Chapter Text
Today is her regular day at work, she moans, opening her eyes. As soon as they opened, they immediately closed, and she almost burst into tears from the pain pounding in her ears.
The nausea that rose in her throat did not come as a surprise, but it turned out to be a basin, wisely placed near the bed exactly opposite her head.
When she raised her head and looked at the bedside table to find out what time it was, her gaze was touched by a package of aspirin tablets and a glass of water, from which bubbles were still floating, funny bursting on the surface of the liquid. A double-folded note was hidden under the glass.
“Hello, Ellie,
I hope that you are able to raise your head and read what is written below. If you're reading, then you've probably already drunk what I left for you.
Ellie chuckled, knowing that Maria always made fun of her a little in these morning notes.
You left alone and took a whole bottle of whiskey, don't think that it will go unnoticed, I will definitely talk to you when you are in a sane state and we will be able to meet. The frequent cases when you get drunk to unconsciousness confuse me more and more. I thought you said you were done with these habits.
Just because you're gone doesn't mean no one is worried about you. Dina, when I went to check on you, she offered to help, and then she went to your place without me at all. You're not supposed to know about this, so don't tell her I told you. Try to establish contacts with this girl, you can't imagine how much she misses you.
I hope you won't miss work today, I have an important assignment for you, but if you decide to stay at home, then warn someone. It's not that easy to find a replacement for the patrol. Don't get drunk alone the night before your patrol anymore.
Your
Maria”
Ellie folded the paper and threw it in the trash, rubbing her forehead and getting to her feet. Moving slowly and using everything she could get her hands on, she reached the kitchen and drank another glass of ice water from the tap with wild greed. She'll probably never get used to having eternal access to running water and electricity.
Maria's proposal aroused her interest, her aunt had not given her a job for a long time, apart from bureaucratic red tape in the council building and rare long-range patrols. The fact that Dina was looking after her while Ellie was in a drunken stupor confused her, her cheeks turned slightly red as she pulled on clean jeans and a jacket.
A frosty chill burned her cheeks as she walked down the street straight to the council building. It was chilly outside, but there was no chilling wind or snow falling from the sky. Sometimes small snowflakes brought her peace of mind, gently falling on the snowdrifts.
Ellie walked along, looking around, but none of the passersby or working people even looked at her. She thought about how she was wasting her nerves.
What sane person even thinks that a five-year-old child playing in snowballs will kill him?
Do you consider yourself sane? she answered herself without even having time to think, because she felt a blow to the back of her head and the children's loud screams. She certainly had the urge to cover her ears, but she just turned around and saw the giggling children. They were looking at her, as she initially thought, but then realized that they were looking somewhere behind her and turned around, seeing someone who clearly shouldn't be standing there.
“Well, Dina!” A red-haired boy exclaimed as she threw a handful of snow at his chest. “We just wanted to play,” he whispered softly, looking at Ellie.
“I'm playing with you,” Dina shouted back at him, already climbing over a small wooden fence, which protects only the visual comfort of the eyes, to separate the view of the playground from the street, rather than performing the actual function of fencing. “Are we gonna give these kids a hard time?” Dina looked around, shaking the snow off her head and looking at Ellie with a certain amount of excitement in her eyes.
Ellie pursed her lips, but before she could look back, another handful of snow hit her in the palm.
Dina, standing opposite, was grinning, and Ellie had a burning desire to wipe that expression off her face.
“Yep,” she snorted, picking up the snow in her hands.
“Oh my God,” Dina gasped, resting her palms on her knees and breathing heavily. Ellie's own chest was heaving too, and her cheeks were flushed from the cold.
“When did these kids grow up,” Ellie wondered uncomprehendingly and ran her hand over her face, “Justin and Carol's son is so restless, and recently he was crawling on his knees under the table, what the hell is going on,” she continued, looking back at the children still lying on the ground and spitting snow.
“You probably haven't noticed, but these kids are very afraid of you,” Dina snorted, also looking at the pile of clothes and limbs.
“It's not very noticeable,” Ellie replied, wondering if she had really made the children afraid of her.
“I don't know how many times snowballs have hit you, but I can literally count those times with the fingers of one hand.”
Ellie felt embarrassment spreading across her cheeks and rubbed the stumps on her left arm. She hoped that the shame could not be seen behind her flushed skin due to the cold. Either Dina was careful not to show that she noticed Ellie's regret, or it was actually hidden. Dina just nodded and chuckled, while Ellie diligently rubbed her frozen nose.
“Actually, I was heading to Maria's and I think I should hurry up...” she said casually and rubbed her neck, looking around. In her memories, thoughts surfaced that she had once behaved exactly the same way. Unless the reasons for the behavior are radically different.
“Oh,” Dina gasped and went out the gate, not waiting for Ellie to follow her. Ellie pursed her lips and just managed to open her mouth, but she was interrupted. “Then I won't keep you,” she finished, indicating that it wasn't worth continuing the conversation. “This isn't the first time we've been through this, Ellie,” she frowned, holding up a basket of dirty laundry. “Whatever you're going to say, just keep it to yourself. I'm not going to listen to this again.
