with me? test, it failed. (He probably wouldn't need so many naps in the first place because he would be sleeping better at night, but that was beside the point.) Hallucinating afterward was not a typical side effect... but it was happening again! That little blond girl in the trees--
"Joel! Are you awake now? ...You are!"
...she's real this time -- and it's Karma, not the ghost!
She had been standing maybe a hundred feet away from him, and was now running towards the jeep, a big smile on her face.
Joel rubbed his eyes and took a quick look around. When he didn't see Paul anywhere, he took a harder look, adjusting the seat to be a little more upright. Nothing amiss or out of place, that he could see... or hear... or feel in his gut. He turned his attention to the little girl. Felt the corners of his mouth lifting for the first time in weeks. Unfortunately, he was about to break her little eight-year-old heart, because he knew the first thing she would--
"Where's Ellie? Ellie, are you hiding?" Karma looked in the back seat... then seemed to be trying to determine if Ellie could fit in the cargo area.
"Oh honey, I'm sorry... she ain't with me this time. I'm s'posed to give you a hug from her, though, an' tell you she misses you... tons, I think is what she said." That sounds about right...
The smile vanished. "But -- I really wanna see her!"
Me too, kid... me too. "I know. Maybe next time. But hey, guess what -- I brought you some presents. I know it ain't nearly as good as seein' Ellie... but I think you'll like 'em. Where's your dad at?"
She did look mildly intrigued about the presents, but she was beyond the ideal age for the distract-with-shiny-things method to ~make it all better~. "He's checking the traps. We saw your jeep. Then we saw you in it. Daddy said you weren't hurt, just sleeping, cuz the seat was down some and you had that big gun on top of you -- but there's no doors -- what if you rolled over and fell out?"
"...Uh... I s'pose that could happen. I oughta be more careful." Except the moment he felt the need to roll over when he was napping, he just woke up instead.
"I wanted to see if Ellie was with you, but Daddy said we should let you sleep. And he said if I got too close you might shoot me cuz you wouldn't know it was me, so I was right there." She turned and pointed to the spot she'd been occupying, as if Joel hadn't just seen her come running from there, then turned back towards him. "He said I should guard you while you're sleeping so nothing bad happens to you. Except that's kind of backwards cuz you have a gun and I don't -- I think what he meant was I should do something to wake you up if I saw anyone around -- which I didn't, cuz there's no one around here anywhere -- and we didn't want you to just drive away without visiting us first so I had to make sure you didn't do that. I really wish Ellie was with you!"
Joel was pretty sure he'd caught most of that, although his brain kind of felt overloaded from the barrage after receiving zero verbal input for... three weeks now, maybe? If he hadn't taken to talking to himself, the jeep (and various other inanimate objects), and even to an imaginary Ellie, his vocal chords probably would have rusted over a bit by now. Definitely caught that last thing... "I do, too," he commiserated. "She couldn't come. Believe me, she really wanted to. I had some... business to attend to. Grown-up stuff. Woulda been... irresponsible of me... to bring her along. You understand?" ...'Cause I sure don't...
"No. She's big -- I don't get why she couldn't do the stuff with you."
"Well... she, uh... she just... ...basically, she... ...it's complicated. You know what that means?"
She nodded. "It means you can't really explain it good."
Joel chuckled. That definition is about as succinct as it gets. "That's exactly right."
"Can you move the gun out of the way?"
"...Sure." He didn't see how the shotgun was 'in the way,' as he'd let it slide down between his legs and made sure it was pointed it away from her, but he obligingly swung it into the back seat.
Before he'd even turned back around, Karma just clambered right up into his lap and slid her arms around his neck. "You can give me Ellie's hug now."
Joel was so surprised... so touched, by that... he didn't know what to say. He hugged her tight... probably for too long, but the little girl tolerated it. He gave her two big squeezes before letting go. "One from me, one from Ellie," he explained.
"Those were both from Ellie!" she giggled, pulling back to look at him. "Give me yours -- where you do it as hard as you can. ...Pleeease?"
Aww... "All right, if you really don't like breathin'..."
"Yes!"
It was such a common word, but the way she said it... the inflection... she got that from Ellie. Joel remembered that Paul hadn't been a big fan of the vise grip hugs, so he squeezed her only marginally harder this time -- making her squeal, but not quite gasp for air -- then gently slid her into the passenger seat. "Here, I'll get this stuff outta your way..." Or her feet's way; he didn't actually store anything on the seat itself, given the lack of a door to keep it from sliding right out if he hit a bump or had to swerve for some reason.
"You did it harder last time," Karma pointed out.
"Did I? I must be gettin' weak." He tucked his backpack and a couple more weapons into the back seat, keenly aware of the little girl's eyes on him.
"Did the hugs help?" she asked.
"Help what?" He turned his attention back to his passenger.
"Sometimes if I'm sad, Daddy hugs me, and I feel a little better. Do you feel better?"
It occurred to Joel that he hadn't bothered to check his reflection in a while; he must look pretty damn bad if it was noticeable to a little kid. I must look like... something between 'shit' and 'death warmed over'? He forced a smile. "I do. Thank you. How did you know I needed one?"
"You're sad -- I can just tell. Cuz you miss Ellie, right?"
"Yes. I miss her very much."
Karma looked at him solemnly. "You know what you should do? Daddy says that whenever I miss Mommy and it's making me really sad, I should think about happy times that I had with her. That'll make me smile and then I won't feel so sad anymore."
If only it were that simple. "That's a good idea. Does it always work?"
"Well... not always. It doesn't always work for Daddy either cuz..." She lowered her voice (...so the birds wouldn't overhear?). "Can I tell you a secret?"
Joel reflexively lowered his voice in response. "Sure."
