Still Here

"Okay."

Joel turned back around. He closed his eyes. Okay. The word hung in the air and didn't seem like it would ever fall back to earth. He started walking towards Tommy's settlement. Every so often he would glance back to check on Ellie. Still there. But for how long?

She hadn't said a word. No humming, no whistling, no jokes. Not even a question about "the old days." Silence was usually something he valued in this world of clickers and gunshots, but it was eating away at him now. Joel stopped.

"What?" Ellie asked.

"It's uh...my stomach. It's aching bad. Guess it still hasn't fully healed," he said, sheepishly.

"Here, let me take a look." Ellie walked over to where he was kneeling. She still cares. After that line of obvious bullshit. God bless this girl.

Ellie rolled up his shirt to take a look at where that pipe burst through all those months ago. "Seems okay, no infection. Doesn't seem to be as bad as it was in...Winter." Ellie barely ever spoke about that past winter, and just this slight mention of it made her shiver.

Joel regretted the conversation going there. "Maybe it's just my age then. Old as shit, right," he offers, hoping to take her mind off that animal David. Nothing. Joel took a few sips of warm water from his travel pack and rubbed his eyes. Okay.

"Listen, Ellie." Biting her lip, she sits down next to Joel.

"Yeah?"

"You know that I would never do anything to hurt you."

"Uh-huh."

"And I know that I'm not technically your father, but goddammit. I feel like you're my daughter, regardless of blood. Being with you this past year has been the only light in my life since Sarah passed."

Ellie sighed deeply. "I feel the same way too Joel. But-"

"Let me just finish my bit here," Joel interrupted. "Then you can tell me what you think; what you really think."

Ellie nods at this last statement cautiously. Please don't say it.

"In the sewers outside the hospital, when you nearly drowned. The Firefly guards, they wouldn't let me resuscitate you or even help me to. They knocked me out cold and took both of us in. Ellie, I tell you, at that exact moment before I blacked out, it felt like 20 years ago with Sarah. Helpless. Hopeless. I wanted to die instead of losing you like I lost her."

Joel stands up at this point and begins pacing. "I wake up inside of the hospital and Marlene and her soldiers are there, and it's like they don't care about you or what you've been through. What I've been through. I know Marlene is a family friend of yours, but nothing I heard from her at that point made any damn sense. I'm not the smartest guy in the world, hell, I didn't go to college. But I do know that sacrificing your life for something not at all guaranteed to work; hell, knowing this world, an actual vaccine wouldn't stand a chance at being properly used anyway. We've seen the shit that's out there. Some of 'em want to bite you, some of 'em want to murder you. Some..." He stiffened up as that sentence lingered. "Look, this world lost its chance for salvation a long time ago. Not even a miracle cure can stop all that. It's over."

Ellie pensively looked at the ugliness on her arm, sweeping her fingers against that awful touch.

"I did the best I could. It's all I've ever done," Joel continued. "And it's all I'll ever do. Now if you can't accept that, and you want me to go screw off, well then, I don't know what to tell you. I can live with you hating me. But I can't live with you dead."

"Fucking hell," Ellie whispered. "What do you want me to say to that? What, you want me to thank you?"

"I want you to let me continue being a part of your life. I'm not looking for forgiveness or gratitude. Just let me stay with you. You're all I have in this world," explained Joel.

"Son of a bitch. Oh gee, thanks for that additional guilt, Joel, like I didn't already have enough of it!" exclaimed Ellie, glaring at this goddamn lying asshole that I totally will never leave. "This whole trek we've taken from Boston to fucking Pittsburgh and Utah by foot...what did we accomplish? Huh? How many times did we almost die or worse? And now it doesn't mean jack shit!" Ellie furiously kicked a rock towards the nearby ravine.

"I'll tell you what it means," replied Joel. "You want to honor those that died? Don't commit suicide. Don't be a martyr. Putting your life into the Fireflies' hands or whatever the hell other horse-shit cult is out there? That's just stupid. You want your life to have meaning? THIS is it," Joel shouts, pointing at Tommy's settlement. "A chance at a real life. Friends. Family. Growing up and living your goddamn life. You may think you owe something to humanity because you're immune. You don't. That's just some poetic line fed to you by Marlene and others. Humanity was always fucked up. It just took the Infection to finally shine the light on it."

Joel walked over to Ellie and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Your death isn't your gift to the world. Your life is." Joel chuckled, "you are the biggest pain in the ass I've ever met." Ellie caught herself as she nearly giggled at this. "But I gotta say, it's that personality that gets me up in the morning. It's that resourcefulness and heart that everyone you meet is in awe of. That is what will save us. Not your brain under a goddamn microscope."

Joel exhaled with the weight of his conscience finally eased. "I've done some shit in my life I'm not proud of. But doing this; I'd do it again. No hesitation." He paused. "Alright, that's it. That's all I had to say."

Ellie looked off towards the dam.She thought about asking him to explain what ultimately happened to Marlene and the others at the hospital. Did he kill all of them? She frowned, then shook her head. Fucking Joel. Ellie turned towards him. "Let's go, old man. And you'd better fucking sing."

Joel laughed – truly laughed – for the first time in years. He picked up his backpack and starting walking. The gates were getting closer. He looked over at his baby girl, her red hair flying around in the fresh spring air. She may never forgive me. But fuck it. She's still here.