Chapter Text
Traveling the dark interstate highway lit by his high beams and the inescapable glare of defeat, it was the quiet of the moment that was pressing in on Joel Miller.
Of course, he was used to the lonely sound of an empty highway, but that was before the turn—the hum of Tommy’s old truck groaning down the road in the dead of night, its passengers rendered silent from the exhaustion of another day of overtime on the job.
When Joel's aching bones would creak like the rusted car door he'd open upon arriving home, he'd barely even notice it. Inside, Sarah was waiting to hear that squeaky car door slam, to know her dad was home safe, and he was eager for her to hear it.
No groggy "hi, daddy," was waiting on him back in Jackson. No sleepy little girl was looking for him to carry her from the sofa to her bed. Going on this particular night drive could not be more different from those late nights after work, though the ambience was the same.
And instead of his brother sharing the cab with him, it was Ellie. Historically, that meant that the SUV should be anything but silent; Joel should be enduring cheesy jokes and answering questions born of her tireless curiosity, but Ellie was so quiet he couldn't even hear her breathing.
In any other case, his current predicament might have been amusing; Joel used to hope for this kind of peace, pray for it back when the pair first began their journey.
Ellie Williams’ laugh once grated against a raw spot that Joel believed twenty years of distance had surely grown a protective callous over. Her curious questions were like prodding fingers attempting to wedge their way into the fractures she’d left in his protective armor, trying to soften the jagged edges enough to break it all the way open. Determined to soften him by reminding him that the world was not purely gore and horror, Joel resisting all the while.
It was just her way. Ellie’s awe at simply being outside the wall, no matter what nightmares waited to threaten her; her easy amusement at a book of puns she’d read a thousand times; her anachronistic joy at the smallest of things—he couldn't tolerate them in the beginning, because they reminded him of what he for so long wanted to forget.
Now that Joel was ready to remember, Ellie had no words left for him.
There was a similar silence between them not too long ago. It was the heavy blanket of trauma that muted their world, made it feel as if covered in fresh, sound-dampening snow: completely void of movement and noise.
It had taken Joel some time to grasp just what it was that had stolen Ellie’s voice that time, what brought on The Quiet. For a while, he had only borne witness to Ellie's silence, unable to decipher the ingredients necessary to be the balm for it. In time, though, Joel understood that it had been her violent experience at that ranch that had temporarily deafened everything around her. Around them.
That instance of The Quiet hadn’t been directly Joel’s fault, but that didn't matter. It was far too easy for him to shackle himself with guilt: Ellie wore the grim residue of a horror Joel had been unable to protect her from.
This bout of reticence was blatantly because of Joel, because of his actions. Of course, Ellie had no way of knowing that, and Joel wasn’t sure what was the most painful option: her blaming herself for not being enough for that cure, or Joel being the cause of The Quiet.
The query had no answer, and flogging himself with question marks was beginning to leave his skin red and raw. The sun was rising low over the horizon when Joel could no longer endure Ellie's silence. He glanced into the rearview mirror where she still laid, facing the back of the bench seat instead of the road ahead like some sort of fucked up metaphor.
Discreetly, Joel had leaned down, fishing around his pack which rested on the seat beside him. Through scratchy, dirty rags and sharp bits of metal, his rough fingertips landed on the smooth, hard plastic he was seeking out. After only a moment of hesitation, Joel plucked it from the pack.
“Found this a few weeks ago.”
A better man, a more capable one, might have chosen to break the weighty silence with literally anything else:
Wanna talk about it, kiddo?
Or even something light, like I’m still thinkin’ about them damn giraffes.
Or, what he should be saying to her... I’m sorry, Ellie.
Joel held the item in question up between the fore- and middle fingers of his right hand, the cassette tape visible in the empty space between the seats, backlit by the headlights in the windshield. It wasn’t as if Ellie could see what was on display, of course; she remained there with her back to him, curled up on the faux leather.
Joel couldn’t be sure if she was awake or asleep, but because he got the sense it was the former, he continued his thought.
“I was waitin’ to even tell you I had it ‘til we had a way of listenin’ to it in the first place.”