"He cries sometimes. He always tries to hide it cuz he doesn't want me to see but I know he does... I've seen him, when he thinks I'm not looking -- like if he doesn't know I'm there. But don't tell him I told you, okay?"
Joel felt his insides constricting; he was starting to wonder why he thought it would be a good idea to come visit. No... it's fine... it's gonna hurt, no matter where I'm at... "I won't say a word. Can I tell you a secret?"
She nodded eagerly.
"I cry sometimes, too," he whispered. ...It had happened once or twice, at least.
"You do?" She seemed surprised, even though she could "just tell" that he was sad.
"Yep. And I don't like people to see it, either."
She absorbed this for a moment. "Maybe you guys shouldn't try to hide it so much."
Joel chuckled. "Yeah, maybe."
"Daddy says it's okay to cry. But if it's really okay then why is it a secret? That doesn't make much sense."
Lots of things don't make sense in this world... but this one did. "Well... I reckon some things... are just easier to do in secret. Hidin' it don' necessarily mean it's a bad thing." Some things are best left hidden... hiding was a means of protection, after all. And what kind of things most need protection? Precious things... fragile things... things that might crumble if you make one wrong--
"I don't like crying in secret," she announced matter-of-factly.
"No?"
"Nope -- you don't get any hugs when you do it that way."
Damn, she keeps making me smile... "That... is very true. That's a good reason to do it with other people." And now he had an amusing mental image of the three of them -- himself, Paul, and Karma -- sitting by a campfire, all folded up into a group hug, bawling their eyes out. Possibly after singing Kumbaya.
"If you wanna cry cuz you miss Ellie, it's okay. I'll give you a hug. Maybe I'll cry with you cuz I miss her too?" she suggested.
"That is a very generous offer. I might take you up on that. But right now, we need to go find your dad, all right?"
"Yeah -- I meant for later. Crying happens more at night."
Ain't that the truth.
Joel made Karma put her seatbelt on (he had to put his on, too, when she called him on it), then he set off in the direction she pointed. It felt good to have a copilot again... even if it wasn't Ellie. It didn't need to be Ellie. In fact, it's good that it's NOT Ellie... repeat as needed: I don't need Ellie to feel like I have a purpose. It wasn't so complicated after all -- it was a matter of retraining the mind. Reconditioning the heart. Reassessing reality.
I don't need Ellie... I don't need ANYone... I don't need Ellie...
It was true. Because if he actually needed Ellie in order to survive, he would be dead by now... and he was still drawing breath, wasn't he?
But... goddamnit... it's the POINT of drawing breath. The WHY. That's where--
Just stop with that shit. All you've gotta do right now is focus on the task at hand. Current task: find Paul.
He hoped like hell there was something physically demanding he could help the other man with, because Joel really needed to get out of his own damn head for a while.
~Continue to Chapter 44~
Fandom: The Last of Us (first game only)
Characters: Ellie, Joel, Tommy, Maria, OCs
Pairings: Joel/Ellie
Warnings: Underage
Word Count for this chapter: 8,513
Rating (for fic as a whole): R
~
Joel had plenty of time to think now.
He had to watch his back (he'd meant it when he promised Ellie he would be careful), and his focus on day-to-day survival took up a fair amount of time and concentration, but he no longer had Ellie around to distract him from... himself, basically. Now, it was quiet. Every thought, every feeling... they felt amplified, or magnified. Like he could inspect them with more clarity, now that he'd removed the filter of the 'Ellie lens.'
Oh, those first couple days, though... he hadn't wanted to inspect jack shit. He let the anger come through (that emotion had never really troubled him much), but anything else? His M.O. was to stuff it in the box for later. And he was plenty angry with Ellie... but he was a lot angrier with himself. Ultimately, he was the one who had created the situation. He was the adult. He was supposed to look out for Ellie, not... whatever the hell he'd been doing, letting her dictate what their relationship should be -- up until he hadn't, and then he'd just... what -- expected her to adjust accordingly, without even explaining myself? Yeah, that wasn't realistic.
He wanted to go find Paul and Karma -- eventually. It just seemed like he ought to get some of his thinking done before he did, and he really wanted to find Tommy first. It was Joel's fault he was out there. If he hadn't left the way he did the first time, Ellie wouldn't have chased after him. And Joel should've known she'd find a way out. That girl can do anything she sets her mind to...
Leaving Ellie the hard way -- actually saying goodbye, instead of being a coward -- was every bit as gut-wrenching as Joel had expected it to be. Being angry with her hadn't made it any easier. In fact, it had probably made it worse, because now Ellie had a reason to beat herself up. He knew that in her experience... with school, with people... you fuck up, and you're gone. Maybe not so much in the past couple years... especially with him. But didn't that just make his leaving so much harder to bear? He was supposed to be her rock. The one who loved her unconditionally. He knew Ellie still struggled with that concept... but she had definitely come to trust him and to believe in his love for her so much more than she had a year ago. He had shattered that trust, in an instant. As soon as she had realized that after promising so many times not to, he had left her. The one thing in her life she could--
-NO. That ain't true anymore -- the ONE THING part... She had plenty of things she could count on -- plenty of them right there with her in Jackson. Joel hoped to God she was finding comfort in that. He hadn't asked her not to confide in Maria... not to talk to her about everything that had transpired since she'd found Joel in the jeep that day... would she do that? ...Would it help her if she did? He should have encouraged her to. There was no one else she could really talk to about it -- except Tommy, of course, if he'd made it back. Neither one of them would be the most receptive audience, given the subject matter, but they loved Ellie. They wanted to help her get over this.
They want to help her get over ME.
She was so young and resilient, he knew it was just a matter of time. How long would that take? A month? Half a year? ...A whole year? He wished he knew how long would be a fair amount to allow her. But he wasn't even sure he wanted her to get over him. In his head? Yes, of course. But in his heart... that was a big HELL no.
