One-Shot

-Resolve-

Salt Lake City, Utah

April, 2034

Ellie clicked off her flashlight as she walked towards the glow of the lantern, thumbing through what she had collected from the house down the street. She had been spending most of the fading daylight rifling through the containers of the neighborhood she and Joel had set up camp in for the night, bringing back anything and everything that could be of use. This time, what she had found was not something useful, merely interesting. Bodies long decayed to bones had littered the floor of the two story suburban home, a mixture of infected and people who looked to have been torn apart.

There was one body though, laid against the wall in a way that suggested its owner had crawled there before succumbing to the wounds. A note had been laid beside it, with messy writing scribbled on it in what looked to be blood. 'I'm sorry'? Sorry for what? What did you do that was so bad you had to apologize while you were dying? She had also taken the pendants she had found attached to the corpses, each of them stamped with an emblem and writing upon the back. The first sign that they were indeed heading in the right direction.

When she closed the door to the room she and Joel had set up camp in, the older man looked up from re-wrapping a roll of cloth around his forearm. It was a wound he had suffered earlier today, when they had made a wrong turn into an office building filled with Clickers..

Running forward, Ellie climbed up and over a cabinet that had fallen into the doorway. She landed with a huff, turning and drawing the pistol from its place in her waistband. The Stalker was nearly upon her, croaking in that inhuman sound as it clawed over the cover. She shot once, watching blood blast out of the back of the infected man's skull and paint the wall behind him before the body fell limp. Bending to place her hands on her knees, she began panting and tried to regain control of her breath before she heard a yell originating from a room nearby.

There was a sickening squelch that came after, a sound she had familiarized with Joel using a nearby surface to cave in the skull of an infected. She ran through three rooms before finally finding him, crouched near a body that now lacked a head, and hurriedly wrapping a bandage around his right forearm. "You alright?"

His gruff voice came without him looking over at her, carrying an air of annoyance. "Just a scratch, it's nothin'."

She sighed as the memory replayed, easing down onto the thin cushion that had been laid upon the floor. 'Just a scratch'? Well, scratches can be serious too, Joel. Sorry for fucking caring. "Find anythin' interestin'?"

"Firefly pendants. That means we're close, right?" Ellie held up her find as she spoke, dangling the five necklaces by their chains for him to see.

The man eyed the metal discs for a moment before he gave a slow nod. "Should reach the city tomorrow."

Just like that, the conversation was over as he looked away, leaving her to once again wonder what was going on. It wasn't like him to be this distant. At least, it was different from how he had acted since Colorado. He had been more talkative and warm than ever before, even caring, especially in the weeks it had taken her to heal. Now he had slammed the door on that, leaving her only guesses at what the cause could be. Maybe he got tired of talking to a girl who barely spoke? Can't really blame him for me being a bitch, can I? Letting her gaze drop away from the man who had been with her every step since Boston, her eyes fell upon the pendants.

Daniel
Hall
000072

It was always a strange feeling that came when reading the backs of the emblems, seeing the name of someone who had died and she had never known. She could have called the feeling sympathy, but that wasn't right. It was more akin to disappointment than anything. Each pendant meant another Firefly fallen, another of the people she was trying to get to who had died.

Jacob
Nash
000382

Karen
Haws
000130

Ryan
Eastland
000265

Flipping the fourth disc onto the pile by her outstretched leg, Ellie ran a thumb over the last one in her hand, clearing the grime away from the stamped writing. Squinting, she turned the pendant toward the fire to cast light across its face. This one was different from the others, featuring another line in addition to the name and the numbers.

Dakota
Montgomery
Freedom
000003

Huh. Turning it over in her hand, she couldn't see any other differences besides that added line. She knew that this was the pendant she had taken from the corpse with the note, and that brought yet another layer of frustration to the mystery. Well, Dakota, what were you sorry for?

"I made it. I fucking made it!" Ellie's landing caused the bus doors to cave somewhat, allowing Joel to get a grip on one of them and begin pulling it downward. They had made it to Salt Lake, but had been forced to enter a traffic tunnel to get even close to the hospital. Now, he was trapped in a flooded bus, and the teenage girl was on top of it, despite its instability.

"Ellie!"

"Open you piece of shit!" The girl was stomping her foot down as he pulled, attempting to force it open. Their efforts succeeded after a few moments, and the door came crashing inward, slamming into his forehead. Dazed from the impact, Joel slipped beneath the surface of the water, kicking frantically against the window beneath him to push himself back up. Before he could reach for the door, the bus shifted and began tilting toward the water. Ellie's face changed from a form of determination to immediate terror as he saw her scramble to stay atop the doors.

"Ellie! Ellie gimme your hand!" The glass divided them once again as he reached out, attempting to catch her. "Gimme your hand before-" The bus drifted free of its bed of cars and slammed into the tunnel floor, throwing the girl free from the door and leaving him completely submerged. Shaking off the pain that was gripping his limbs, Joel pushed the broken door open again and slid free.