Once more, he glanced into the rearview mirror to check for signs of life, only to see Ellie hadn’t moved an inch. Joel pressed his lips together and exhaled silently through his nose, looking away from her reflection to examine the direction of the cassette in his hand. The man cleared his throat against the click of the plastic sliding into the cassette player, and as that sound prefaced the music to come, he finally heard a rustle in the backseat.
Joel looked in the rearview mirror again, watching her. At the same time, he stealthily reached out and twisted the knob that would move all of the sound to the front speakers and away from the ones in the backseat.
As the music moved through the cab and grew louder only by Joel, he could practically hear Ellie building herself up to reluctantly ask her muffled: “can you turn it up?”
“Sorry, kiddo,” Joel lied innocently, tsking his teeth. “Think them speakers back there is busted…”
Still watching the mirror to see if she’d take his carefully placed bait, Joel felt hope gently bloom in him as Ellie finally flopped over in the seat to face forward. Then, just as slowly, she hauled her way up into a seated position.
From there, the scene played out exactly as Joel had hoped when he’d slyly shifted all of the volume to the front of the cab: Ellie slid off of the backseat and started to wriggle through the gap between the two front seats to get closer to the sound.
Closer to Joel.
“Move that for me?” Ellie prompted him blearily, referring to the pack riding lonely passenger. Joel immediately resigned it to a life lived on the muddy floor to make room for the girl to plop down and take its place.
Once she was settled, Joel regarded her from the corner of his eyes as she rubbed her own and asked him, “where are we?”
Joel inhaled an audible breath as he thought about the answer. “Crossed back over into Idaho I’d say ‘bout, oh… I dunno. ‘Bout an hour ago, give or take.”
He paused then, half-expecting, half-hoping for a repeat of the conversation they had when passing through the same state on the way to their destination.
Is this the potato place? Ellie had asked in that curious tone of hers.
The who?
The potato place. Idaho. Idaho potatoes or something.
You been eatin’ better in the QZ than I was thinkin’. Chicken and Idaho potatoes…
So it is the potato place, then? Oh, sweet! So, what. Is it a… is it a special potato kingdom? What’s so good about those particular potatoes that they get named after a whole entire state?
I don’t think they was named after the state ‘cause they’re necessarily special. Think Idaho soil’s real good for growin’ ‘em. So the ones that come outta here just… taste better. And are famous. Or… somethin’.
‘Or something?’ Man… you had better learn this stuff before you become a farmer, Joel. Otherwise I think you’ll suck at it. They won’t be naming any potatoes after Texas, that’s for damn sure.
A low, rumbling, genuine laugh had sounded from Joel's chest. Rancher, you little shit. Not a farmer. Raisin’ sheep makes you a rancher.
But that conversation had taken place when Ellie still had hope, hadn't it? When she still cared about learning the world around her, because she still thought her immunity would make something of it. Breathe life back into it. It was back when Ellie still thought she was on her way toward a miracle instead of driving away from hefty disappointment like she was right now.
The girl's response therefore fit the mood of the moment: a simple, “oh.”
Joel’s hand shifted on the steering wheel, regarding her once more out of the corner of his eye. Now would be another stellar time for a better man to ask what she was thinking. How she was doing. If she needed to talk. But Joel hadn’t been a good man in a long, long time, and so The Quiet dominated the space once more.
And in that silence, something looming and ugly had time to make its home. Ellie had been staring out into the black of night for several minutes before she broached the subject: "Hey, I was thinking, Joel… maybe the Firefly doctors at that hospital… maybe they just… suck ass."
Joel was grateful for the shroud of darkness so his tense expression couldn’t be read.
"Y'know? Maybe the good ones who aren't total shit didn't wanna be associated with them and, like… went to do their doctor stuff somewhere else."
Joel kept his dark eyes on the road ahead and tried to keep the shadow out of his tone when he replied with a tentative but flat, "maybe you're right, kiddo."
He could feel Ellie staring at him, but he refused to look in her direction and acknowledge the sensation.
"Okay, but if you really thought that I could be right, you would have already turned us around..."
"Ellie…"
"So you… don't think I'm right at all." She smacked her lips and nodded her head once. "Gotcha."