“Yeh,” Ellie breathed out and rubbed her palms together, then curled the remaining fingers on her left hand. Phantom pains still haunted her sometimes. Sometimes at night she felt her skin tearing and her phalanges flying out. She could still see them getting lost in the seawater. She closed her eyes for a second and when she opened them, she saw only an empty street in front of her. There was an unpleasant ache in her chest and she thought that she didn't want to spend another night suffocating from the thought that she had ruined everything again.
The front door creaked slightly, as did the floorboards, as Ellie slammed her feet down on them in heavy boots that replaced her battered converse. Snow fell from them and made a small path after her as she walked on and shook her head in front of Maria's office entrance.
A couple of knocks, and she heard a loud “Come in,” after which she opened the door and crossed the threshold without raising her head.
“I've been waiting for you,” Maria said, sorting through the papers and not looking up at Ellie, “come closer,” she continued, adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her nose and tapping a stack of documents on the table.
Ellie just took a couple of steps and, unbuttoning her jacket, sat down in the chair opposite Maria.
“Another piece of documentation,” her fingers beat a rhythm on the stripped varnished tabletop, and an eyebrow rose in a slight sneer, along with the corners of her lips.
Maria looked at him from behind her glasses and shook her head.
“Nothing like that." She chuckled and picked up the next stack of papers. “Your job for today and for the next six months is to help one child with patrolling."
“And who is this lucky guy? Ellie snorts and scratches her nose, which is frozen on the icy street. She frowned, remembering Dina's words that the children were afraid of her. Doesn't Maria have any other options?
“You know him,” Maria replies laconically and puts the papers and glasses to the other side. There were more wrinkles on her face, and the sparse bald patches of gray hair were replaced by a completely gray head.
There are no images of children she might have known in Ellie's head. Apart from one name. But he couldn't have gone on patrol already. He's only eight.
“Don't tell me it's—" But she's interrupted with a raised index finger.
“JJ,” Maria was looking somewhere behind Ellie, and it made her look back. His face looked surprised, but he didn't look scared.
A few seconds later, a guy who Ellie couldn't help but recognize walked in the door.
“JJ, we're sending you not far away, to the old water tower, there are a couple of small houses and shops nearby, you'll walk a short distance, so I won't decide to send you any further, but since,” she sighed, “you're late, you'll have to spend the night at the post,” Maria said, intently looking into JJ's eyes. He looked back with a frown and darted a glance in the direction of Ellie herself, which did not surprise her in any way, but Maria cleared her throat and continued. “This is Ellie, she will accompany you and you will be her partner,” the elderly woman looked at Ellie expressively and returned her attention to the child.
“I hope that you will find a common language. You can go to the armory for now, I've already warned them. The horses are ready for you both." Maria said, looking down at the papers and waving her hand, indicating that they should leave.
JJ looked back at Ellie, but she couldn't read any emotion on his face other than curiosity.
Throwing on her jacket and muttering a short “Goodbye,” she flew out of the room like a bullet and almost crashed into JJ, who was standing at the entrance.
She didn't look at him and just walked down the street, frowning and clutching the straps of her backpack in her hands.
“We...” he started to say, but she hissed.
“There's no ”we", there's you and me, and you just walk quietly and don't get your feet in the way.” She growled through clenched jaws, and when they reached the armory, she just grabbed a rifle with a shotgun and a pistol. Joel's revolver was holstered on her hip, and JJ was looking at it with indignation.
She doesn't need to get involved with this kid, damn it, if she doesn't want to get hit in the forehead one day walking down the street.
She remembers that conversation with Dina. Sometimes she still sees him in her nightmares. She really doesn't want to think about it.
Her mind almost detached from her body as she trudged from store to store, trying to find something to eat. Her constantly shaking hands were unable to shoot even the smallest rabbit. Once she tried to shoot a bow, but almost accidentally stuck an arrow in her leg.
As she slowly moved between the buildings, she found only one bottle of alcohol. Her backpack was getting heavier and heavier with each step. At one point, she wondered what was in it at all.
She had to stop at one of the patrol strongholds that she knew were supposed to be used.
The small room with its cracked and peeling blue walls was perfect for her.
Her fingers, dirty and bloody, grabbed the zipper and pulled. It opened with a sound that made Ellie want to shoot herself in the head.
Her gaze didn't cling to the jacket she'd picked up at some gas station, the half-empty matchbox, and one lighter. One pair of interchangeable socks and some things underneath.
Her hands began to shake even more when she found Joel's watch and Dina's bracelet in them. Little Ollie was lying there too. Damn it, she hadn't thought about the fact that JJ could cry without his favorite toy.
