I've read a ton of Last of Us fics ever since I finished Part 2 and they've all been different flavors of good. I'm hoping with the direction I take this one that it doesn't become just noise and stands out amongst the rest.

Enjoy.

Ellie wrapped an arm around the infected's neck, pressing her revolver against its skull. She pressed the trigger, the concussive blast dousing Dina with blood.

The body fell to the ground, twitching with the last neural impulses. Ellie let go of the breath she held and look over at her once girlfriend.

Dina was pressed against the wall, her body shielding JJ. Without thinking, Ellie reached out with her mangled hand and grabbed a piece of brain from Dina's hair and flicked it off.

"I didn't ask you for help," Dina whispered. She bit her lip, holding JJ snug against her. He hadn't even woken up.

"You've never needed to." Ellie turned away, shoving the revolver in her pocket. She left.

No one thanked her for helping out clean up the infected in Jackson. She'd scared them off when they tried to comfort her after Santa Barbara. She'd sought absolution from Dina and been denied. For all she was concerned, the rest of the world could go fuck itself.

Ellie set Joel's old revolver on the kitchen table. Her table. Tommy had been kind enough to give her back her old house when she came back. He'd tried to patch things up between them, but Ellie never put any effort in. Eventually, he stopped coming by.

With a flick, the chamber opened and empty casings fell out. She plugged six more in and left it on the table, somewhere she'd always have it in range.

Ellie looked down at her arm. Blood was pooling on the floor as it dripped from a bite mark.

"Fuckers," she grunted. Walking to the sink, she turned the water on as hot as she could, letting it run and burn over her wound.

It wasn't the first time she'd been bit. Nor the second or the third. Had she anyone in her life, they'd tell her that she'd become reckless.

Ellie wouldn't deny it. She'd lost Joel to keep her grounded, Tommy and Maria had drifted away, Jesse was gone and Dina had slipped away. There wasn't a tether to keep her from flying away. She hung on by a hand playing chicken with the wind.

Her switchblade flicked out in her good hand and she set to work butchering her skin. When Joel had been alive, he'd gotten her chemicals to burn away her scar. But those things were kept under lock and key. And she had no Joel to make rules go away.

So she carved her arm like a Thanksgiving turkey. Dina would be horrified. Ellie figured she deserved it.

When the work was done, she felt light headed. When it healed, no one would be able to tell it was a bite mark. Just like the two on her leg.

The gauze got incredibly bloody as she tied up her arm in it. For a moment she debated changing the bandages. A stumble into the table took that idea away from her. She needed to sit.

Ellie collapsed in the only armchair she had and fell asleep, too weak to even pry eyes open.

She didn't know what time it was when she woke up. Or how long it had been. It was just dark.

There was a knock on the door. Or rather, the second knock. The first was what woke her.

Ellie pushed herself onto her feet, taking a detour to grab her revolver. She crept to the door, pulling the hammer back. A face peeked through the window.

Dina's.

Ellie opened the door and stared at someone who both was and had been one of the most important people in her life.

"Hey," Dina said. She was biting her lip. It was a nervous tick. "Can I come in?"

Ellie stepped out of the way. Dina stepped in.

She took one look at Ellie's arm and gasped. "Ellie, oh my god, your arm!"

"It's nothing," she shrugged. "It'll heal." The blood still felt wet under the bandage.

Dina was dragging her to the sink before she could protest. Would she even protest? Ellie didn't know.

When the light flicked on, Ellie groaned. All around the sink was blood and her switchblade sitting there, untouched from her mutilation. There was never a reason to clean up. She never had guests.

Dina fixed her with a hard stare. Ellie didn't try to hide her guilt, Dina could read her even if her face spoke a different language.

"Where are your bandages?" Dina asked. Ellie told her and Dina shot away to grab them.

Five minutes later, Dina held a bloody scissors and had finally cut off the blood-soaked gauze. She stared at the chunk Ellie had taken out of her arm, still oozing crimson.

But she said nothing, and Ellie felt clean bandages being applied.

"I'll be back tomorrow morning to change those again."

And then she left.

Ellie fell back into the same armchair. She felt light headed again. Her eyes closed.

Dina had been by every day for the past three days.

She'd change Ellie's bandages, clean things up, and leave. Ellie had no idea what to make of it. She didn't even have Jesse to ask. Or anyone.

On the fourth day, she asked. "Why are you helping me?"

Dina sighed. She didn't answer, instead asking, "Why did you save me from that infected a few days ago?"

Her answer was automatic. "Because I don't want you to get hurt."

The woman nodded like she had expected that response. "I don't hate you, Ellie. I care about you. I care about you a lot, more than you'll ever know. But I don't think I can ever trust you again. You left me. You left JJ. We were happy."

