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Ellie can feel the tremor in her hand without even looking. Her skin feels numb and cold, all thanks to the Seattle rain that has burrowed through her clothes. And though she stares at the door leading to the theater, flashes of Nora’s face play behind her eyes like a film.
She stills her vibrating hand by clenching it into a fist, and she raises it to the door. Her fist hovers over the wood, and her body shakes ever so slightly as she pounds the door a few times. After, she calls out, “It’s me.”
Only a moment later, the door opens, and Ellie blinks a few times as Dina settles into her line of view. The relief on the smaller woman’s face helps ease Ellie’s rampant thoughts. Dina surges forward with a whisper of Ellie’s name, and wrapping her into a tight hug. Ellie barely moves her arms to hug back, and a few feet away, Jesse is standing with a hand on his hip and the other resting against a toppled bookcase to support himself.
Vaguely, Ellie can feel her entire body shaking, from head to toe, but there’s not much she can truly do about it.
“Are you okay?” Dina asks, softly, her hand resting on Ellie’s bicep, and for a brief second, Ellie worries about the blood getting onto Dina.
“Is that your blood?” Jesse asks, his brow creased together in obvious worry for his friend. Gently, Dina pushes Ellie inside, and the redhead sways a little bit as she walks. Her focus is hazy and she feels off. She can barely muster a shake of her head to Jesse.
Finally, her legs seem to kick back in as she takes purposeful strides forward, and reaches into her back pocket. Ellie produces the map of Seattle, and with shaking hands, unfolds it.
Ellie’s voice is riddled with nerves and anxiety as she speaks quietly, “She’s hiding out in the…” her breathing is inconsistent, erratic. “... in this aquarium.”
She looks up to Dina and Jesse, and they both look entirely unfocused on finding Abby, and instead distressed by Ellie’s jittery appearance.
Dina, being the godsend that she is, takes the map from Ellie’s hand, “Okay.” She pawns the map to Jesse, then puts her hands on Ellie’s back to lead her away. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Jesse steps away, and Ellie can barely keep her thoughts in line as Dina takes her to one of the backstage rooms behind the stage of the theater. Dina gestures for Ellie to sit down on one of the plush stools, before disappearing to get some cloth and rags.
Ellie rocks herself back and forth, inhaling and exhaling large amounts of air. The oxygen does nothing to ease the anxiety going ballistic in her head.
She killed Nora. She fucking bashed Nora’s head in. For what? It made Nora’s death quicker— she would’ve died to the spores anyway— but it doesn’t make it any less gruesome. Ellie can still see the shards of Nora’s skull splitting through her skin and the blood spewing out of her eye sockets.
It was so much like watching Joel die all over again.
Ellie glances to her backpack in the corner. The pipe is stained with dried blood; Nora’s dried blood. Ellie hadn’t had the time to pick up a new weapon before retreating back to the theater. She can still feel the tingle of her hands after watching Nora slump over, crumpled skull and all.
Weakly, her fingers grip the sides of the stool as she inhales sharply. Despite being in the safety of the theater, near Jesse and Dina , Ellie’s heart refuses to stop pounding in her chest like a war drum. Ellie thinks it hasn’t stopped pounding that hard since Joel died.
Dina comes back into the room with a small bowl of water and some rags over her shoulder. Ellie purses her lips together tightly, willing those tears that are in her eyes to stay put. She can’t break down, not in front of Dina. Not when Dina is dealing with a mess of problems on her own.
Dina is standing in front of her, the wash bin and the rags set aside. “Arms up.”
Slowly, Ellie reaches her arms behind her head, fumbling for the cotton to pull it over. Dina helps her, grabbing the soiled white fabric and tossing it to the side to clean (or attempt to) later. The fresh wounds sparkled across Ellie’s back sting as they come in contact with the cold air, and Ellie wishes so badly she could wipe the look of grief off of Dina’s face when her eyes come to rest on the bloody battle wounds.
Dina walks around her, and Ellie rests her hands in her lap, trying to think of anything else but Nora and Abby and seeing Joel’s head split open over and over and over. She exhales quietly to the best of her ability, and her chest is wound up so tight with the effort of not breaking down into tears.
Ellie’s so fucking tired . She’s so fucking tired of sliding her knife into the neck of dozens of people, and she’s so fucking tired of playing Grim Reaper. She’s beyond exhausted, and yet, her body doesn’t want to stop. Her blood yearns for vengeance for Joel. To make sure his memory isn’t forgotten.
She leans forward at the first touch of a wet rag against her skin, exhaling sharply. Dina drags the rag gently over Ellie’s skin, wiping away the dried blood. Some of the smaller nicks have scabbed over, while the larger scratches on her left shoulder and the massive cut on her right are still bleeding. Slowly, but bleeding nonetheless. It tingles, but it’s far less worse than what Ellies endured within the past day.
A tear rolls down Ellie’s cheek, as she forces herself to stop biting at her lip. “I made her talk.”
The sentence alone is enough for the crashing realization of what Ellie did to hit her like a horse kick to the face. Ellie gasps slightly, bringing her blood soiled hands to her face to cup her mouth for a second.
“God, I…” Ellie trails off, her hands now rubbing against the front of her jeans repeatedly. Dina presses her hand against Ellie’s neck firmly, reassuringly.
“Hey,” Dina says softly, then she’s wrapping her arms gingerly around Ellie. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” Ellie bites back near immediately. Her fingers curl around the denim. “I fucking killed—”
“You did what you had to,” Dina cuts her off, her voice low and murmuring right into Ellie’s ear. “For Joel, yeah?”
More tears come out. “I can’t— I can’t keep killing so many people, I just need—”
She cuts herself off, and reaches up to hold onto Dina’s arm for some semblance of familiarity, for anything that feels like love or happiness or anything else but this giant hole in her chest that keeps expanding by the second.
When Dina presses a kiss to Ellie’s spine, over one of the dimples on her skin, Ellie nearly breaks. She feels love in her chest for Dina, something so deeply rooted in her that Ellie thinks it can’t break.
“I don’t want to lose you,” Ellie whispers to the air. For a moment, Elie feels like a ghost to the wind, like nobody else can hear her, and nobody else is there.
That couldn’t be further from the truth, as Dina holds Ellie tighter and says quietly, “Good.”
Ellie holds Dina’s forearm and bows her head forward, letting Dina rock them gently from side to side. The room is silent, save for the pattering of rain heard dimly.
After a while, Dina pulls away to continue cleaning Ellie. Ellie doesn’t feel much other than the sadness lingering in her mind as Dina wipes away the blood, before stitching up the worst of the wounds. It’s cathartic, to have that blood be gone.
“Look at me,” Dina says gently, as she runs the rag over Ellie’s face. Her focus is solely on Ellie, and it’s soft, nurturing, as the basin of water becomes more and more diluted with the mixture of blood and water. Dina tosses the dirty rag to the side once she’s done, and cups Ellie’s cheeks gently. “Good job.”
She presses a long kiss to Ellie’s forehead, and Ellie leans into the touch, resting her hands on Dina’s waist, just to be close to her. Dina grooms her fingers through Ellie’s hair, picking out pieces of dirt and leaves that have gotten stuck in the strands.
“I’m sorry,” Ellie whispers then, and Dina pulls away quickly, looking surprised.
“What for?”
“For dragging you along, for forcing you to see me like this,” Ellie says, the words spilling out faster than her brain can catch them.
Dina’s lips purse slightly, then she’s shaking her head. “Ellie, I promised you. Where you go, I go. No matter what.”
Ellie blinks away the tears at the corners of her eyes, but Dina wipes them away softly.
“Ellie, I am here for you, whether you want to keep going, or turn around and go home,” Dina whispers, her hands coming to rest on the thick, tensed muscle of Ellie’s shoulders. It’s then that Ellie simply breaks , because fuck , does she want to go back home to Jackson so badly, to just fall into her bed and sleep until she never wakes up again.
She wants to go home, to fall back into that familiar and comforting rhythm of patrolling the woods, smoking weed with Dina, and just feeling like a normal teenager again.
Except, she’s never been normal. Not with the bite mark that rests on her forearm, stark even with the green tattoo resting over it. Ellie has always been the sore thumb, even if no one’s ever known. The only people who knew were Joel, Tommy, and Maria. Now… Dina too.
Joel…
Ellie cries harder, the tears going down her face feeling like molten lava and every sob wracking her body, as if it weren’t already fucked up from the weeks of travel. Her lungs scream for air as she cries.
What would he think of her? What would he think of the dozens of people she’s killed on her crusade for revenge? What would Joel see when he looked at Ellie— would he see the bright, witty teenager, or the bloodstained and violent murderer?
Dina holds her tightly, without complaint, until Ellie has long since run out of tears.
“I want to go home,” Ellie whispers, holding Dina tighter than anything she’s ever held. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Okay,” Dina says, and briefly kisses Ellie on the neck. “We’ll head out tomorrow morning, if you’re still sure by then.”
Ellie does nothing but nod as Dina pulls away gently.
“Come on, let’s go get some rest,” Dina says, helping Ellie put on a somewhat fresh shirt. They head back to the front area of the theater to tell Jesse. Jesse, who doesn’t put up much of a fight after seeing Ellie sway on her feet, nearly leaning her entire weight on Dina to stay upright.
Slowly, they make their way to a large couch, big enough for the two of them to fit.
“C’mere,” Dina says, shifting slightly so Ellie can rest on her. Ellie all but collapses onto the couch, the exhaustion from crying setting into her bones and making her feel like molasses. The couch is hard, but it’s something sturdy to make Ellie feel like she still exists, like she’s still on Earth and not just floating away into the void.
Dina’s heartbeat is sobering.
It reminds Ellie of everything before this, of the dance that left Ellie so confused, because girls have never been her strong suit. And don’t even get her started about feelings.
The steady thump… thump… thump… of Dina’s heart makes Ellie feel human again.
Because this is Dina, the woman she loves.
Ellie’s hand, though shaking, finds purchase on Dina’s stomach. Under the thick calluses formed from holding countless guns and weapons, Ellie feels the swell of Dina’s stomach, larger than before. The baby…
Ellie can’t put Dina through that anymore. She can’t put Dina’s kid through that.
Dina’s hand comes on top of hers, and for a beat, Ellie thinks she’s crossed a line, that she’s done something wrong.
But, Dina just squeezes her fingers, and holds Ellie tighter.
“We’ll figure this out together, I promise, Ellie,” Dina says, and Ellie curls closer.
The tears start again, but for a different reason.
“Say my name again, please,” Ellie murmurs, shifting her head until it’s tucked firmly in the crook of Dina’s neck.
“Ellie,” Dina says into the quietness of the theater. Ellie chokes back a sob, hearing her name from Dina’s mouth, because if she shuts her eyes tight enough and thinks hard enough… it’s Joel talking to her.
Fuck, she misses him. So fucking much.
“It’s okay, Ellie, I’m here,” Dina says, and presses their conjoined hands onto her stomach. “ We’re here for you.”
Ellie knows then. Ellie makes her final decision then. They’re going to go back to Jackson as soon as the sun breaks, because Joel would want that. He would want Ellie to focus on her future with Dina , instead of littering on the past.
Abby got what she wanted in the end, it seems.
But Ellie’s too fucking tired of it all to care anymore. She wants Dina, and that’s all.
“I love you,” Ellie whispers.
“I love you too.”
And in the theater, curled together, they fall asleep.