Their crumpled photo is at the very bottom, in a small pocket. Ellie and JJ are lying on the floor, and he pokes her in the cheek with his finger. Her left hand, still intact, rests on top of his head and ruffles his soft hair.
Ellie wonders if Dina has a duplicate photo. She should come back to give it all. Good things can't be wasted.
At that moment, the decision to return did not seem like a mistake to her.
She changed her mind three days later, when she finally ate a rabbit and found the strength to go down the slope. She had to slip a couple of times, fall and lose consciousness several times, but the most important thing was that she was able to crawl to the gate.
She couldn't even say her name when asked to introduce herself. Her legs lost all strength and her knees painfully crashed into the rocks on the road.
She heard some kind of fumbling over herself as she stood on all fours and vomited right under herself.
It occurred to her that her backpack was missing. She could definitely feel the bracelet, the watch, and the photograph. She drowned her mother's knife, the only reminder of her existence, somewhere in Santa Barbara.
The kick in the face with the sole of shoe, when she raised her head to see the source of the footsteps, was so strong that she fell backwards and her vision dispersed so much that she couldn't see anything except the silhouette of the attacker.
One more kick, and right in the stomach, and she exhaled sharply and threw up on her face once more. She didn't have the strength to turn around, and no one tried to turn her around, so she started gagging and trying to cough up what she had thrown up herself.
Another kick landed on her back, and she fell to her right side, coughing up vomit from her throat.
Everything blurred and doubled in her eyes, but she still saw Dina above her, grabbing her by the chin and turning her onto her back.
“Oh, Dina, I see you again." Ellie muttered, trying to look into Dina's eyes, but she couldn't even focus on her face. “Last time, you came to see me with Joel. He told me—” if Ellie had been able to move, she would have put her finger to her lip, thinking. In fact, it probably looked ridiculous from the outside, while she was barely turning her tongue in her mouth, trying to talk like a healthy person. “He said I need to check on you. The one who is you, but not you, because you, who are you, here in front of me, said that I cannot go back. She told me you'd punch me as soon as I got back. Apparently she wasn't far from the truth.”
“Ellie, damn it,” she heard before the pain from the kicks overshadowed all other feelings. If she hadn't been a sack of potatoes, she would have tried to scream. But all she got now was a haughty laugh. And then another one. And more. A few moments later, she was laughing like crazy, lying on the floor, and feeling blood trickling down her right temple.
“Fuck, I've never seen such a believable hallucination...” it turned out to be the last thing she said before the world got too dark.
The next time she woke up, she was in a room.
In fact, she thought she was dead and returning to Jackson was just the culmination of her imagination. All she had the strength to do was try to turn her head towards whoever had entered the room. It's not like she succeeded.
She heard an unmistakable female voice and thought that she must be in the hospital. But the excessive softness of the bed told her that it looked like she was in some kind of house, not a local hospital.
“I thought you were probably hungry,” Maria said, sitting down next to the bed and holding out a spoon with some liquid scooped from a cup of stew.
Ellie grimaced, turning away. She knew that if she ate anything now, she would immediately vomit it back on herself. She didn't want to waste Jackson's food supplies. Maria just sighed softly and put the cup on the bedside table and turned on the bedside lamp.
Ellie looked out the window and only now realized how dark it was. If she came here in the late afternoon, she must have been in bed for at least a day. Wasted time. She needs to find Dina.
“Maria...” she wheezed and almost coughed from the dryness in her throat, but the elderly woman handed her a glass of water in time. Ellie gulped the water from it so greedily while holding it with her shaking hands that she spilled half the glass on herself. “Where— where's Dina?”
Maria did not look up from her knees and sighed in disappointment.
“Girl, she literally wanted to kill you when you first arrived. She didn't think she beat the shit out of you by kicking you a couple of times, but you didn't see the look on her face when you said you saw her last time with Joel and that he asked you to come back. She only stopped when you said it was a damn plausible hallucination. You shouldn't see her. At least out of respect for her.”
Her next days didn't differ much. She fell asleep, then woke up. She was reading the comics that Maria had brought her. Sometimes Cat visited her. It turned out that she had returned to Jackson a couple of months before Ellie herself. For the most part, Cat talked while Ellie listened to her and gave monosyllabic answers.
Later, when she could stand on her feet, still stumbling sometimes, but Maria wouldn't let her out of the precinct, at night, when no one was going to visit her, she left the house in just a white nightgown and black sleeping shorts. Stopping in the middle of the street, she stumbled into her own thoughts. Where should she go? She doesn't even know where Dina lives.
The first offer turned out to be Jesse's parents' house. She walked towards him, stopping occasionally and giving herself a break. When she was already standing in front of the front door, her lungs and legs were on fire. Yes, it would make sense that Dina moved in with Jesse's parents after Ellie left them with JJ.
What if Dina isn't here? Would she just wake up Jesse's parents? Of course, they never got mad at her, and even after Jesse's death, when she was almost on her knees crying in front of them and apologizing, they just hugged her and comforted her. But now that she's abandoned their daughter and their grandson? She doesn't think she has the right to barge in on them in the middle of the night. Does she have the right to come to Dina like that?
