Chapter Text
"I don't think I can ever forgive you for that. But I would like to try."
Ellie wakes up screaming.
Maria’s face appears above her, her lips moving rapidly. Maria must be saying something, but Ellie’s brain isn’t keeping up. She hears nothing, and her gaze darts around the room for any clue about the situation. Maria is her only companion, the room stark white and empty. No Joel.
Ellie screams again.
Someone turns on more lights, painful fluorescents. Maria is definitely saying something now, Ellie just isn’t sure what as a rushing sound fills her ears. Other voices join with Maria’s, surrounding her, trying to soothe her, but none of them are Joel.
Ellie cries out once more and scrambles to sit up, bedsprings digging into her palms through a thin mattress. A cot, the clinic. But just as she’s connecting the dots, she’s pushed very firmly backwards into her stack of pillows, hands gripping her shoulders. Ellie sobs, and she struggles against the pressure. Why aren’t they listening, why don’t they understand, they have to understand.
“Joel!” someone screams.
Joel, lying broken on the floor of that lodge, red drops of blood trickling down the icy white windows. Joel, trying so hard to tell her something but unable to move his lips. Joel, dying—
“Joel!”
“Enough!” This time, finally, Maria’s voice rings out loud and clear. “Ellie Williams, if you do not calm yourself down right now, I am going to get a syringe and do it for you.”
“No!” Ellie sobs. But she does stop thrashing. She refuses to let them put her back under, they have to listen and understand because if he’s still out there—
“Joel is here. Do you hear me? You’re back in Jackson. Joel is here, and you can see him, honey, you can. But only if you calm down.”
Maria never bestows Ellie with terms of endearment. The fact that she does now sends a nausea churning in Ellie’s gut, because it’s wrong, something is wrong and Maria won’t tell her.
Everything is painful even as everything is a little floaty, too. She could scream again. Or laugh. Or cry. Or die. What if she’s dying? She doesn’t want to die.
“…in shock,” an unfamiliar voice is murmuring.
“…should I go get…?” Dina?
“…only upset her more.” Maria. Yes, that’s Maria. Maria has been saying something.
There’s a gentle pressure on Ellie’s cheek, and she slowly blinks her eyes open again. She doesn’t remember closing them. The pressure is from Maria’s hand, which is tangled gently in her hair and rests against the side of her face. It anchors Ellie. The room settles into focus, only a little hazy.
Ellie squints against the brightness, taking in the somewhat familiar surroundings of the clinic. She’s been here before when she sprained her ankle, when she had the flu and needed IV fluids, and when her arm—well. Still. She has never wanted to be here less than she does right now.
With the sudden clarity also comes the pain. Her brain feels fit to burst, like it has its own heart thumping against her skull. Her jaw aches, and her entire torso is so sore she wishes she didn’t have to breathe.
A doctor Ellie recognizes as Dr. Robin stands patiently beside the bed, hands cradling a clipboard. Ellie isn’t sure how long the woman has been standing there—maybe the whole time she’s been awake. Ellie likes Dr. Robin. Dr. Robin was the one to treat Ellie after she fell from Shimmer, and also after she nicked her finger with the kitchen knife, and after she took an entire bottle of bleach and stained the bath mat with the rivulets that poured off the side of her arm—Robin asked just enough questions about her arm to know when to stop asking questions. Maybe even enough to have discerned the truth about Ellie’s “condition”. If she knows, she’s never betrayed the information, not even to Ellie herself.
Dr. Robin is frowning down at Ellie. Ellie doesn’t like that look, not at all, so she lets her gaze wander until it finds Dina. Dina looks exceptionally small and scared where she stands at the foot of Ellie’s bed. Ellie doesn’t like that look either, and so her eyes settle on Maria. Maria is there, right there, her expression softer than usual but not enough to scare Ellie.
Dr. Robin takes a step closer. “How are you feeling, Ellie?”
“Where is Joel?”
“Can you tell me what hurts?”
Ellie grits her teeth. “What happened?”
Maria’s hand flattens against Ellie’s cheek, and she sighs before drawing it away and looking to the doctor. “Can you give us just a minute?”
To Robin’s credit, she doesn’t hesitate. The nod she offers Maria is curt but respectful, and then she’s gone, leaving the door cracked open behind her.
“Do you…?” whispers Dina, her voice scratchy. Then, to Maria, “Should I…?