Figuring out how to reconcile the two was probably the first thing he needed to work on.
He felt like he owed her at least a month to sort things out on her end. She probably wouldn't be over him by then, per se, but she could be well on her way. That day he'd left... she'd started to harden her heart towards him. He had recognized that, and was willing to let her keep that feeling of control or power or whatever... but damn, was he ever glad to hear her call him back. He wanted that sweet, loving face to be his last memory of her. Maybe not the tears, so much... but he'd take those beautiful green eyes any which way he could get them.
Her suggestion that they have sex again, even if they stayed broken up, was just... I'm a selfish prick, but even I can't be that cruel. She would be over the worst of it, by the time he came back. Whenever that was. He wouldn't do anything to jeopardize her progress, if she had indeed come to the realization that she was better off without him. But he understood the desire to erase that last sexual encounter from her mind. Joel could simply dismiss it; those last few days they'd spent together had felt like some kind of warped... unreality. It wasn't real. (He might label it a fantasy, but that seemed to imply that all of it had been good.) He had plenty of 'real' memories of her. Simpler times. Even the not-so-simple ones... there was a considerable supply of good memories to draw from, should he wish to stroll down memory lane.
That wasn't what he needed to do now. He just needed to a) clear his head, and b) figure shit out.
He already knew he would be able to forgive Ellie for tricking him. He understood what had driven her to do it. If she had thought it through, he believed she would have made a different choice, but she'd been trying and trying to get through to him and having no success -- and since she had felt like she needed him to survive, the panic had started to set in there, at the end. Her fight-or-flight response got triggered -- and Ellie was a fighter at heart. Essentially, it was his fault for putting her in that position. Understanding that didn't excuse what she had done... but it counted for something. It softened his anger around the edges. Made him sympathize with her position... the abject desperation she must have felt.
Hopefully now she realizes that she does NOT, in fact, need me to survive. That was important. Hell, if there was one thing he wished for her to take away from this whole experience, it was that.
He also had to give her credit for confessing when she did. She could have accepted his proposal. Continued with her scheme. Let him go on to mourn what he thought was an actual child instead of a pretend one.
...Had he actually mourned the pretend one? That was all mixed up in the surreality of those last few days they'd spent together (...which he supposed he would have to untangle, eventually, but first things first). He had definitely felt disappointed. ...Not just disappointed -- more like punched in the gut? The sense of loss he'd felt had been extraordinary, considering the person he'd 'lost' had never existed.
But he felt like he was over that now, for the most part. Because none of it had been real. He knew what it felt like to lose a real child, and this... wasn't anything even remotely close to that, he was certain. From a logic-driven perspective, it had to be the equivalent of watching a sad movie and getting caught up in the drama for a little while, but when it was over, so were the feelings it conjured up. This movie was written and directed by Ellie herself, and his heavy emotional investment in it had caused him... what amounted to phantom pain. If it hurt, he just had to tell himself that it shouldn't, and that was that. His heart had synced up with his brain on that account, and he accepted that the whole family-of-three thing was just a goddamn fantasy (and yes, 'fantasy' was applicable in this instance, because he and Ellie had been galloping off into the sunset on a white horse towards a rosy future that could never exist in the real world).
What he couldn't brush off so easily -- even with its part in the fantasy world -- was the fact that he had asked a sixteen-year-old girl to marry him. He had asked a child to be his wife. He didn't think of her as a child much of the time, but technically, that's what she was. And he hadn't thought that decision through at all. He'd had the impulse, and immediately given into it -- not unlike a child. I guess Ellie really DOES make me feel like a damn teenager sometimes... He couldn't even blame it on the imaginary baby forcing his hand -- because hadn't he learned, a lifetime ago, that 'doing the right thing' was not always the right thing?
That was the crux of his romantic relationship with Ellie, really. (He would have to chew on that later.)
When Joel got tired of spending time in his head, there was always another matter he could turn his attention to. A whole list of them, actually. Searching for Tommy. Finding fuel for the jeep. Hunting. Skinning, cleaning, prepping... making a fire... cooking. Eating. Sleeping.
That last one... that was a bitch.
He did sleep, of course. At his age, it was impossible to go for days on end without it. He never expected to get good sleep Outside to begin with, but this time around, the nights were... just plain torture, really. It was always hard to shut his brain down for the night out here, since he couldn't do it all the way. Like his mind had a dimmer switch left on its lowest setting rather than switched off. With his thoughts as heavy and troublesome as they were lately, the light seemed to want to stay a little brighter in there... it kept him from the soothing dark calm of nothing -- of the peace one needed to feel in order to succumb to sleep.
And it wasn't just that, of course -- it was Ellie. His heart so full of love for her... his arms so empty they physically ached. To say he missed her... well, there needed to be a stronger verb for it.
Joel didn't know what to do about that, other than suffer through it. His first plan -- reverting to his pre-Ellie self, hastily rebuilding all the walls she'd torn down -- had failed. Backfired, even, because maybe that boomerang had compounded the whole... instant family thing. The other extreme. And he just couldn't do that this time. Again, he'd taken the coward's way out the first time, but now he was ready to do things right. He owed it to Ellie to do what he'd told her he would: sort shit out. Not... try to pretend she didn't exist, or whatever the hell he'd been doing before (at this point, he couldn't even say).
He might not have to think about protecting Ellie now... providing for her... measuring the words he said to her... considering her well-being with every decision he made, gauging how it would affect her... but she was never far from his thoughts. Which was to be expected, given that the whole point of this little... excursion... was to evaluate their relationship. ...There's also the fact that I love her so damn much?!
And it was rather surprising how long it had taken him to get used to not putting her needs before his own, seeing as how she wasn't even with him. He found himself idly wondering where she was at. As if she were just around the corner taking a piss or something. When cooking up a rabbit, he automatically set aside her favorite part -- the liver -- before realizing he needed to eat it himself. Whenever he cleared a place for a break or overnight stay, he asked himself is this safe enough for Ellie?
"Pretend I'm with you," she had told him. Yeah... she needn't have bothered advising him that -- she was with him, in his thoughts every minute of every day.
Everything should have been easier, ensuring the survival of one person instead of two. But it sure didn't feel that way to Joel. The unrest that he felt... the disquiet... the unnaturalness of it all, just eating at him... that had to offset any benefit of halving the number of survivors he was responsible for. Besides, Ellie was hardly dead weight. She more than held her own.
Even so, it should have been easier, with her not there to worry about. So why am I worrying about her MORE? I've already established that she is NOT safer with me than anyone else. He had figured that out long ago, then conveniently forgotten. Because he preferred the fantasy. Ellie did, too...
"I know shit happens, Joel, but... ugh, you DON'T UNDERSTAND."
"I don't?"
"You don't! You don't even know how awesome you are. Obviously this shit is scary and everything... but I feel a thousand percent safer with you than I do without you."
"A thousand percent? There's no such--"
"Yes there is and it's how I feel!"
"...Then you're forgettin' the fact that I HAVE let bad things happen to you."
"Not really -- the only bad stuff that's happened has been out of your control. Like we weren't even together at the time, or you were hurt--"
"No, we've been together and you still--"
"Then we just weren't together ENOUGH. Nothing bad has happened to me when I'm like... right by your side -- or even closer. You can't name ONE TIME."
"...Is that a challenge?"
"No because you fucking CAN'T. But... okay, fine, I dare you -- name one time!"
And he couldn't. But only because every instance he thought of, she could counter with Ellie logic. Like the time she nearly drowned in Salt Lake City -- he'd been right there, but she said the water had separated them and that if she had been able to grab his hand, she would have been fine. Whatever he came up with, she could refute.
About the only thing he truly had going for him over anyone else was that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would give his life for hers. In an instant. He couldn't say the same even for Tommy: his brother loved Ellie enough, sure, but he had his own family to consider. Whereas Joel...
What was it Ellie had said to him, when she was trying to change his mind about leaving... and she called out his reasoning on where he was going... "do you really think that's all your life is worth?" The spare tire thing.
Damn, she's smart as a whip. Joel hadn't looked at it that way, exactly, but it was true enough: latching on to another pre-made family kind of signified that he was giving up on the idea of having one of his own. He really did think Paul could use the help... that the guy deserved a break... and Joel felt he could have a somewhat-fulfilling life being his sidekick. After all, you didn't have to be blood relatives to be family. (Ellie would always be family to him, even if he couldn't define their exact relationship to one another.) Ellie was probably right about the little girl inadvertently torturing him, but maybe that would go away in time. Once he got to know Karma better in her own right. Anyway, Joel felt like this plan was definitely a step up from joining a band of hunters or something.
As far as what his life was actually worth...
It was pretty much nothing, at this very moment, simply because he was alone. A lone person... really didn't do anybody any good, including themselves. His thoughts drifted to Ron, the crusty old dude they'd met on the way to California... what purpose did he have in life? All he was doing was waiting around for his long-lost family to return. And let's face it -- after fifteen or twenty or however-many-it-was years? They ain't coming back. Was the poor old bastard deriving any pleasure from life whatsoever? If he was... then, perhaps that was enough. If he wasn't...
The way Joel saw it, there was absolutely no point in going through the daily task of survival with no one either going through it with you (to some extent, at least) or waiting for you at the finish line. Maybe if I'd never met Ellie, I wouldn't give a shit about that... maybe I would be more like Bill?
He certainly couldn't say he was deriving pleasure from life right now. Any natural beauty that touched him... a pretty sunrise, a field of wildflowers... it withered immediately because Ellie wasn't there to share it with him. -Actually, it didn't just wither -- it became an icy little spear that jabbed him in the heart. That negated the whole damn thing, leaving him worse off than he'd been the moment before. And it happened a lot, through various means. He couldn't even gaze up at the sky to speculate about the day's weather without wondering what fanciful thing Ellie would have seen in the clouds.
He just plain missed the hell out of his baby girl.
Is she all right? and I wonder what she's doing right now were the refrains on his mind. Sprinkled with other shit: Was she staying out of trouble? Was she happy? Was she getting the support she needed from friends and family? Was she sleeping okay... or having nightmares? Panic attacks? Did she get all the crying out of her system? (He sure hoped so.) Was she doing what he said... not kicking herself for the past, but living in the present? Making new friends, maybe? People who perhaps had kept their distance, when she was with Joel, but now felt like they had more opportunity to get to know her... and who the hell WOULDN'T want to get to know my amazing Ellie?
He didn't need to wonder if she missed him; of course she did. She would for a long time. The one he kept coming back to was does she NEED me?
He knew it was wrong... that it was a flaw in his character... but he liked it when she needed him. Not so big a flaw that he liked seeing her upset, at least, but... he liked being the one she turned to when she was. The one who could make things better. Fix things for her. Make her feel safe... make her smile, make her laugh... There was no better feeling in the whole world, than to do that stuff for her. To make her happy.
How much had his... Ellie-specific hero complex, or whatever-the-fuck, influenced her psyche over the past two years? With her background, was she naturally predisposed to be codependent, or had he made her that way by exhibiting such traits himself? It was a human thing, to need other people... but Ellie was a strong gir-- young woman. She shouldn't be resorting to desperate, unconscionable behavior to... 'keep a man.' That just... that ain't who she IS. I know it ain't.
...Yet I drove her to it.