Her thoughts were interrupted, and she froze with her fist in the air as she was about to knock. The muzzle of a shotgun was pointed at her face. Her breathing slowed, but she didn't move, afraid that her brains would be smeared all over the yard.
“Ellie?" Shotgun asked her. More precisely, Dina, who pushed it away. “What the fuck are you doing here?" Her voice went from tired and weak to angry like a wave in the ocean.
“Oh, Dina,” She looked around and licked her dry, chapped lips. “I didn't think I'd find you here,” her right hand curled around the stumps of fingers on her left hand. It's a stupid nervous habit. She still sometimes felt the pain of losing them, even though she had been missing them for more than ten months. For a long time she was picking at a badly healed wound. After that, she had to saw them off and cauterize them. She doesn't want to think about it. Their tips are still uneven, but not the same as after the bite. “I wanted to say that I'm really sorry, I know that no words will make up for my guilt, but I just wanted to apologize.” She didn't have time to continue because Dina moved closer to her.
“You look like fucking shit, Ellie. Do you think you have the right to come to my house like that and talk such nonsense? Go sleep it off and never fucking come back here. If I see you here, or even more so next to my son, then this shotgun will still work.”She noticed how Ellie winced at the word “my,” and her anger doubled. “You lost the right to be called his mother when you abandoned him and me. Abandoned fucking. It's mind-boggling. We had a perfect life, and you left it just for some stupid revenge. So what?” Dina hissed the last sentence and she really wanted to punch Ellie again, but the sight of her already battered body made her stop. Ellie was rubbing the remains of her fingers harder and harder, and Dina couldn't help but notice it. She saw that Ellie's fingers were missing when Ellie first arrived here. It was truly a disgusting sight. Her bloodstained clothes and face, greasy hair, and the sight of her vomiting all over herself almost made Dina spit out her lunch too. “Did you kill that bitch? Did it give you pleasure? How did you torture her, beat her to death, or cut and burn her limbs? Say something fucking!” She screamed when Ellie just looked down at the floor and turned away a little. Dina noticed the drops that had fallen on Ellie's sneakers, but she didn't say anything. She grabbed her chin and turned her around. “You have no right to turn away and hide after what you've done!" Dina almost screamed, looking into Ellie's face, who didn't even try to twist away. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and her face was contorted into a terrible grimace. Dina was incredibly annoyed by Ellie's weak and helpless appearance. She had no right to pretend to be like this after leaving them and not even looking back. After all the people she killed. Dina saw her face hurt with rage and her eyes burning with hatred. She has no right to be so pathetic.
Ellie started crying even harder when Dina mentioned Abby.
“I can see in your eyes that you killed her.”Dina let go of Ellie, even rather threw her aside. “Don't you dare come near my family.”
Then Ellie just left. The next morning, some farmers found her lying in the bushes with a bottle of whiskey in her hands.
Nothing surprising.
Or should she not care? Yes, that's right.
“Are all drunken robbers in our city allowed to carry guns with them?” he chuckles, believing that he has won this game.
“If I've got the image of a violent drunk stuck in the city, then I'm surprised you're even talking to me.” She turns to him, but he clasps his hands on his chest and continues.
“If it wasn't for Maria, I would never have approached you in my life, Eight Fingers,” JJ grumbles, but looking at her smile on her face, he remains silent.
“Oh, so there's already a nickname for me among the young people,” Williams grins. They're still walking down the street, and neither of them has greeted her. A lot of people looked back at JJ and didn't say anything. Apparently, her image of a drunkard influences this. Must be.
Approaching the stable, they meet some young guy, Ellie sees him here for the first time, and with her regular patrols, this should be a surprise.
“Rein!” Jay smiles and hugs him. He slaps the guy on the back and grunts, pulling away with a red face. Ellie notices his shaking hands and makes a mental note to ask the boy about it in the future.
“Jay! Did Maria say that you're going on patrol?” Ellie didn't pay attention to the momentary glance at herself.
JJ grunted in response and took the horse by the reins. His friend ignored it and continued talking.
“I hope I'll be patrolling soon too.” Rеin rubbed the rungs of the stall and looked at them thoughtfully. “Maybe they'll even send me with you”. His voice was filled with an incomprehensible sadness, but Ellie didn't care JJ stared at her and couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with this annoying woman. He hasn't spent an hour with her, but she's driving him crazy.
“Will I be waiting for you for a long time?”
Jay looked at her again and felt a dissonance. Such a low and hoarse voice couldn't fit such a... he looked at her again. No, it was perfect for her. This woman was damn tall and toned, despite the fact that he often saw her in a Tipsy Bison lying on the bar and very often Maria or Cat began to take her away from there.
Even today and right now, he could smell the fumes from her, and her actions were slow and a little scattered.