“Stay,” mumbles Ellie, closing her eyes. “Where is Joel?” He’s dead. He’s dead because of her, and they don’t want to tell her.
“Joel just got out of surgery,” Maria answers calmly, taking both of Ellie’s hands in hers. Ellie’s eyes snap back open, drawing her hands back. “Tommy is with him. You’ll be able to see him soon.” Ellie starts to sit again, to stand, to go to him, but Maria shakes her head in warning. “First, we need to make sure you’re okay. Next, we need to understand what happened out there, what Tommy and Dina can’t tell us. Then, I’ll take you to Joel.”
What had happened out there? Ellie had been alone. She’d been alone, disarmed, pinned to the ground as that girl hit Joel again and again and again and Tommy—Tommy was sprawled on the other side of the room with blood running down his face and pooling beneath his motionless body.
“Tommy,” Ellie chokes.
“Is going to be just fine,” murmurs Maria. “He’s got a real bad concussion but no swelling—plus a few broken bones, of course. But he’s not worse off than you, Ellie.”
Ellie sniffles, and Maria and Dina exchange a look she can’t quite parse. “What…?”
“Dina and Jesse found you,” Maria begins.
“Your tracks hadn’t been blown over yet,” Dina adds quietly.
Maria nods once, and Ellie, finally feeling awake for the first time since she opened her eyes, doesn’t miss the way her jaw tenses. Maria and Dina are just as upset as she is, she realizes. They’re trying to hide it, and that’s what is terrifying.
“Jesse stayed at the lodge and did what first aid he could,” Maria continues. For Joel goes unsaid. “Dina ran her horse into the ground getting back to Jackson for help, and she was able to tell us—we understood exactly what it would take to get you all home, so we sent a team, and we did.”
Maria says that last part in a rush, and Ellie doesn’t have to wonder why. Dina rode through those gates and told Maria her husband was out there, possibly dying with her niece and her brother-in-law. And Maria had to stand there, keep a clear head, and get the rescue done. Of course she doesn’t want to dwell on that particular moment.
But they’re moving too quickly. “What—the first part. Before I got there?” The question is clumsy, but Maria understands.
“Tommy and Joel helped a girl escape some infected, and she guided them to the lodge for shelter. She had some friends there, and everything seemed fine. They welcomed Tommy and Joel in, introductions were exchanged, and…” Maria hesitates, scanning Ellie head to toe as if she could somehow suffer some new injury while lying here, fucking useless, listening to them talk.
Ellie grits her teeth. “I’m fine.” She needs to hear it—will lose her mind if she doesn’t—and Maria knows that.
Maria sighs. “The girls’ friends took Tommy out. She shot Joel in the leg, point-blank range. ”
Even laying back, Ellie feels dizzy. Her brain immediately struggles to fill in the story’s blanks and make it all make sense. That’s what Maria wants from her right now, and then she can go see Joel. Maria wouldn’t tell her she could see Joel if Joel was dead. How is Joel not dead?
“She had a—a club,” whispers Ellie. Maria and Dina exchange a look, and Ellie rushes on before they can stop her, before they can tell her she needs to rest and they’ll come back to it or whatever bullshit that’s going to keep her from Joel. “She kept hitting him, and hitting him, and—I ran in, but there were others by the door. They tackled me, and hit me and kicked me and I couldn’t—and Joel wouldn’t— but—and one of them told her—‘ end it.’” Ellie is crying, almost sobbing again by the end of it, but Maria just takes her hands up again. She holds them tightly between her own.
“Okay, honey,” says Maria, soft but firm. “Alright. Almost done. After that, she just walked away?”
Ellie bites the inside of her lip, hard, trying to remember anything besides blind panic. The guy told the girl to end it and then…then…
Joel’s lips forming words she couldn’t hear over her own screams, begging, please, get up—
“Abby. That’s her name,” Ellie says suddenly. Bile rises in her throat, and she has to cough to keep it at bay. Abby. “But it was another member of their group who stepped forward and said something to Abby—called her Abby—and Abby looked at me. And then Abby just…threw down the club. She walked away, and I couldn’t chase after her.” Ellie falls silent, not because she can’t bear to go on, but because that’s when her captors had knocked her unconscious. She has nothing else to tell. “And now I’m here,” she adds shakily, for clarity.
Dina’s crying. The sight of it is inexplicably infuriating. “Stop that,” says Ellie roughly. “Stop it, or get out.”