The moment he was clear of the vehicle, the current took control and sent him quickly downstream. He narrowly avoided a section of collapsed concrete, tumbling through the water and struggling to right himself. The fallen stones helped to calm the current as he traveled past them, spotting Ellie floating nearly twenty feet away, her body limp as it bobbed in the only exit he could spot in their flooded surroundings.

Kicking off from the destruction he was clinging to, Joel swam as quickly as he could towards the unconscious girl, wrapping an arm about her waist when he reached her. His lungs were beginning to cry out in protest as air slipped away with every passing second, and the dull ache of his arm was not allowing him peace. Pulling both himself and the small girl towards the surface, his vision began to blacken.

Breaking the surface and sucking in a desperate breath, he began dragging Ellie along the asphalt to get her clear of the water. Panting, he closed his eyes and coughed to clear his lungs of the liquid that had seeped in during his struggle. Sliding his lids open slowly, he stared at the girl he had just saved, watching for any sign of life. None came, as her chest remained unmoving, and he bent to see if he felt any air being breathed from her nose. "C'mon."

Joel placed his hands on her chest, one atop the other, and began pressing down with a desperate rythym. After two of the compressions, he bent again to her mouth, feeling hopelessness rising up just as it had nearly two decades ago. "C'mon.." As he moved back to begin pressing upon her chest again, a new voice reached him.

"Hands in the air!" Glancing up at the newcomer, he absorbed as many details as he could in the few seconds he allowed for the distraction. A rifle was trained on him, and the man holding it was dressed in light green clothing, a Firefly armband present on his left bicep.

"She's not breathin'."

"Hands in the fucking air!"

He couldn't understand why they weren't more concerned with Ellie, and the way that she was dying right in front of their eyes. He did not comply, focusing on continuing with the compressions, shaking his head as they showed no effect. "Come on, Ellie." As obsessed as he was, Joel did not see the rifle butt heading for his head.

Consciousness returned slowly. Joel became aware that he was laying on a bed, and that the air had a taste of rubbing alcohol to it. Memories raced through his thoughts from the tunnel. Ellie not breathing, the man with the rifle who knocked him out, it all came back in a rush and forced him to jerk up and look around, his eyes settling on the woman sitting near his bed. "Welcome to the Fireflies." Marlene gestured toward her own forehead. "Sorry about the.. They didn't know who you were."

"And Ellie?"

"She's alright, they brought her back." Joel let out a sigh and laid back, closing his eyes for a moment. "How long ago did it happen?"

It was easy enough to figure out that Marlene was no longer talking about the teenager, having felt the lack of any bandage covering the wound on his right forearm. "Day or so.."

"Won't be long, then." There was a tone of resignation to the woman's voice. No time to find a cure, no time to save him. But, that wasn't why he had pushed ahead without telling Ellie. No, it was about getting her here, making sure she was safe. It was all that mattered. It was all they had fought for in the last year. "Maybe we can-"

"Tommy is in Jackson, up in Wyoming.. Make sure Ellie gets there." He slid his legs off the side of the bed, sitting up with a groan. There was an unasked question that hung over the room, and even the Firefly who had hit him, a man who was standing near the door, looked away in the face of the awkward silence. "Leave a pistol, I got it."

"Ellie's going to.." Marlene stood up from the chair she was sitting in, shaking her head. "I'll make sure she gets there."

"Can I.." It may have been his imagination, but he felt an itching start at the back of his neck. "Say goodbye?"

"Sorry, Joel. She's still unconscious." Without any further communication, she pulled the gun that was holstered at her thigh free and laid it on the bed next to him, giving a nod before turning to leave. The other Firefly followed her out, saying something quietly enough he could not catch it. It didn't matter, as Joel stared down at the pistol sitting atop dirty sheets.

Marlene closed the door behind her, letting out a slow breath that drew the gaze of the two other Fireflies standing next to her. "You didn't tell him." Ethan's voice made the statement seem like a question, with a surprised tone.

"He came all this way.." She shook her head after a few moments of thinking, dispelling the idea of going back in and coming clean to the only man who would understand what she was going through. "He doesn't need to know he can't save her."

Author's Note: This is an attempt to keep myself from burning out while writing Chronicles. I've been wanting to write something set in Last of Us for a few weeks, so I asked the subreddit for prompts and got a few. Thank you to everyone who replied to that thread, but special thanks to MeshesAreConfusing for coming up with this prompt. It was..interesting to write, to say the least. Bit depressing, but I like that. I should note that this is set as an alternate timeline to the game, and obviously is not part of the events of Outlasting A World(Even though I bridged the two a bit).

Prompt: "Joel gets bit right before they arrive in Salt Lake. Instead of giving up, he decides to press on, use those last 2 days to help her get there. Maybe he could tell Marlene to bring Ellie back to Jackson after they're done?"