“Jay?” Rein asked him, hugging him and running his palm over his back. “Be careful, yesterday I heard Maria looking for her and swearing that alcohol drinking should be banned in this city. I don't think it would be surprising if some infected ate her,” Rein whispered in his ear, and JJ would never admit that his cheeks weren't flushed from the cold. No one in this town loved this woman. It seems she was only allowed to live here because she was too well-built and an excellent patrolman.
“Bye!” He shouted after them as they headed for the gate. Rein was leaning against the paddock, smiling.
Ellie was already walking somewhere ahead, clearly not worried about her fellow traveler.
He realized that she was not eager to talk and agreed to accept the game.
They left the city in complete silence, broken only by the heavy breathing of horses and the creaking of saddles.
***
“Stop!” He heard a scream when he was just about to climb the stairs and go up to the second floor. “This ladder is going to collapse right under you,” she breathed, coming closer and stuffing something into the front pocket of her backpack. He didn't pay any attention to it. “Put on those damn gloves already,” Ellie muttered. He doesn't want to think about how many times she's already told him to wear gloves. But perhaps it's worth saying that these three sentences were the longest connected speech he'd heard from her since they'd left the city gates.
Jay just rolled his eyes and sighed, putting on his gloves and walking closer to her.
“Take this beam,” she said, and pulled on the opposite side of the one he had taken. “I'm sure this house was abandoned before the day of the outbreak,” she muttered to herself, and JJ couldn't contain his curiosity.
“Do you remember how it was before the apocalypse?” He asked incredulously, pulling the beam towards him and throwing it aside as the ladder collapsed in a rotten pile of firewood.
“How old do you think I am, dude?” He watched as she doubled over and clutched her rib cage. “I was born and raised in FEDRA, damn it, I've never seen the old world,” she muttered, glancing back at the bedside table, which was buried under a pile of stairs. “Let me give you a lift, collect everything that's there,” she said and showed with a look that she did not want to continue the conversation. He thought about not fighting with her after he found out that she had grown up in FEDRA
He climbed up and examined the only two rooms where the doors were not barricaded, found only one package of rifle cartridges and some kind of novel.
“Mom must like it,” he muttered to himself, looking at the cover of a man in a white suit kissing a girl in a black fur coat.
“Come down, we still need to get to the stronghold if you don't wanna die in the snow!” he heard a scream from below and thought about how his mother would cry because of this.
“Now!” he shouted back and, stuffing the book into his backpack, strode towards the descent. “Damn it, I gotta find a common language with her, Maria said that she will accompany me for a long time. He sighed and ran his hands over his face, rolling his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Damn Ellie,” he muttered, deliberately distorting the name of the woman waiting for him downstairs.
***
Their journey to the stronghold continued in silence again, except for being interrupted by Ellie's cursing at the deteriorating weather.
The sun was already very close to the horizon when they stopped in front of the entrance to the house and led the horses into the garage.
JJ ran into the room after Ellie, noticeably lagging behind. He grimaced, noticing the runner's corpse lying in the corner of the living room with the broken windows. Fresh, warm blood was flowing from his forehead, and Ellie was putting the gun back in its holster. She chuckled at his reaction and led him on, but he still looked back at the corpse one more time to be sure.
“Don't tell me this is your first infected to be killed in front of you,” Ellie scoffed, unlocking the door to their final destination. “Welcome to the warm abode. Make yourself at home, but don't forget that you are visiting.” She continued, kicking off her backpack.
There were two beds and one wardrobe in the room, which had been looted, its doors were in the far corner, and the shelves had been demolished. Judging by the posters that have peeled off the walls, Jay dares to assume that the room was once a nursery. The fireplace with a small pile of firewood turned out to be very useful, and Ellie was already sitting next to it and trying to light a fire. His gaze darted to her hands, and he realized that her nickname wasn't a stupid joke at all. Ellie didn't look back at him, but she felt his gaze.
“Go ahead, it's decomposed, don't waste your time,” she grumbled, removing the lighter from the fireplace and standing up, brushing invisible dirt from her pants.
She went to the bed, next to which she left her backpack and, taking off her jacket and boots, lay down. JJ was in no hurry to follow her example, he looked at the logs burning in the fireplace and looked back at Ellie. Maybe if he asked her softly, she would answer.
“Hey,” he said faintly, and even initially thought that Ellie hadn't heard. As soon as his mouth opened, the woman turned around and raised an eyebrow in mock surprise.
“What do you want, kiddo?” she was still looking at him and it made him uncomfortable.
“I wanted to ask,” he ignored the word “kiddo” and continued to speak while Ellie looked directly into his eyes. “Why did you agree to come with me?”
He rubbed his neck uncertainly and got into bed, pulling the covers up to his chin. Ellie lay with her legs outstretched and her bent right arm tucked under her cheek, looking at him.
“I dunno. Maybe I'll regret this decision soon, because your mom will twist my head off,” she grinned, but there was a hint of sadness in her voice.