Joel wasn't sure how much stock to put in that one incident. Granted, it was a huge goddamn incident, but ultimately... it was one mistake, and it had weighed on her heavily until it finally broke her. She had done the right thing, in the end. His mind wandered back to that night last year when she'd first told him she was in love with him... the news had completely blindsided him, idiot that he was... he hadn't handled it very well. He thought about how she had dealt with the rejection: she had made her case, every which way she could, but Joel wouldn't bend, and she had never resorted to any sort of theatrical nonsense to 'win him over.' She had been the one to leave, her pride intact... leaving him with a "please don't go" stuck in his throat. He remembered being impressed with her maturity.
So what the hell happened since then?
Well... lots of things. And, to be fair to her current self, Ellie hadn't acted so maturely in the days following that rejection.
To really be fair -- she was only a teenage girl. She was still finding her way. Yes, she was a young woman in some respects... but in actuality, wasn't she in the process of becoming one? That's what adolescence was all about. Was Joel just so far removed from that, at his age, that he'd forgotten? Was he letting Ellie snow him with her declarations of being older than her years... "totally ready for this"... all that shit she said to him to try to make him see her as an adult? She wasn't necessarily wrong about all of it... but how much was she right about? How much credit should she be given for her considerable life experiences, on the adult-versus-child meter? ...And how much did that not even matter at all because biology dictated that her teenage brain was still under construction?
...Joel felt like his brain was under construction after a bout of asking himself questions like these. One afternoon, it felt like there was a little dude in there with a big ol' jackhammer, just pounding away. It didn't help that he'd barely slept the night before, and was low enough on water that he'd been rationing it more skimpily than normal. I'll just take a little nap in the jeep... then head for the river...
He had already lost track of how many days he'd been gone. Probably at least a week. No sign of Tommy, or anyone else from Jackson. Before Joel had left, he'd gotten a little more information out of Maria about Tommy:
"So his plan was to go west? Is that all he said?"
"He felt like it was the most likely direction."
"And... was he just gonna follow the road all the way to California? You'll remember we went two different ways. One way there, a different way back."
"Right, right -- we talked about that -- he said they wouldn't go far enough that they had to make that choice. That he wouldn't look for more than a few days. Maybe a week, tops."
"What, and then he'd just... hope she'd guessed right an' caught up to me at some point? ASSUMED she was okay?"
"Of course not. They would come back home and re-assess things. You know the search efforts we make when people go missing... it always boils down to the two big questions when we can't find people right away: how long do we look, and how far out do we go? Tommy planned on following the standard protocol -- at least to start."
"I'm sure he did. That's a good thing... this time, at least."
"Look, that's what he told me... as far as the search parties were concerned. He might decide to send his party back but keep looking himself, though. He was really worried about Ellie being out there by herself... we both were. I suggested he come back and maybe we could discuss getting the military to help."
"The military?"
"Yes -- they can cover a lot more ground in a lot less--"
"Neither of you should EVER get the military involved when it comes to Ellie or me, all right?"
"Why not?"
"...It's just better that you don't."
"O... kay? Is this about the Fireflies? They're two separate--"
"No. Although it's possible they learned what happened with the Fireflies an' got the names of those involved. That's why I asked you to either use fake names or completely omit us if they ever want some kind of... town manifest. Maria, I'm tellin' you, we made a lot of enemies crossin' the country... some of 'em knew our names, word might've got around..."
"All right, I get it. It doesn't even matter now since it won't be necessary."
Of course, those lies had been convincing because they weren't exactly lies. Joel was just far more concerned with recent history than with ancient. And it's becoming less recent all the time... still, he parked the jeep in a grove of trees, where it would be heavily shaded from the sun... as well as anything else up there that might be looking down on him. He had long since passed the area where the Black Hawk had landed -- and found that it was still there, although the soldiers' bodies were not. Joel had kind of kept his ears perked for word about the incident to filter down to him through Tommy or Maria, and when it didn't... he took it as a good sign. Maybe the flyboys hadn't managed to get any word back to their base about what had happened before they died. In that case, they could have landed for any number of reasons... and it could have been anyone who had attacked them. Probably a band of hunters or Infected... certainly not an old man and a little girl.
Ellie would probably be disappointed that they didn't repair the damn helicopter, so it could go fight wildfires and whatnot... maybe they just haven't gotten around to it yet... it wasn't as easy to repair things now as it used to be, even for the military. Whatever damage Joel had done... he felt like it was reversible.
...Yes. She's young. She'll be--
--Christ, I wasn't even thinking about Ellie for a SPLIT SECOND -- yet I was still thinking about her.
He slumped in his seat, trying to get comfortable enough just to have himself a little catnap and hopefully curb the jackhammering, even just a little. He really didn't want to lay down in the back... ever. (That was an Ellie-and-him spot, best avoided if possible.) He was tired enough that dozing off shouldn't be a problem... at all... even with Ellie... obviously never far from his thoughts... ...always right there...
"Poor Joel... why don't you let me trade places with you? Isn't it EXACTLY for situations like this that you taught me how to drive stick? Come on..."
Joel actually turned his head towards the passenger seat, opened his eyes... and, for some reason, was surprised to find that Ellie was not sitting there. I JUST SAW HER... heard her, mostly...
...Shit. He was losing it. One week in, already losing his damn mind.
He dozed off again... and this time when he opened his eyes, he didn't see Ellie -- he saw the little blond girl. The ghostly one, in the white dress... she wasn't crying this time, just looking at him--
But only for a second. When he blinked, she was gone.
Yep... losing it. For sure. He was nowhere near the haunted highway right now. ...Do ghosts travel? I thought they pretty much liked to haunt one place... hell, what do we really know about it, though?
He wished Ellie were here -- and not just on account of missing the hell out of her. Ellie would be able to tell him if he was crazy or not. She was correct in her observation that most of the people they told those stories to tended to just arch their brows and give off a "cool story, bro" sort of vibe. He supposed he would, too, if he were in their shoes, because it did sound batshit crazy. Especially the time warp/changing direction part. The fact that both of them had experienced that the same way is what told Joel that it had really happened. If he had been alone, he would have eventually come to doubt his own recollection of it... and I would've reckoned I was either confused, or just losing my damn mind -- like I surely am now.