Ellie said nothing.

Dina nodded again, not surprised by the lack of an answer. She left.

Ellie picked at her bandage all night, the pain she felt bringing her back to the water with Abby. Back to the tears she shed as the subject of her vengeance left.

Maybe it was good Dina had left her. Someone as despicable as her didn't deserve that happiness.

She drove the machete into the hunter's head with dispassion. His skull cracked like an egg and Ellie kicked him off the blade.

Another came running at her. In her bad hand, she tightened her finger on the revolver's trigger, missing his chest and kneecapping him instead.

He fell, screaming, rolling, pleading.

Ellie walked up to him and bashed him once, twice, thrice with the machete.

He stopped moving.

She sighed. She'd have to sharpen it again.

And then she moved on, looking for her next prey.

Dina was displeased that Ellie had gone out on patrol without letting her tend to her bandages first.

"Why do you insist on going out alone? You need someone to watch your back."

Ellie laughed in the way only people with nothing to lose could. "I'm keeping the area safe for people like you."

People around Jackson called her a guard dog. Ellie wasn't offended, it was true. She went out on her own, killed, then returned. The town was safer for it.

She broke out of her thoughts as Dina hugged her. She smelled nice.

"Look," Dina struggled to keep her voice level. "Just…be safe."

Ellie didn't know what to do with that.

She'd killed a dozen hunters today on her patrol. It felt good. It felt great.

When she looked in the mirror at her home, she smiled.

Ellie felt good.

It was about two weeks later that Dina deemed Ellie's wound healed enough to do without the bandages.

"Thanks." It was all Ellie could muster to address the woman she loved.

Dina hesitated.

Ellie looked at her, waiting. She was beautiful, the way she bit her lip trying to find the words to say.

"I don't forgive you for what you did, but I don't want you out of my life. You're destroying yourself and it hurts to watch because I care about you."

Ellie opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.

Dina pressed on. "Look, just, come over tomorrow night. Let's see if we can patch things up."

The situation was far too familiar to Ellie. She swallowed, hard, then nodded.

The next time she saw Dina was from a stretcher. Yet again, the amount of time that had passed was beyond her.

There was some big gash in her side. She thought it was from the stalker that had snuck up on her, but it just as easily could have been from falling down the cliff.

She watched the people walk around her stretcher, which judging from their relaxed demeanor, she'd probably suffered the latter.

"Dina?" she croaked.

Hands grabbed hers. They were gentle around her missing fingers. "Yeah, Ellie?"

She didn't deserve this.

She certainly didn't deserve Dina.

"Sorry," she coughed, before falling unconscious again.

"…just want things to be normal."

Ellie stirred to Dina's voice.

Dina glanced at her, meeting her still opening eyes. "You hear all that?"

She blinked. "The last bit."

"I'm pissed at you, for leaving, but for putting yourself in danger like there's no one who cares about you. For hurting yourself because you think you deserve it. You think you're unlovable and irredeemable."

Ellie nodded.

"You're not, Ellie Williams."

"Dina…" Ellie trailed off.

"Am I ever going to forgive you for leaving? I don't know. But I love you. I loved the time we spent in the farm house. I want that, I want that with you." Dina moved closer to her. "But, Ellie, if you come back to me and you decide to leave again, know that you will never have a place in my heart again."

Ellie squeezed Dina's hand. When she returned it, the tears she'd held since the farm house came. Ellie bawled in Dina's arms. She became an ugly mess of pain, utterly irredeemable in her own eyes.

"Dina, I need help," she sobbed, body wracked with tremors.

"You don't need to ask," Dina whispered.

As Ellie's sobs lowered in volume, she could hear Dina humming. It was Take on Me, the song she'd sung her in Seattle.

She didn't deserve it.

"Shh…" Dina whispered. "It's going to be okay. We're both going to be okay."

Ellie believed her, even if she thought it far beyond anything she'd earned for herself. She'd thrown all that away after Seattle.

Dina kept humming.

I'll be coming for your love, okay?

Ellie melted into the embrace and returned it. She'd never let Dina out of her sight. She'd never leave her or JJ. Never again.

"Thank you."

Dina pulled back and dipped down to kiss her forehead.

"Welcome home, Ellie."

Author Notes: Realistically, I think that if Ellie goes looking for Dina after that last scene of the game, it would weaken the game's ending a lot. My heart breaks when I think of it or Ellie trying to play the guitar in the last scene, but that's what makes a powerful ending, one that makes you feel so hard.

Thank fuck for fanfiction to help me cope. I'd change nothing about the game, but I'll read every ounce of these two I can.