“Also,” he stammered when she looked at him again, “why do you get so drunk all the time? Maria thinks you're a great member of the commune, but your alcoholism spoils public opinion. You get so hot-tempered and angry when you drink,” he mutters, afraid to look up at Ellie, but she only gives him a quiet grin.
“It would be so easy in this life, baby,” she chuckles and turns away.
He remembers the times he saw her crying while drunk and talking to Cat, who was trying to get her out of there.
Jay tosses and turns half the night, hearing only the faint crackling of logs and Ellie's quiet snoring.
***
When he opens his eyes, he initially gets scared, forgetting where he is. The unfamiliar ceiling scared him more than the zombies.
His next glance darted to Ellie's bed, where she was sitting packing her backpack.
“Good morning?” his wish was more like a question.
He still didn't know if Ellie had said anything in response, but all he heard was “pack up” and the door slamming.
It didn't take long for him to pack, so he put on his shoes, threw on his outerwear, and grabbed his backpack.
As he understood it, Ellie was not in the mood.
He realized that he was going to have a very strange six months.
The next two months didn't go by surprisingly. It's not unusual for JJ to help his mother around the house, go on longer-range patrols, and train with Ellie.
Their dialogues sometimes reached the point of absurdity.
Ellie was making some really stupid jokes, and he was copying them and making them worse.
He still didn't understand where this image of the angry and cold, eternally distant Jackson resident had gone, but he clearly didn't regret it. Ellie was always joking, and he was learning how to shoot a bow and rifle with a sniper scope.
He really enjoyed spending time with Ellie, but Maria and Ellie herself strictly forbade him to communicate with her inside the city.
Of course, sometimes they crossed paths, he noticed her at Maria's or at the bar.
That part bothered him a lot.
Her regular appearance at the bar affected the fact that every morning, although not much, she smelled of alcohol, and in her backpack there were two flasks — with water and always some kind of alcohol.
He wouldn't mind that she drinks at events and holidays, but her actual alcoholism suggested that she still manages to combine work with complete oblivion due to alcohol.
Sometimes she rubbed her temples and vomited somewhere to the side, until she thought he couldn't see, but her face was wrinkled every morning, and her eyes were red and swollen. Sometimes, in the evenings, sitting in front of the fireplace, she drank and told him more than she was supposed to.
“Oh,” he sighed as Ellie took a crumpled piece of paper out of her backpack.
“You don't even know what it is, don't be surprised, kid.” She smiled and ran her fingers over some writing on a piece of paper. He didn't have time to read it, as Ellie unfolded the crumpled piece of paper with the empty white side facing up. “Or you should be surprised. Yes, it's probably worth it, your mom probably never told you that, much less showed it to you.” She's babbling as she bends the already bent edges of the paper with her fingers. Her habit of speaking quickly did not go well with her perpetually slurred speech, which became so solely due to alcohol, right now she was also stuttering, and he barely understood half of the words she said.
“Yeah, yeah, I guess,” she repeated under her breath. He had noticed this habit in her not so long ago. Ellie was constantly saying something under her breath, sometimes it annoyed him at first, he was so angry at her because she didn't behave in any way according to his criteria for evaluating adults.
It broke his usual picture of the world. At times when his mother would have covered his eyes and asked him to leave, Ellie would grin and stand aside. On the third of their joint patrols, when they broke into the store, two Clickers were peeking out from behind the counter. Their sounds still made JJ freeze every time.
He's never been particularly lucky, which is why he just happened to step on the fucking glass and attract the attention of both creatures. They screamed so nastily that JJ immediately flew out of the room. The Clickers didn't care, so they ran after him. While they were trying to catch up with him in the open, he had the opportunity to prepare. When spring came, he no longer had the opportunity to carry weapons in the huge deep pockets of jackets or trousers, but in light spring clothes he had the opportunity to easily run and outrun the infected.
He already had a pistol and a bottle in his hands as he sat behind the car while the Clickers walked around, diligently looking for a source of fresh meat.
When he threw a bottle at one of the infected, the monster leaned back in surprise and dismay, but JJ did not sympathize with him. Two bullets hit the Clicker in the forehead and he fell on top of his comrade. While the infected was trying to get out from under his relative, JJ came closer and kicked the fungus that had grown on the man's head. The Clicker let out the last scream of his miserable life as a steel-toed boot smashed into his disfigured face once more. Blood splattered onto JJ's face, and he wiped it away in one swift motion.
When he recovered from the shock a few seconds later, the question popped into his head, where is Ellie?
He looked back and saw her leaning against the wall of the building. She was standing right behind him. If she had been against her, he would never have gotten the better of her. Why the hell was she so silent? Now he understood why many of the scary beefy men in the bar were afraid to fight with her. Only fucking idiot Tommy attacked her without fear of losing his own brains.