“Ellie,” Maria starts, but Dina’s already standing. She nods quickly, more to herself than to Maria or Ellie, offers a weak smile, then disappears out the door. Maria sighs.
“I didn’t mean it,” Ellie says lamely, even though maybe she did. What’s Dina got to cry about, anyway?
“I know. She knows.”
“You said I could see Joel now.”
“Dr. Robin has to look at you, Ellie.”
“No.”
“Not a full checkup, but now that you’re conscious—”
“No.”
Maria closes her eyes, and Ellie remembers—Tommy’s hurt. Tommy’s hurt, and Maria isn’t with him or with their toddler. She’s stuck here, with Ellie.
Don’t go makin’ things harder for her. The thought sounds so much like Joel that Ellie flinches, causing Maria to lurch forward in concern.
“Okay,” Ellie grumbles.
Dr. Robin is summoned. She asks Ellie a few questions and confirms her diagnoses with relative ease: concussion, broken ribs, deep tissue bruises on her stomach—all things Ellie could have diagnosed herself. Ellie is instructed to let Robin know immediately if any bruising begins to hurt worse, because it could mean an organ is bleeding into her stomach or however that works. Robin adds at the very end, like Ellie might miss it, that Ellie has to use a wheelchair to go visit Joel. Ellie doesn’t bother arguing, not when she’s finally so close to being free.
But then, instead of leaving, Dr. Robin sits on the edge of her bed on the opposite side from Maria. “Ellie. It would be irresponsible of me not to warn you about the state your—the state Joel is in. I can say with confidence that he wouldn’t want you to see it.” Ellie starts to interrupt, but the doctor shakes her head once, holding up a palm. “Joel wouldn’t want you to see it, but I understand you may need to. I just want to tell you what it’s going to be like, and I need to hear you acknowledge that you know you don’t have to go right this second.”
Ellie’s heart begins to beat too quickly again. She knows this because the stupid, ancient machine monitoring her vitals begins to beep slightly louder and more quickly, betraying her. But her answer is inevitable. “Fine. But I am.”
The doctor sighs and exchanges a long look with Maria, who moves to stand by the door, arms crossed. She doesn’t intervene.
Folding her hands in her lap, Robin turns back to Ellie. “He lost a lot of blood, mostly from the wound in his leg. Plenty of donors stepped forward—more than we needed, actually—so blood loss isn’t too much of a concern, but I can’t say for certain he’ll ever walk normally again.”
Joel is going to be so grumpy about it. Ellie isn’t sure why that is her first reaction. It’s not like she’s going to be the one dealing with his moods. They don’t live in the same house. They hardly speak. (They were supposed to have a movie night, though.)
“I also can’t say for certain how many bones are broken, how many contusions we’re looking at...We do know the worst of the damage is his torso—his shoulder, specifically.” Robin pauses. “Well, no—what we’re most worried about is his head.”
That’s what I’ve been saying for years, Ellie thinks reflexively. Joel would have thought it was funny. But it’s not funny, not with Dr. Robin watching her reactions so intently, clasping her hands in her lap and wringing them tightly.
“His skull and brain suffered significant blunt force trauma, Ellie. I suspect only once, which is a miracle in itself.” The doctor takes a breath. “But he isn’t waking up. We think there’s probably some swelling and bleeding in his brain, so while we had him under anesthesia, we followed a procedure that involves essentially drilling tiny holes into the skull to relieve the pressure on the brain. Now, we’re going to keep giving his body what it needs to heal—fluids, quiet, time— and take things day by…Ellie? Ellie, are you with me?”
Ellie wouldn’t have made it to a trash can. But Maria appears at her bedside with one as if by magic. She holds back Ellie’s hair as she heaves into it, and then she holds Ellie as she completely falls apart.
***
Ellie hasn’t said a word since Robin quietly stepped out. What is there to say? She stares at the wall and tries to breathe and clutches the metal trash can in her lap until her fingers turn white.
Maria has one arm wrapped around her shoulders. After a few puke-free minutes, she gently pries the trash can from Ellie with her free hand. “You can go see him now if you want. I’ll take you,” murmurs Maria.
No, Ellie thinks. She nods anyway.
Maria stands slowly, helping Ellie do the same. The assistance is for the best; Ellie only makes it a few steps before she starts to wobble. “How about that wheelchair?” asks Maria, voice still unbearably gentle. Ellie shakes her head, preparing for a fight, but Maria just…agrees. She nods and slings Ellie’s arm around her waist, letting Ellie lean on her as they move forward, one step at a time.
Their progress is slow, but Joel’s room isn’t far down the hallway. Tommy appears in the doorway before Ellie can get a good look inside. Someone must have warned him they were coming.
When he sees Ellie, the expression on his face just crumples. Guilt squirms inside her. It’s Joel he needs to be worried about, not her. “Oh, darlin’,” he says, and then she’s transferred from Maria’s arms to his. He hugs her, so careful to avoid irritating her aching ribs and back, and—well, it’s not a Joel hug, but it’s kinda close, and she returns it just as carefully and as desperately.
When he steps back, still steadying her with a hand on each of her shoulders, she can see how hurt he really is. He’s changed clothes, but even with a mess of bandages obscuring his face she can tell his temple and cheek are a mess of black and blue, and he’s favoring his left arm.
Ellie still can’t really speak, but she must make some sort of noise because Tommy holds her shoulders just a little more firmly. “I’m okay,” he says lowly. “I’m just fine. You’re just fine. Joel’s gonna be just fine.”
Ellie shrugs. Words, just words. But then Tommy leans forward and presses a kiss to her hairline. He says, “I’m so sorry you witnessed it, baby,” and it’s so like Joel that her eyes sting, and she has to blink very quickly. Tommy doesn’t seem to mind though, just adds, “Joel wouldn’t want ya to see him like this. You should go home, get some rest.”
Ellie shrugs and begins to shuffle around Tommy. Surprisingly, he doesn’t try to stop her. Instead, he offers her his good arm to guide her, and when she stumbles at the sight of the man on the bed, he places a steadying hand between her shoulder blades.
It has to be Joel—who else? But she can barely see the man at all. He’s wearing a paper thin hospital gown, and there’s a thin blanket pulled up to his chest, so she doesn’t have to see whatever they did to save his leg. Bandages peek out below the right arm of the hospital gown, and his face…she can barely see it, his head is so obscured by gauze. His eyes are closed, his chest barely moving, and if Ellie didn’t see the ancient monitor displaying Joel’s heart rate….
Pure, burning rage shoots through her so suddenly that she cries.
Tommy grips her uninjured shoulder, but she ducks out, away from him and toward Joel.
“Ellie—“ Maria starts, then cuts herself off.
Maybe Ellie should be afraid of further injuring him, but she thinks nothing of it as she climbs clumsily up into the little space beside him on the hospital cot. She just slots herself in, carefully avoiding even a brush of contact with his injured leg or torso. She curls up on her side on top of the blanket, presses her forehead to his good shoulder, and closes her eyes against the world.
Voices, soft and distant and dreamy, swirl around her. It’s like she’s on the grimy basement floor in what was once a warm home. She’s scared and shivering, just waiting for the heartbeat beneath her palm to stutter and stop—
When Ellie opens her eyes, heart pounding at the memory, everything is different. The room is brighter, with real sunlight streaming in through cracks in the curtains. Someone has placed a pillow under her neck as best they could, and she has her own blanket, too.
But with the daylight comes a clearer glimpse of Joel’s injuries. Nausea rolls in her stomach once more. She sits up as quickly as she can without getting dizzy or jostling him, but before she can cast around for a trash bin, Maria is there, one hand on Ellie’s cheek and the other on her shoulder.
“Shh, Ellie, shh.”
Ellie doesn’t think she’d made any noise at all, but she blinks slowly as the world stops spinning.
“You okay?” asks Maria softly. Ellie shrugs, chancing another glance at Joel. “No change,” Maria confirms.
Now that the initial nausea has worn off, Ellie is certain the world is sharper today than it was yesterday. She remembers those first few moments of consciousness, talking with Dina and Maria and Tommy, but it all has a hazy, soft quality she wishes she could return to and swaddle herself in. Now, everything feels very real. Everything hurts, physically and otherwise.
Ellie sits the rest of the way up, slowly, and Maria draws back to give her space. Ellie forces herself to look at Joel, to really see him, to come to terms with it all: bandages wrapped around his skull and binding his shoulder tightly, bruises like strange shadows up and down his arms.
The world stills, and she turns to Maria. There’s only one way this can play out. “I’m going to kill her. I’m going to kill them all.”
If Maria is shocked, she doesn’t show it. “They’re gone, Ellie.”