Ellie sighed, propping her arm up where the window met the plastic car door and rested her chin on her palm. Joel didn't know how to respond to her. Ellie must not have known what to say, either, because she was quiet for another moment before she spoke again.
"I don't… I don't really know if I believe what I said, either, honestly." Even more softly, she mumbled into the night, "it was dumb of me to even say in the first place, huh."
"Not dumb," Joel supplied softly.
"Eh. Kinda dumb," Ellie countered with a dejected sigh.
"No it ain't, Ellie," Joel insisted a little more firmly. "What you–"
Ellie held up one of her hands. "I-I don't… I don't think I wanna talk about it anymore, actually. Can we just…"
After a second, the music seemed to finally fade into the girl's scope of perception. Her brow furrowed, first at the radio and then up at Joel. “What are we even listening to?”
Joel resisted a smirk out at the empty, black highway, grateful for the change of subject.
Grateful that she might be about to give him shit for something like she used to before The Quiet settled inside her.
“What? You tellin' me you don't like this?”
The question was asked as Joel reached out to turn the volume up a rather obnoxious amount. The sound of some female pop singer from the late 90s took over the once silent cab.
"Wait. You like this?" Ellie asked with disbelief over the volume. "Bullshit."
"My favorite," Joel managed to assure her with a straight face.
Ellie studied Joel for a long few seconds and then sank back into the seat. "I really have to teach you about music, old man."
"Oh," Joel chuckled, glancing over at her. "Do you now?" He reached for the volume knob, turning it up even more. "That right?"
Just at that moment, the SUV started to sputter, stealing Joel's attention away to the gas gauge in front of him.
"Christ…" he grumbled as he hurriedly turned the volume back down.
"What happened? Did your shitty taste in music break the car?"
"It's the goddamn gas…" Joel trailed off, slowing the truck to a stop. He threw it into park and then ran a hand down his face. "Thought we'd get further than this before needin' to find more. Reckon I wasn't payin' attention. Distracted."
Joel studied the scene ahead of them, plotting their next move. Ellie studied Joel.
"Distracted?" she asked carefully. "By...?"
Ignoring her, Joel wordlessly reached for the handle and shoved the heavy door open.
Ellie frowned, muttering to herself as he got out of the car, "or not…"
The door closed with a bang behind him: "Just… stay there a sec. Gonna check things out."
Ellie didn't argue. Normally, she would remind him she was capable. That they did everything together, even boring shit like look for gas to siphon. But the urge to protest and follow Joel out into the night surprisingly wasn't there this time. She was afraid to explore just why that was.
So instead, she stayed put, watching Joel wander out of the cone of illumination the headlights provided and into the dark of the ditches. Curiously, she leaned up and popped the cassette out of the player to see who this chick was that Joel had them listening to.
But instead of professionally printed letters, there was a long white sticker on one side, upon which someone had hand-written TO SARAH FROM CHRISTI - SUMMER MIXTAPE '99
Delicately, as if holding some priceless relic, Ellie turned the tape over in her hands. She knew it couldn't have been Joel's daughter's, but she wondered if maybe the name was why he'd grabbed it in the first place. If that was why he was playing it for her now.
Before those thoughts could evolve into anything heavier, Joel was jarring her out of them, knocking on her window. "Grab our packs," he directed her through the glass. "Looks like a little town through them woods over there. We'll get you some clothes. Get us some gas."
As soon as Ellie was outside the truck, Joel had already stripped off his heavy coat. He held it out and gave the durable fabric a little shake at the shoulders.
"Here, Ellie," he prompted her softly to get her to slip it on over that paper thin hospital gown.
Ellie didn't protest. It was cold, after all. Joel's jacket was warm, and it smelled like him.
"Thanks," she hushed as she traded him their bags for the jacket and slipped into the too-big garment. "Which way?"
Joel clicked on his flashlight and nodded ahead of them. "Just through there."
Only a few steps were taken before they froze in their tracks, a brief screeching sound alerting the both of their senses.
"Stalkers," Ellie whispered in warning.
"I heard it," Joel replied with a sturdiness to his tone. "Sounded far off. Nothin' we can't manage. C'mon, kiddo. Stay close."
And as they began their trek toward the town, Joel tried to convince himself it was only because they heard the infected that The Quiet descended upon them yet again.