The worst case was when he and Rein came to a Tipsy Bison two years ago and found a crowd stumbling. In the middle of it, Tommy was sitting on top of Ellie, swinging repeatedly and hitting Ellie in the face. He was shouting something in his Drunken delirium and no one was surprised, but the amazing level of brutality made him feel terrified.
Instead of the man's right ear, which was already deaf, there was a bloody mess, apparently it had been torn off unnecessarily. His left cheek was a solid piece of meat without skin, from where blood was streaming down. A piece of hair was missing from the back of the man's head, so the gray strands below acquired a pinkish tinge.
Ellie herself was lying under him, apparently already unconscious.
“And she's his niece. What kind of uncle and niece are beating each other to a pulp?” he heard it in the crowd and saw the nods of agreement. No one loved this woman. Tommy, a drunk, as he knew, was not kicked out of Jackson just because he was one of the founders and Maria's ex-husband. Apparently, this woman was not kicked out for the same reason. A damn family connection to one of the council members allowed such assholes to keep a warm place in this city.
Ellie was at least an excellent killer and a patrolman. But Tommy's a jerk…
“Oh, uh...” he heard and returned to reality. Ellie unfolded the piece of paper in front of him and it turned out to be a photograph.
“Oh, yeah. Then her reaction is probably logical.”
“I haven't looked at this picture for a long time.” She muttered, rubbing the back of her head and running her other thumb over the surface of the paper. “It seemed better to me before,” she muttered again, and JJ laughed heartily.
The photo was of Ellie, his mom, and his dad. Apparently his mom was holding the camera, which is why she was in the foreground, smiling, while Ellie was smiling a little ridiculously in the background. And God, his father was there too. He was smiling and was about the same age as JJ himself now. They were so damn young here. They were smiling. Wait, what the hell is Ellie doing here?
“You know,” she grumbled softly, clutching the paper a little tighter in her hands. “Your mom and dad and I used to be best friends.”
“Oh, that explains it all.”
Her voice is quiet and uncertain as she purses her lips and closes her eyes.
“Maybe your mom will tell you more someday.”
That's how he found out that his father was a wonderful man and how much he would love him. His mom said the same thing.
In response, he told her about the gossip in the city and about his crush, which he couldn't talk to his mother about.
He's still damn ashamed that it's with Ellie that he's discussing his plans to invite Rein to the dance.
“Kid,” is what she calls him, and he's gotten too used to it since they've been forced to work together. “What's going on with Rein? What is it?" she asked, filling out a magazine and inspecting the shelves for ammunition.
Then he was forced to admit that he didn't like girls. He was a little embarrassed telling Ellie about it, but she just replied:
“Do you really think I'm gonna say it's wrong?” She frowned at him. Goosebumps ran down his spine. No matter how many times she looked at him like that, he was ready to shit his pants every time. “Me? Literally a walking stereotype of a lesbian? I certainly didn't expect this from you,” she turned away from him, sitting in an armchair and rocking from side to side. Her feet were on the table, where the mug with the big red letters “BOSS" still stood. The folders and documents had long since been burned, and he was sitting behind her on a small leather sofa and rubbing holes in the furniture covering.
“No, I... no, it's just...” he blushed and rubbed his neck when she turned back to him. “I didn't think that you...I didn't even think...”
Then Ellie showed him a rainbow badge on her backpack and promised to give him the same one.
“You need to act,” Ellie says a month later.
She had been watching Jay and Rein's relationship for a month and hadn't noticed any progress. It's already summer, and nothing has changed.
“How can someone who gets drunk and leads an antisocial lifestyle say anything about a relationship?” He grins.
And no, Ellie doesn't get offended or swear back. She's grinning too. Three are used to this. She's always teasing him about little things. He's hers.
It wasn't that her alcoholism and antisociality were trivial, but JJ had hinted at her illness every time. She hated it when it was called that. But very soon he was able to take her to a psychiatrist, just a miracle. The hermit Ellie, whom everyone feared and hated, was in a psychiatric appointment. This old man in the chair opposite was weird. Ellie really didn't like it when her problem was called a problem. It's especially unpleasant to hear that from a fucking doctor. That's why JJ bothers her with it every time. He just doesn't want her to be beaten to death later.
“Cause I was a teenager once, and I also fell in love with my friends.” She says, kicking her heels against Scarlett's sides. He still did not understand why the mare was named that way, and Ellie herself apparently did not know, without giving him answers to questions.
“You're a fucking lesbian and you've been falling in love with girls. How can you give me relationship advice with my friend? What is it?" he asks, and the smile on her face only stretches more.
“I don't see the difference between stupid teenagers who are embarrassed to talk about their feelings.” She says loudly, and JJ grins. It's a hell of a lot of fun.
“So give me great advice, Elder,” he proclaimed, leaning forward on his horse.
“Just invite him to the dance. Dance and there will be the right atmosphere.” Her face was filled with nostalgia, and he realized that she wasn't here. “She rated that kiss a fucking six,” she muttered a little bit angrily, and JJ burst out laughing again.