Ellie shakes her head once. “They don’t get to do this to him for—for no reason. ”
Maria gazes at her, sad, and it sends a chill up Ellie’s spine. “They only acted after Tommy and Joel introduced themselves,” Maria says slowly.
She’s blaming them? “So—so what? Tommy and Joel—you know they always just did things because they had to survive, nothing to deserve—”
“They shot Joel, Ellie. They’re young. Whatever they wanted revenge for…” It couldn’t have happened that long ago. “They left this behind.” Maria draws a chain from her pocket. No—a dog tag, like the kind once issued by the military. Tommy has some, and Ellie had started to poke fun at their absurd name, but Tommy couldn’t quite muster up a smile. She’d quickly let it drop.
But these aren’t Tommy’s. Abigail Anderson, org. Salt Lake City reads the first line. Beneath that, Washington Liberation Front. Someone has clumsily etched thin, irregular strokes in the form of a wolf.
Ellie reaches for the chain, but Maria draws it back. “I don’t know what happened in Salt Lake, Ellie, but I think—”
Ellie swings her legs over the side of the bed and stands, all in one motion. Blood rushes to her head, but she doesn’t stumble. “Joel saved me.” The words feel so strange on her tongue. Unfamiliar. Not he killed them all, not he lied, not he didn’t give me a choice, not he took away any meaning my life might have had. “He saved me.”
Maria nods slowly. But now that Ellie has started, she finds she can’t stop the words from pouring out. “He saved me, and I threw it back in his face. I told him we were done, I told him I never wanted to speak to him again, I thought I couldn’t forgive him, I thought—but I always did, I—“
Pain shoots through Ellie’s knees, and she realizes she’s fallen. Maria drops quickly to crouch by her on the tile floor, hands extended halfway as if afraid to touch Ellie, but Ellie couldn’t react even if she wanted to. All she can do is sob. What’s wrong with her?
“Ellie, shush. Take a breath, you’re gonna hurt yourself more.” Ellie tries, she does, but now that she’s essentially told someone else the truth —I have a violent heart— all these years of knowing what he did but not knowing for sure then knowing every detail just come bursting out of her in tears and short sharp little breaths that jar her broken ribs so badly that the pain doesn’t hurt because it’s what she deserves.
And even now that Joel is teetering on the brink of being snatched away from her, she’s still so angry. Angry that he killed those people, angry that he lied, angry that he took the choice from her, angry that he didn’t fight for her when she walked away from him for good.
Maria has never held Ellie before. Well, of course she’s given quick hugs hello and goodbye, and she’s swung an arm around Ellie’s shoulders every now and then. But now, she pulls Ellie in close. Maria shushes her and rocks her and cards her fingers through her hair.
“I’m going to kill Abby,” Ellie gasps, because doesn’t Maria understand that’s what that girl deserves? That it’s what Ellie deserves, to have to live with that?
“Nu-uh,” murmurs Maria, separating herself from just long enough to hold Ellie’s face in her hands. “Ellie, he knew—he knows. I know you two never said it much, but he loves you and he knows you love him.”
“But I—“
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you said or what you thought you felt or any of it. He’s your dad, Ellie. He knows.”
***
The doctor officially discharges Ellie after a day, but she doesn’t leave. Jesse and Dina come by, and Ellie doesn’t quite know what to do with that. Her friends got along with Joel, sure. Jesse even kind of idolized him for a while. But when Ellie walked away from Joel, what were they going to do besides fall in line? Any pranks they may have played on their best friend’s dad, any good-natured teasing, was gone, replaced with tense smiles and shifting glances from across the cafeteria.
Now, when Jesse touches Ellie’s elbow, concern creasing his brow, she realizes maybe they’re here for her, too, not just Joel.
Ellie forces herself not to react to his touch, not to flinch or to melt. She just brushes past him and Dina entirely as she makes her way to the back steps. They can join her or not, but what she can’t bear is the thought of them in Joel’s room. She doesn't even understand why.
Jesse takes a bench, while Dina and Ellie sit on the stairs, and the fresh air does help a little. Dina and Jesse talk at Ellie for a while. Dina fills her in on the latest drama between the stablehands, and Jesse sticks to recounting the patrols that have gone out the past couple days. (There is no sign of the WLF anywhere nearby, and judging by the tracks left behind, they were headed back towards Washington—probably Seattle. Ellie files that information away, folds it and tucks it into the corner of her mind.)