Joel ran his hand through his hair and took a deep breath, willing himself not to get shook up over this shit. He knew without a doubt that Ellie had not been there beside him a short while ago. He would probably never know if the little girl was some kind of sleep hallucination or not. Only Ellie would understand...
-Just like only she and I understand the way we love each other. No one else really KNOWS, from the outside. They don't see our private, most intimate moments. The way we can understand each other without words. The way it feels like we really are the same person sometimes. Even the people who accept us as a couple don't fully understand the depth of our connection... except Sophie, maybe, because she was with us in Sacramento, and afterwards... but still -- she don't know EVERYTHING. ...As for Tommy and Maria -- they understand the least of all. It's possible they're only listening with their heads, not their hearts... that they might come around... but also possible -- and perhaps more likely -- that they just plain DON'T GET IT.
And this... this was not the sort of thing he was meant to be thinking about. He'd been justifying their relationship to himself for the better part of a year now. What he needed to do was extract himself from it, in order to view it more objectively.
He felt the beginnings of a cramp in his right foot, so he slid out of the jeep and preemptively walked it off, grateful that it wasn't a charley horse. Ellie suffered them occasionally, too, but Joel got them regularly if he wasn't drinking enough water. Time to quit tooling around in the jeep and go find Paul and Karma, who would likely be camped out by a reliable water source. Time to assume that Tommy and company had made it home -- if they hadn't, Maria would probably enlist the military's help anyway, and Joel would prefer to avoid any such encounters. If Tommy had followed the highway out to begin with, and then decided to turn around, the logical thing to do would be to take a different way home, with the hopes of finding Ellie along the way -- he wouldn't simply retrace his steps along a path where he knew she wasn't going to be. -Or thought he knew. Unless he'd anticipated Joel's inclination to-- ...ha, no, he's looking for Ellie, not me, and SHE AIN'T HERE. Right the first time. WE ARE TWO SEPARATE PEOPLE.
Joel did notice that his headache had abated some, at least. Instead of a jackhammer, it was more like a regular hammer. I can work with this.
* * * * * * *
Finding the right spot was easy, since they had spent a few days there. I spent a few days there, he rephrased in his head. This was his futile attempt to retrain his brain to separate or distinguish himself from Ellie.
What's the use? Both ways, the statement is true. Changing the pronoun didn't change the facts.
He recognized the area... some of the 'markers' were still intact, or somewhat-intact (a yellow cord tied around a tree, a cluster of rocks arranged like a smiley face... shit like that) ...but no Paul, no Karma. Joel searched the surrounding area pretty thoroughly, to no avail. He wondered if that meant Paul had had a run-in with someone while 'doing the train,' as the little girl liked to put it. Paul hadn't come right out and said it, but he had implied that sometimes that was the motivating factor to leave a certain area, and to lay low for a bit. And he's been doing this now for... almost two years? When is his luck going to run out?
Joel reckoned he would find them eventually if he followed the train tracks west or northwest, like the man had told him previously. Unless they'd moved frequently in the past month -- or perhaps hadn't settled at any one place at all -- they wouldn't yet be aware that the Boise QZ was no longer operational. At first, Joel figured he would save them the trouble of going there... then he figured, maybe he would mention it, but suggest that they still go check things out personally and see what was going on up there.
To say that Joel didn't trust the military to give it to them straight would be an understatement.
And this was one instance where he was glad Ellie wasn't with him: if they did encounter any military, whether it be in Idaho or anywhere else, getting scanned wouldn't be a death sentence. Also, he was less likely to trigger any red flags on his own than he was with Ellie. He was just some grizzly old dude, not unlike any other goddamn hunter out there -- he wasn't some grizzly old dude with a teenage girl in tow.
Following the railroad was simple enough... actually finding two people in the vast surrounding areas was not. Joel still had the jeep (which certainly did make him unlike most hunters... all right, maybe that cancels out the no-Ellie thing), so he couldn't just drive alongside the tracks, hoping he would have enough time to hightail it to cover should a train appear on the horizon. It wasn't even physically possible in some areas to drive right beside the tracks -- even with the versatility of the jeep -- and he wasn't stupid enough to drive right on the tracks. He just needed to follow the basic trajectory of the railroad, using the tracks as a compass while he searched. Besides, Paul also wasn't stupid: he wouldn't set up shop anywhere that was actually in view of the tracks.
Joel was searching, and he was still thinking... he just tried not to do the two at the same time. Occasionally, he caught his focus slipping. Stray thoughts and questions that he didn't much care to think about were easily shoved aside for later... the pain of missing Ellie was harder to ignore. And he didn't know what word to use to describe it, other than 'pain' (although that felt inadequate, too). The desire to see her was eating away at his insides. Or maybe just at my heart... it hurt physically, emotionally, spiritually... and time didn't seem to be remedying it, but he expected it would take a hell of a lot longer than a couple of weeks to notice any damn difference. Probably longer than he intended to be away from her in the first place. Which is... how long?
Hell if he knew. Still.
No matter how long he was away from her, he reckoned he would never recover fully from it... if he decided it was best that they were apart permanently. And he didn't know if he could decide that without talking it through with her first. However, he also couldn't imagine that talk going any better than the last one had. You're thinking short-term, asshole... during this time apart, she might actually come to agree with that decision, if it's been long enough for her to move on. ...She MIGHT. In theory, it's possible.
Given some of the things she'd said, he reckoned she was fighting the idea of getting over him. Then again... if she took his advice and spent time with other people... who knows? Maybe she'll realize she wasn't as in love with me as she thought-- especially since he'd broken her heart. She might find the idea of starting over with someone new - someone who had never hurt her or betrayed her or broken promises to her -- really appealing. He couldn't assume anything. In his weakest moments, he wanted to fly home as quickly as possible and tell her he'd made a huge mistake... beg her forgiveness... take her in his arms--
Fortunately, he was able to curb such impulses with a healthy dose of logic. The whole point was for each of them to become stronger as individuals. If that meant Ellie grew away from him, then... then that's what needs to happen. Good for her, ridding herself of the old man... maybe I just shouldn't ever go back...
Ellie had made it very clear that she did not want this 'break.' He'd had to promise that he would return. She never would have let him leave, otherwise. He'd broken enough promises by now that she might not be surprised if he broke this one, too... but he couldn't do that to her -- she deserved a resolution. She was in limbo right now, and he couldn't leave her there. That would be the biggest dick move possible.
Perhaps the second-biggest dick move possible would be to send word to her somehow... through a guard at the gate or something. "Hey, can you please let Ellie know that I won't be comin' back after all?" ...and then hope they would pass it-- no, he would have to tell Tommy or Maria directly. He had to know for sure that the message would be delivered, and those two would probably do it with gusto -- and perhaps even delay the delivery long enough to ensure she wouldn't come charging after him. "Joel stopped by a week ago. He wanted to let you know he ain't comin' back. It's for the best, sweetheart."
The problem with that method was that she might not believe them. However, Tommy and Maria weren't in the habit of lying to Ellie, so... At least that way she would hate me... she wouldn't be wondering if something happened to me, or wrestle with how long to wait before trying to find me in case I'm in trouble or something like that... no, she would have the luxury of hating my guts. Should make for a quicker recovery.
Except that wasn't always the case. What if the anger consumed her... changed her...
STOP. That ain't gonna happen 'cause I can't do that to her.
She hadn't bought his asshole act when he'd left the first time, and she'd probably see through it again if it came down to it, so that was out. ...Unless... well, if enough time went by, she either might not care enough to fight it, or she might be more inclined to buy it, since she had no reason to believe his love wouldn't just die out one day.
Whatever-- POINT BEING... yes, it hurt like hell to be away from her. The thought of seeing her again someday might actually be the only thing keeping him sane. One thing that actually seemed better now, in terms of his psyche, was that he no longer had to fight off feelings of panic or intense anxiety over not knowing with one hundred percent certainty that she was okay. And those feelings had already abated somewhat, once they'd settled in back home. ...If you can call being home a few weeks being 'settled in'... Shit -- his gut had been right to dread that return to Jackson. Maybe he should have listened to it. Taken Ellie some place else.
What's done is done -- and he could wallow in 'what if's and self-pity later. He had a job to do now.
He was glad they had left the atlas in the jeep. It gave him something to go by... if he had no luck with the railroad, Plan B was to check out the rivers and lakes to the west, towards Boise. Eventually, Paul was going to have to part ways with the railroad to check out that QZ... but when would that 'eventually' come?
Taking catnaps in the jeep had become habit. A bad one, he supposed, because when he put it to the would I be doing this if Ellie was with me? test, it failed. (He probably wouldn't need so many naps in the first place because he would be sleeping better at night, but that was beside the point.) Hallucinating afterward was not a typical side effect... but it was happening again! That little blond girl in the trees--
"Joel! Are you awake now? ...You are!"
...she's real this time -- and it's Karma, not the ghost!
She had been standing maybe a hundred feet away from him, and was now running towards the jeep, a big smile on her face.
Joel rubbed his eyes and took a quick look around. When he didn't see Paul anywhere, he took a harder look, adjusting the seat to be a little more upright. Nothing amiss or out of place, that he could see... or hear... or feel in his gut. He turned his attention to the little girl. Felt the corners of his mouth lifting for the first time in weeks. Unfortunately, he was about to break her little eight-year-old heart, because he knew the first thing she would--
"Where's Ellie? Ellie, are you hiding?" Karma looked in the back seat... then seemed to be trying to determine if Ellie could fit in the cargo area.
"Oh honey, I'm sorry... she ain't with me this time. I'm s'posed to give you a hug from her, though, an' tell you she misses you... tons, I think is what she said." That sounds about right...
The smile vanished. "But -- I really wanna see her!"
Me too, kid... me too. "I know. Maybe next time. But hey, guess what -- I brought you some presents. I know it ain't nearly as good as seein' Ellie... but I think you'll like 'em. Where's your dad at?"
She did look mildly intrigued about the presents, but she was beyond the ideal age for the distract-with-shiny-things method to ~make it all better~. "He's checking the traps. We saw your jeep. Then we saw you in it. Daddy said you weren't hurt, just sleeping, cuz the seat was down some and you had that big gun on top of you -- but there's no doors -- what if you rolled over and fell out?"
"...Uh... I s'pose that could happen. I oughta be more careful." Except the moment he felt the need to roll over when he was napping, he just woke up instead.
"I wanted to see if Ellie was with you, but Daddy said we should let you sleep. And he said if I got too close you might shoot me cuz you wouldn't know it was me, so I was right there." She turned and pointed to the spot she'd been occupying, as if Joel hadn't just seen her come running from there, then turned back towards him. "He said I should guard you while you're sleeping so nothing bad happens to you. Except that's kind of backwards cuz you have a gun and I don't -- I think what he meant was I should do something to wake you up if I saw anyone around -- which I didn't, cuz there's no one around here anywhere -- and we didn't want you to just drive away without visiting us first so I had to make sure you didn't do that. I really wish Ellie was with you!"
