guitarstrings: (005)
Joel Miller ([personal profile] guitarstrings) wrote in [community profile] villagememes 2020-12-01 06:37 am (UTC)

Ellie's shout hits Joel like a punch square to the gut.

She shouldn't be here. She can't be here.

"Ellie?" He forces himself to look, dragging his eyes up from the snow-scuffed toes of his boots and sure enough — there she is. This isn't a terribly unique situation in and of itself. They'd crossed snow-covered paths on patrol in Jackson plenty of times. The difference being, of course, Joel had never been without-a-doubt certain he was dead before.

Shit.

She can't be here. Not if he's here too.

He can't remember much of what happened after the first blow but he knows someone would have come looking for him and Tommy eventually. Makes sense it would've been Ellie. Now, if she ran into those bastards and they so much as laid a finger on her, he'd —

Well. There ain't much he can do about it now.

He sighs and sags against the tree, realizing for the first time just how bone-deep tired he is. It shows, too, etched deep into each line on his face.

Godammit, she's not supposed to be here.

"You okay, kiddo?" he asks, quiet and weary and dreading the answer. He doesn't even bother trying to catch the nickname before it slips out, though he hasn't used it in a long time. It just seems inconsequential right now.

Post a comment in response:

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting