Sarah's Last Gift

Joel wakes up in cold sweat, almost falling out of the bed. Another bad dream. Always the same nightmare. Him carrying Sarah away from the infected, the soldier shooting at them, him watching her slowly bleed to death. It never changed. He looks at the watch that Sarah gave him for his birthday. He always wore it, even though it no longer worked.

Joel almost forgot where he was. He was used to the cold hard floor, yet right now he was lying down in a comfy mattress. The walls were still intact, and the windows were not totally broken. It took him a second to realize that he was now at Jackson County, safe and sound inside Tommy's dam.

He rises from the bed, and trudges toward the shower. Today, they were assigned to hunt for food. Even though the dam already had a decent farm and an ok livestock, they still had to hunt to sustain the amount of families living inside. Tommy did say to Joel, though, that in a few months, the farm will be in full swing and hunting won't be necessary. Joel looks out to determine the time. The sky is still littered with many twinkling stars, the houses still dark and sleeping.

After dressing up in his usual clothing, a plaid shirt and jeans, he ambles to Ellie's room. Ever since they came back from Salt Lake City, Tommy was gracious enough to give them a small house with two separate bedrooms. Joel knocks at the door. After a couple seconds of silence, he could hear Ellie's beckoning to come in.

Ellie's room was not that different to Joel's. Same bland walls, same mattress, and, Joel swears, even the same crack in the window. The only difference being the auburn haired girl lying in the bed, half awake, and maybe a bit pissed.

"Rise and shine, kiddo." Joel nudges Ellie. Ellie retracts from his touch, hugging the wall.

"Jesus, Joel, the sun isn't even up..."

"I know, but if we want to get some elk, you need to be early."

"Yea, sure, just gimme a couple of minutes..."

Joel chuckles at Ellie's stubbornness. Figuring that she won't be getting up anytime soon, he decides to start making breakfast for the both of them. He climbs down and checks out the pantry to see what he could work with. He decides to just settle with a simple meal, bread and eggs.

He used to cook breakfast for Sarah too. He rubbed his thumb over the face of the broken watch. Every day, in the past, he'll wake up before the sun rises, and cook breakfast for him and his daughter. He'll fry some bacon, cook some eggs, and toast some bread. He'll pour a glass of milk for her, and make a cup of coffee for himself. Then, they'll talk about school and work related things. He could still remember how she would laugh about some funny incident that happened at the site, or how her face beamed when she talked about the things she did with her friends at the mall. Oh, how he wishes those days were back. If only, if only...

"Morning, Joel." Ellie greets, still half asleep, as she climbed down the stairs. Wearing her usual red shirt with black sleeves and jeans and hair, still wet, tied to a ponytail, she collapses to one of the chairs in the dining room. "So, what's for breakfast?" Joel snaps back to the present, remembering what he was doing. He shakes his head in frustration as he removes the almost burnt eggs from the pan. He has to remember that Sarah has passed away 20 years ago. He glances again at Sarah's last gift, the watch he always wears. He has to move on from the incident. Things happen, and we move on.

"Seen anything yet, Ellie?"

"Nah, nothing."

They have been looking for quite a while, yet they've seen nothing. When they left the dam, the sun was barely up. It now battered them with hot rays of sunshine, seemingly mocking them for their misfortune. Joel and Ellie strayed quite a bit from the dam, going to the part of the woods that's unexplored. Yet still, luck is eluding them.

"Hey, Joel?"

"Mm?"

"What do you call a seagull that flies over a bay?"

Joel groans. Ever since Ellie discovered a new volume of her joke book a while back, she's been barraging Joel with horrible jokes every time she can. "Aw, come on Joel," Ellie protests, "I promise, this one's pretty good."

Joel sighs in defeat. He never could stop Ellie's jokes, no matter how hard he tried. "What?"

Ellie tries to hold back her laughter as she tells the answer, "A bagel."

That brought a grin to Joel. Ellie pumps a fist in the air for her accomplishment. It's very rare to get a positive reaction out from Joel, let alone a smile.

Joel appreciates Ellie's company, even though he never says it. She makes quiet and boring times like this somewhat bearable. Her innocence and child-like view of the world never fails to amuse Joel. She could also handle herself in a fight, helping Joel countless of times.

Sometimes, it crosses Joel's mind that Ellie could be a daughter to him. But it feels like betraying his real daughter, Sarah. He glances at the broken watch. He never could replace Sarah.

"Joel! Joel! Look!" Ellie calls, crouching behind a bush.

Joel sees her, pointing at an elk just a few meters away, grazing at some grass. He crouches down beside Ellie and pulls out the hunting rifle from his pack. He checks the amount of ammo remaining. 5 rounds left. Plenty, considering he only needs one to take it down. Slowly, he aims the sights straight through its eyes. He holds his breath, and silently counts...

3...

2...

BANG!

The elk falls down to the ground. Birds resting on the treetops fly away from the deafening gunshot. Joel approaches to see if he hit the target. The bullet hole piercing through its eyes confirms it. He takes a second to admire his own marksmanship.

"Damn, Joel, that was a good sho-!" Before Ellie could finish her compliment, an infected jumps out from the bush to her left. He hears Ellie scream from pain and sees her fall to the ground, barely holding the runner trying to bite her neck.

"Ellie!" Joel points the rifle to its head and shoots. The runner's head explodes, and Ellie pushes the headless corpse away from her.

Joel runs to her side checking to see if there were any injuries. He doesn't see one, but he's still not totally sure. "Ellie, Ellie, listen to me."

All Ellie could do was mutter a silent, "Fuck."

"Did it hurt you? Any bites? Scratches? Wounds?"

"No, no, I think it's-," Ellie attempts to move her left leg but cries in pain when she did. "Yea, it bruised my leg pretty bad."

Joel looks around trying to see if there were more. The bushes were too high to see around, but he could definitely hear them. "I think the rifle woke them up. We need to get out of this place, fast. Can you walk?"

Ellie tries to stand up but almost falls over from the pain. "Shit, that's a no."

The option left was to carry her. They have to get out of there or it will not end well. He carries Ellie in his arms and runs.

He remembers doing almost the exact same thing 20 years ago. Silently, he curses fate and its cruelty. He ignores the twigs and branches that are hitting him in the face, leaving nasty scratches and wounds. He needs to get Ellie out of there fast, especially with her in this condition. After some time, he sees a game trail and follows it. He takes a glimpse to see if he lost them. Joel's heart sinks as he sees the runners still hot on their tail.

He knows full well that he could outrun them, but Ellie is making that task hard to achieve. At least she is trying to make herself helpful, firing at the runners with her gun and taking down a couple.

Joel eventually meets a fork in the path. He considers whether to take a left or a right. With the sound of runners nearing, he hastily picks the left. As he sprints, trying to avoid the roots of the trees, he could see that they are approaching a small camping ground, with tents still up, and supplies strewn around the floor. He also noticed that it was enclosed inside a pack of trees. A dead end.

He quickly scans for any items he could find useful. Empty cans, bags, and then Joel notices a crow's nest at the center of the camping ground. He places Ellie in it and gives her his rifle.

"Ellie, listen to me, girl." Joel pulls out the remaining ammo from his backpack. "You have three rounds. Make them count."

Ellie just nods and positions the rifle toward the way they came from. Joel kept looking for a weapon. He notices a machete on the other side of the camping grounds.

As he goes and picks it up, he now clearly hears the runners coming from the path. Only 5 of them are left, thanks to Ellie. They notice him and start running toward his direction. Joel prepares for the worst, but with Ellie at the rifle, a good machete in his hand, and a fully loaded 9mm in his pack, he has little to worry about.

BANG! A runner falls down, a hole between its eyes. BANG! Another runner's head explodes from the well placed shot. "Good girl," Joel mutters, and charges at the remaining 3.

The first one gets stabbed at the chest. As he pulls the machete out, he turns around and swipes at the second runner's neck. Its head falls to the ground. The third one surprised Joel. It had attacked him from behind. They got into a struggle, but eventually, he manages to push the runner off. As it tries to charge at Joel again, he swipes down hard with the machete. The weapon stuck to its skull, and it fell to the ground, dead.

"Jesus, Joel," Ellie says, panting, "that was tense."

"Yea," Joel agrees, approaching one of the bodies. "That was too close. Way too close." He crouches down and inspects the body. "It looks like they've just turned. A few weeks, maybe. The campers must've caught them with their guards down." He stands up to approach Ellie. "C'mon, let's get you out of here. We still need to return to that elk."

Joel didn't notice the camp councilor approaching him. Nor did he hear his clicks.

Ellie almost missed it. "Joel, look out!" she warned as she raised her rifle. When Joel turned, it had already tackled him. He fell hard to the ground. He instinctively raised his left arm but realized the mistake too late. The clicker bit his wrist.

He expected to feel pain, the teeth burrowing under its skin. But instead he felt nothing, nothing. He hears a horrible crunching sound, but no pain. He hears Ellie shoot the clicker, and it fell away from his body. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ellie climb down from the crow's nest, limping to him.

"Oh my god...Joel..." Ellie says, both her hands covering her mouth, tears starting to pool in her eyes. "A-are you...?"

"Shh, shh, Ellie...," reassuring Ellie. "I don't think it bit me. It's ok, Ellie, calm down, I'm ok..."

It took quite a bit of coaxing for her to calm down. She reminded him of Sarah. Her first bike accident. A fight between her and her friends. A rejection from her crush. She hated seeing Sarah cry as much as he hated seeing Ellie cry. He sighed in exasperation as he touched the face of his-

His watch! It was not on his wrist! He couldn't have left it at home, he never removes it! "Joel? Joel? What is it?" Ellie starts worrying again. He never saw Joel this agitated before. On all fours, he searches the ground for something. "My watch! My watch! It was on my-"

Realization dawned over Joel. The watch was on his left wrist. His eyes fell on the corpse of the dead clicker. Beside it, lay the watch, with the leather strap chewed in half, and the watch broken, it's gears spilling to the ground.

"No...oh, god please, no..." he crawls toward the watch, trying to fix it, trying to put it together again. But the more he tried to put it together, the more it fell apart. "No...oh my god...oh my god..."

Ellie knows the importance of the watch. It was Sarah's last gift to him. She never saw Joel this mortified. Not when Tess died, not when Sam turned, not when Henry killed himself. She puts her hand on his shoulders. She didn't know what he'll do next. "...Joel?"

Joel stands up abruptly. His face hard as stone, eyes wide, bloodshot, 9mm in his hand. "J-joel, p-please l-listen..."

"It's all your fucking fault..." he murmurs. Ellie nearly missed it. "W-what?"

"IT'S ALL YOUR FUCKING FAULT!" he raises the handgun, and fires at the clicker's corpse.

BANG! BANG! BANG! The bullets ravaged the dead councilor's body, adding bullet holes to it's chest and shattered head. "Stop! Stop!" Ellie screams. BANG! BANG! BANG!

"IT's. ALL. YOUR. FUCKING..." Joel crumples to his knees, sobbing. He points the fire arm to his head.

"Joel, no!" Ellie was too late.

Click.

Click.

Click.

The clip was empty.

Ellie managed to pry the pistol from Joel's hands. As it fell to the ground, she kicks it as hard as she can. She locks Joel in an embrace. She feels him tremble, and then he bursts into tears. Joel, the strong, gruff, man who never as much as shed a tear when Tess, his partner, died; Joel, her protector and savior in her time of need; Joel, her father-figure, who cradled her after the incident last winter; that very same Joel is now crying in Ellie's shoulders. The thought made her fall to pieces as well.

"Joel...Joel..." she mutters, in between her tears and sobs.

Maybe they stood there for minutes. Maybe they stood there for decades. They didn't care. All that mattered right now was each other.

Joel always thought that the watch was Sarah's last gift. Maybe her dying 20 years ago, sparing his life, was her last gift. Maybe the destruction of the watch, stopping the bite, was her last gift.

Joel's emotions slowed down. His breathing calmed. The ringing in his ears went. The tears stopped. He regained focus. Breaking down, shooting the lifeless clicker, Ellie...what happened to him? She was still weeping at his shoulder, not wanting to let go, not knowing what Joel might do next, afraid, scared. He needs to be strong. Be brave. Be a father. "Shh, shh, baby girl...I'm ok now...I'm so sorry...It's ok now, baby..." He never liked seeing Ellie cry. He didn't want to see his baby girl cry.

Maybe a daughter to raise was her last gift.

The Last of Us does not belong to me.

I'm new so no making fun of me ;) but constructive criticism is highly appreciated :)