Joel was pretty sure he'd caught most of that, although his brain kind of felt overloaded from the barrage after receiving zero verbal input for... three weeks now, maybe? If he hadn't taken to talking to himself, the jeep (and various other inanimate objects), and even to an imaginary Ellie, his vocal chords probably would have rusted over a bit by now. Definitely caught that last thing... "I do, too," he commiserated. "She couldn't come. Believe me, she really wanted to. I had some... business to attend to. Grown-up stuff. Woulda been... irresponsible of me... to bring her along. You understand?" ...'Cause I sure don't...
"No. She's big -- I don't get why she couldn't do the stuff with you."
"Well... she, uh... she just... ...basically, she... ...it's complicated. You know what that means?"
She nodded. "It means you can't really explain it good."
Joel chuckled. That definition is about as succinct as it gets. "That's exactly right."
"Can you move the gun out of the way?"
"...Sure." He didn't see how the shotgun was 'in the way,' as he'd let it slide down between his legs and made sure it was pointed it away from her, but he obligingly swung it into the back seat.
Before he'd even turned back around, Karma just clambered right up into his lap and slid her arms around his neck. "You can give me Ellie's hug now."
Joel was so surprised... so touched, by that... he didn't know what to say. He hugged her tight... probably for too long, but the little girl tolerated it. He gave her two big squeezes before letting go. "One from me, one from Ellie," he explained.
"Those were both from Ellie!" she giggled, pulling back to look at him. "Give me yours -- where you do it as hard as you can. ...Pleeease?"
Aww... "All right, if you really don't like breathin'..."
"Yes!"
It was such a common word, but the way she said it... the inflection... she got that from Ellie. Joel remembered that Paul hadn't been a big fan of the vise grip hugs, so he squeezed her only marginally harder this time -- making her squeal, but not quite gasp for air -- then gently slid her into the passenger seat. "Here, I'll get this stuff outta your way..." Or her feet's way; he didn't actually store anything on the seat itself, given the lack of a door to keep it from sliding right out if he hit a bump or had to swerve for some reason.
"You did it harder last time," Karma pointed out.
"Did I? I must be gettin' weak." He tucked his backpack and a couple more weapons into the back seat, keenly aware of the little girl's eyes on him.
"Did the hugs help?" she asked.
"Help what?" He turned his attention back to his passenger.
"Sometimes if I'm sad, Daddy hugs me, and I feel a little better. Do you feel better?"
It occurred to Joel that he hadn't bothered to check his reflection in a while; he must look pretty damn bad if it was noticeable to a little kid. I must look like... something between 'shit' and 'death warmed over'? He forced a smile. "I do. Thank you. How did you know I needed one?"
"You're sad -- I can just tell. Cuz you miss Ellie, right?"
"Yes. I miss her very much."
Karma looked at him solemnly. "You know what you should do? Daddy says that whenever I miss Mommy and it's making me really sad, I should think about happy times that I had with her. That'll make me smile and then I won't feel so sad anymore."
If only it were that simple. "That's a good idea. Does it always work?"
"Well... not always. It doesn't always work for Daddy either cuz..." She lowered her voice (...so the birds wouldn't overhear?). "Can I tell you a secret?"
Joel reflexively lowered his voice in response. "Sure."
"He cries sometimes. He always tries to hide it cuz he doesn't want me to see but I know he does... I've seen him, when he thinks I'm not looking -- like if he doesn't know I'm there. But don't tell him I told you, okay?"
Joel felt his insides constricting; he was starting to wonder why he thought it would be a good idea to come visit. No... it's fine... it's gonna hurt, no matter where I'm at... "I won't say a word. Can I tell you a secret?"
She nodded eagerly.
"I cry sometimes, too," he whispered. ...It had happened once or twice, at least.
"You do?" She seemed surprised, even though she could "just tell" that he was sad.
"Yep. And I don't like people to see it, either."
She absorbed this for a moment. "Maybe you guys shouldn't try to hide it so much."
Joel chuckled. "Yeah, maybe."
"Daddy says it's okay to cry. But if it's really okay then why is it a secret? That doesn't make much sense."
Lots of things don't make sense in this world... but this one did. "Well... I reckon some things... are just easier to do in secret. Hidin' it don' necessarily mean it's a bad thing." Some things are best left hidden... hiding was a means of protection, after all. And what kind of things most need protection? Precious things... fragile things... things that might crumble if you make one wrong--
"I don't like crying in secret," she announced matter-of-factly.
"No?"
"Nope -- you don't get any hugs when you do it that way."
Damn, she keeps making me smile... "That... is very true. That's a good reason to do it with other people." And now he had an amusing mental image of the three of them -- himself, Paul, and Karma -- sitting by a campfire, all folded up into a group hug, bawling their eyes out. Possibly after singing Kumbaya.
"If you wanna cry cuz you miss Ellie, it's okay. I'll give you a hug. Maybe I'll cry with you cuz I miss her too?" she suggested.
"That is a very generous offer. I might take you up on that. But right now, we need to go find your dad, all right?"
"Yeah -- I meant for later. Crying happens more at night."
Ain't that the truth.
Joel made Karma put her seatbelt on (he had to put his on, too, when she called him on it), then he set off in the direction she pointed. It felt good to have a copilot again... even if it wasn't Ellie. It didn't need to be Ellie. In fact, it's good that it's NOT Ellie... repeat as needed: I don't need Ellie to feel like I have a purpose. It wasn't so complicated after all -- it was a matter of retraining the mind. Reconditioning the heart. Reassessing reality.
I don't need Ellie... I don't need ANYone... I don't need Ellie...
It was true. Because if he actually needed Ellie in order to survive, he would be dead by now... and he was still drawing breath, wasn't he?
But... goddamnit... it's the POINT of drawing breath. The WHY. That's where--
Just stop with that shit. All you've gotta do right now is focus on the task at hand. Current task: find Paul.
He hoped like hell there was something physically demanding he could help the other man with, because Joel really needed to get out of his own damn head for a while.
~Continue to Chapter 44~