“How are you?” Dina asks after a few beats of quiet pass. Isn’t Ellie supposed to be the one who hates the silence?
Ellie exhales before she answers, her breath clouding in the cold air. She can’t be mad at Dina just for asking. “I’m fine.” She stares at a point just over Dina’s shoulder as she says it, but she still catches the look her two friends exchange.
Dina twists her hands in her lap as if afraid. They’re treating Ellie like some sort of feral animal, and it rekindles the smallest flame of anger in her.
“I’m really sorry, Ellie,” murmurs Dina, a condolence.
Ellie’s eyes snap to hers. “What for?” she asks before her brain can catch up. She shouldn’t have asked it. She knows the answer, and she knows she isn’t ready for people to start mourning him before he’s gone.
Dina crosses her arms. “That we can’t do anything to help you.”
Jesse and Dina watch her closely for a reaction she doesn’t dare give. It’s not as morbid a sentiment as she’d expected, but still, what is there for her to say? All of this is Ellie’s fault, no one else’s, but she doesn’t dare voice that. She doesn’t have the energy for a lecture. They wouldn’t understand how the origins of Abby’s crime go back years. How could they?
“He—he’s gonna be okay, Ellie,” Dina tries.
“You haven’t seen him.”
“She has, actually.” Jesse sits up. “She came back for us with the patrol. And did you know he was conscious when we got to the gate?”
Ellie bristles. No, she hadn’t. Why hadn’t anyone told her? Still, she can’t help the desperation in her voice when she asks, “Did he say anything?”
Jesse shakes his head. “He was out again pretty quickly. But he recognized Robin, and me, I think. You could see it in his eyes.”
Ellie tears her own gaze away, scared of what Jesse might find there. “Well, he won’t wake up now, so…” A particularly sharp breeze cuts through the courtyard, and almost as if it’s happening right in front of her, she sees Abby swinging her club, again and again and again. She sees Joel’s limp, broken body. And Ellie, she—she can’t move she can’t speak, she can’t—
“Ellie.” Dina’s face swims into view, and the world falls back into place around them. Ellie tries to take a deep, shuddering breath, and she’s embarrassed when it’s more of a cough. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. ” She launches herself to her feet far more quickly than her injuries allow. She’s shaking. “I’m going back inside. I’ll see you around.”
The two of them exchange another look, like Ellie isn’t standing right there.
“What?”
And then she sees it: in the hunch of Dina’s shoulders, in the way Jesse gets to his feet ever so slowly, it’s obvious they’ve been hurt by all of this, too. They’ve been scared, and Ellie hasn’t even asked them about it. Not that talking about their feelings would do much good in the end. Ellie of all people knows that.
They’re better off without her, but there’s no rush—they’ll figure it out. They’ll pick up on the pattern. Ellie had let Joel get too close, after all, and now he’s suffering for it. “You shouldn’t have come,” she snaps, an answer to their lack of one. Furious—because, what do they want from her?—she yanks open the back door to the clinic.
It’s only when she’s back in her chair at Joel’s side, sketchpad in her lap, that she allows herself to acknowledge her disappointment that they didn’t come sit in here with her, after all. Maybe a part of her had just wanted them to fight for her. Maybe she had wanted proof there were some people she couldn’t scare off.
***
Most days, Ellie sits by Joel’s bedside so long that she has to get up and walk around just because her extremities go numb. Tommy usually sits with her all day, but Maria always comes for at least a few hours in the evenings so Tommy can go home and eat and clean up and see Leo. Ellie refuses to go with him, no matter how often Maria tells her Leo misses her. (No matter that she misses Leo, too, his high fives and his laughter and his devious, toddler sense of humor.)
The fact is, Ellie’s got everything she needs here, even her own little cot beside Joel’s bed. She spends most of her time sitting in the chair beside him, sketching meaningless doodles or just staring out the frosted window at all the people passing by. None of their lives were irrevocably changed in the past week. Their worlds haven’t stopped turning.
Sometimes, she talks to Joel, simple things like the weather or which doctors and nurses and apprentices are on rotation that day. When Ellie had asked a nurse if Joel could hear her, the nurse had shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not,” she answered. “But it can’t hurt.” So Ellie talks to him more seriously sometimes, too, in those rare stretches of time when it’s just the two of them. Mostly, she whispers apologies. Once, when Ellie wakes with a muffled scream in the middle of the night, all there is to do is hope he can hear the whispered truth it’s only now becoming possible to admit: “I think I still love you.”