Ellie was a terrifyingly cool adult.
Once, when they were given a particularly long route, they had to spend the night at the posts.
JJ, like Ellie, was terrified of this.
JJ knows why this is so.
Once, Ellie still wasn't at the gate by the time they had to leave. He had to run to Maria to find out where the man with whom he has been spending days side by side for six months lives. They flew by pretty damn fast. JJ is constantly paired with Ellie anyway. They're quite happy with that.
When he came to a nondescript white house, on the site of which absolutely nothing grew except an uncut lawn. He doesn't think home mattered to Ellie. It did not reflect her essence. She once said that her house was her personal tomb.
Standing in front of the door, he believed her words. She had nothing on the porch but a bottle of beer. In principle, it is not surprising.
Three knocks. There was no sound of scuffling, footsteps, or even voices outside the door. Three more knocks and exactly the same reaction.
He didn't repeat it again.
The door handle gave way easily when he was already preparing to search for a spare key all over the veranda.
He was greeted by a musty smell and the stench of alcohol.
Not that he expected anything else, but he thought her house wouldn't be that clean. There was nothing in the hallway except a clothes rack. There was only a black hoodie hanging on the hanger.
“Ellie? He called softly, but there was no response. Maybe she's not at home at all?
His thoughts drifted away when he had to pass through the living room on his way to Ellie's room. There were crumpled sheets on the spread-out sofa, and napkins, foil, and endless bottles of glasses were scattered next to it.
“Fuck,” he muttered as he headed for the bathroom.
That's where he found Ellie.
Or rather, her body.
She was lying half on the floor, half in the toilet. Her head was down, and it seemed surprising that she hadn't suffocated in her own vomit and sewer water.
The half-red and yellow water in the drain seemed obscure and offensive to him.
When he pulled Ellie out of the toilet, where she could have died, she just moaned and passed out again.
After draining the toilet, he grabbed Ellie under the arms and dragged her into the shower.
She didn't even move, and it hurt him.
When icy water poured on her face, she jumped up as if scalded and would have slapped JJ in the face if he hadn't intercepted her fist in time.
“What the hell are you doing, asshole...” Ellie started cursing, and it wasn't anything new, but she was speaking in a tone he'd never heard her use. All her addresses to him were gentle and gentle, even on the first day she treated him more carefully.
“Oh, JJ,” she muttered and lowered her hands, but when she looked at him again, she was alert. “Where am I?” she asked with fear, he did not understand where this emotion came from.
“This is your home, Jackson,” he replied.
She fell on her ass when he turned off the water. She ran her hands over her face and moaned.
“Oh God, forgive me. I missed my patrol, didn't I?” she didn't wait for an answer. “What nonsense...” she muttered, running her palm through her wet, icy hair.
They were sitting by the fireplace again. Once again, Ellie was holding a drink in her hands.
It was already getting colder in September. They were angry.
“I had a dear person.” Her gaze was blank as she stared into the fire. “He was almost like a father to me.” Her voice sounded desperate. “One day he did something for which I could not forgive him. And when I was ready, he was beaten to death with a golf club in front of my eyes.” Her voice was hoarse like never before. It was already hoarse and low, but now it absorbed all her usual intonation. She took a sip from her glass before continuing. Ellie's been through some damn shit. He's surprised that she's still relatively sane. He saw her leave the room sometimes and heard her screaming into the void. How she sometimes gasped and roared, unable to stop. She was constantly calling out to some people in her dreams, she said she would break Nora's kneecaps. She told Abby to pick someone up and leave. So that Dina could forgive her for loving her. She told Joel that her life could have mattered, and he deprived her of that right. She was screaming at Joel in a rage to get up. “I was so angry,” she mutters, and curls the fingers of her free hand into a fist. “I was obsessed with that thought, with fucking hate, with genuine rage. Her name was Abby, the girl who beat Joel to death. She lived in Seattle and came here only to kill him.” She grimaces and sighs, lowering her free hand to her knee, rubbing it. “I followed her to Seattle. I raved and mumbled her name at night, screamed in my sleep and during the day. She was bothering me. I was slowly losing my mind. I killed people in heaps, and hundreds of them were left lying in the houses and streets where I killed them. When Abby killed Joel, her group was in the room with her. We started looking for her.”
“We?” JJ noticed the pronoun, but remained silent while Ellie was still staring blankly into the fireplace.
“I killed Jordan first. I stabbed him with a piece of glass from the ceiling. We found Leah, but she was already dead. She was interrogated. It didn't work out for us. Later, I found Nora. I hunted her through a giant hospital. I tortured her. I beat her half to death until she told me. Owen and Mel were next. I didn't wanna kill them. I just wanted to know where Abby was. Owen lunged at me, and I shot him. Mel lunged at me too, but I stuck a damn knife in her throat. Then I found out that she was pregnant.”
JJ didn't know how to react to such news. To be horrified by her or to sympathize with her That evening, they went to bed in absolute silence.