***
Jesse comes by almost every day with Dina, and they sit outside in the courtyard. They don’t talk much, but Ellie’s glad of it. The company is nice, but she doesn’t think she could hold a real conversation with them (with anyone, really) without screaming.
The clinic staff don’t really want to answer any of Ellie’s questions. It’s a waiting game, they say. Sometimes, if they’re feeling generous, No news is good news. They change Joel’s IVs and check for infections and even, after a few days, manually work the uninjured muscles in his arms and legs so they don’t “atrophy.” Ellie doesn’t really like to watch them bend and pull at Joel’s limbs like he’s a doll, so she starts to take little breaks during those sessions, sitting out on the back steps of the clinic, breathing in the sharp air and ruminating on her fury.
Somewhere, Abby is breathing the same fresh, crisp air and calling it victory. It’s me you should have targeted, Ellie thinks at her sometimes. Other times, it’s I hope you never sleep again from the guilt and the pain and the fear. Mostly, it’s simply I’m going to kill you.
The third time she leaves Joel to seethe by herself, she returns to his room to find him seizing.
***
The doctor makes it stop. Ellie doesn’t really understand how, because no one will tell her anything. They just say the seizure could mean his brain is getting worse, it could mean it’s waking up, or it could mean nothing at all.
Ellie does know she can’t leave his side again. But no matter how closely she keeps an eye on him and his care, she can’t stop the images projected on the back of her eyelids: Joel, surrounded by clinic staff, unconscious and thrashing as machines scream in the background. Joel, dripping crimson against the pale gray of that lodge, his lips forming words she never gets to hear. Joel, glassy eyes and gasping as she sews him back together with fingers too numb to be gentle—
Ellie’s eyes flutter open and she lets out a choked cry. The clock on the bedside table reads nearly three in the morning, so she must have drifted off at some point. But it wasn't a nightmare that woke her, not this time. It was the low voices that drift in from the hallway.
Ellie sits slowly, careful not to jostle Joel. The giant chair Tommy tends to spend the night in is empty, the blanket half on the floor, but she can see his silhouette in the hall if she leans forward far enough, along with the shadow of a doctor—Robin, on call exceptionally later than usual.
“...know I can’t begin to guess, Tommy. Neurology is complicated.”
“It’s been a week. You’re telling me you’re optimistic?”
“I didn’t say that. But—”
“It’s just you and me, doc. Tell it to me straight, or—or…”
The doctor sighs, and Ellie can imagine her rubbing a hand over her face. “My staff don’t understand why we’re still trying,” she admits, voice brittle and suddenly small. The room begins to swim, but Ellie grips the rail on the side of the bed. This is the information she’s been begging for all week, and she won’t let herself fade Away for it. “I don’t blame them. Looking at it from a textbook point of view, he shouldn’t even be breathing right now.”
“I get that. I do. But he is breathing, so if you think I’m going to—I’m going to just give up? Ain’t no way. Still…I need you to tell me. Warn me. Doc, if you had to guess….”
There’s a long pause, then. Ellie wants to bolt, scream, do anything it takes to keep the doctor from answering. But Ellie doesn’t, and Robin does.
“I haven’t seen any promising signs.” Robin clears her throat. Ellie slumps backwards, rolling so she can press her face into her pillow. She’s been a fool. “But I haven’t seen any real signs of decline, either. Joel’s a fighter, Tommy. He should be dead, and he’s not, for one. For another, the brain is complex. Even the top scientists from Before couldn’t completely understand it. And he’s got that girl to make it back for. I’ve decided I’m not counting him out.”
Obviously, Robin dodged giving an explicit answer to Tommy’s question. There are a million reasons a doctor might avoid predicting a patient’s fate—from insecurity to plain old bedside manner—but Ellie can read between the lines. She’s been an idiot girl, waiting in this room like Joel’s just gonna wake up and save her from this bad dream again, but it’s clear he should be dead. That he likely will be, soon. And she’s lonely. Loneliness is cold, and if she stops moving through it, she’ll freeze. She doesn’t have an extra jacket to drape around her shoulders. She’ll die.
Ellie has to take matters into her own hands. She has to go. Because Ellie is in Jackson, and Abby is in Seattle, and Abby has to pay.