Chapter Text
Gird on the gospel armor of faith and hope and love
And when the combat's ended he'll carry you above
Oh, had I wings I would fly away and be at rest
-Ecstasy, by Crooked Still
The tears stop, eventually, but the blood continues to slowly ooze from Ellie's disfigured hand, dripping into the cold salt water beneath her and dissipating into the vastness of the ocean. She has been sitting on the beach alone for a long time, lost inside herself, wrestling with the enormity of everything she’d done and failed to do. The sounds of distant gunfire and screaming had finally died down, leaving only the gentle white noise of the waves. Her instincts still scream at her, tireless. Can’t stay here. Not safe.
Rocking her weight forward she rises unsteadily to a standing position. The rush of light headedness and numbness in her legs almost sends her crashing back into the shallows, but she only stumbles before regaining her balance. She sloshes slowly over to the boat with her pack in it. Her right hand sticks to her left where the blood has partially coagulated. She pulls it away and feels a renewed, intense, throbbing pain where her fingers now end, and the wound starts bleeding heavily again. Bracing herself, she slides clumsily into the small vessel.
A wave of dizziness hits her, sets her head spinning. Have to stop the bleeding. She rinses her good hand as best she can in the ocean water, then pulls a bottle of grain alcohol, a handful of the cleaner rags, and an almost depleted roll of duct tape out of the bottom of her pack. She takes a long swig of the bitter, dry liquor, then dumps a healthy amount over her ruined fingers, hissing at the burning pain. Winding the dressing firmly but not tightly around the wound, she secures it with duct tape. Turning her attention to the mooring line holding the boat, she reaches for her knife and finds nothing. Fuck.
Sliding back into the icy seawater she flicks her flashlight on, casting about near the shore. Ellie is terrified for a moment that it's lost to her, like so much else, but then she catches a glimmer of reflected moonlight under the surf. She pulls the knife free of the wet sand and wipes it on her jeans. The blade is in bad shape from its recent rough use, rolled and chipped in spots, but it had never failed her. She cuts the boat free, yanks the starter cord until the motor sputters to life, then heads north, into the thick fog.
The fog clears after she puts some distance between herself and the Rattler compound. It's a clear, bright night, the full moon hanging high and countless stars blanketing the sky. She’d loved nights like these back on the farm, far enough from the lights of Jackson that they didn’t dull the rest of the sky. Lying sprawled in the field on a blanket, looking up and letting her imagination venture a million light years away. Talking to Dina in the warm summer breeze, kissing her, making love to her. She allows herself to remember, basking in the warmth of the fond memory, but the harsh reality of the present turns it bittersweet. Dina. Potato. Why am I so fucking stupid? A sharp pang of regret wells tears up in her eyes again, but she forces them down. That’s enough goddamn crying for one night. Self-pity isn’t flattering, and you don’t deserve it anyways.
Another hour or two pass by, and she's struggling desperately to stay awake when her destination finally comes into view. She runs the boat ashore and disembarks, shrugging her pack onto her shoulders and walking towards the bigger boat already beached there. It had seemed secure enough, on a secluded beach with cliffs all around. Abby had headed south, so she wouldn’t be using it.
Abby. The thought of her no longer makes Ellie’s fist clench, her jaw tighten, her ears ring. She had held Abby’s life in her hands on that beach and felt absolutely nothing. No relief, no righteous anger, no joy. Killing this emaciated, beaten down woman and the young boy she seemed to care for would not assuage her guilt at being left alive while people all around her died. It would not fill the hole Joel’s death had left in her heart. If in the end she’d drowned that pitiful woman beneath the waves, could she really believe that she’d have been able to forgive Joel, given the time? That he wasn’t already lost to her, even before he’d died?
She struggles up the ladder and into the small cabin at the fore of the boat, closing the hatch behind her. As she closes the door and lets her pack fall to the floor she feels the full force of her exhaustion and the pain of her injuries bear down on her. She feels like she’s been put through a meat grinder. Peeling off all of her blood-soaked, damp clothing and tossing it into a corner, she catches a glimpse of herself in a small mirror on the wall.
“Jesus.”
You look like a fucking runner, Ellie. Crusty, dried blood is caked into her hair and clings to her skin in patches around injuries, some of which she doesn't even remember taking. So much blood. A gash from a near miss with a machete here, a scratch from a clicker’s fingernails there, burns from a Molotov cocktail, scrapes from diving into cover and bruises from close fighting. The beginnings of a truly spectacular black eye from a punch she’d taken on the beach that had almost knocked her out clean. All of it pales in comparison to the pain radiating from her side and hand.
She digs through the lower cabinets, finding a round metal basin, a five gallon jug of fresh water, and even a medical kit. Working slowly, tenderly, she scrubs as much blood and grime from her skin as she can, applying disinfectant and dressings as needed. The water in the bin darkens quickly and has to be emptied several times. When she moves on to her hair, it actually crunches as she tries to clean it. She resists the urge to just hack it off with a knife and after some effort it comes clean, mostly.
Rummaging through the dressers, she eventually finds a pair of cotton shorts and a too-large t-shirt that has ‘Utah Jazz’ printed on the front. I’d like to hear some Utah jazz. Must be good if they have t-shirts for it. Feeling almost human again, Ellie sits with a sigh on the large bed in the back of the cabin and drags her pack into her lap. She hadn’t eaten in two days now. She digs through a side compartment and comes up with the last bag of venison jerky she’d brought from the farm. From another section she pulls out a chocolate bar, and something underneath it catches her eye.
A simple leather bracelet, decorated with blue beads and a silver hand with an eye on the back. A sign of protection, according to Dina. She holds it in her lap, running her fingers over the familiar curves and ridges of it, suffused with a bone deep sadness. After a long moment, she winds it around her right wrist and binds the clasp. What right do you have? She silences her inner critic and leans back against the wall. I just need to talk to her again. To tell her I’m sorry. If she never wants to see me again after that, then so be it.
The jerky is salty and chewy, but satisfying. The sweetness of the chocolate afterwards is almost heavenly, helps her forget for a moment the pain she feels all over. Sated, she lies down gingerly and pushes the window by the bed mostly open, letting in the ocean breeze and the smell of salt. She hadn’t taken time to appreciate it earlier, but California is a beautiful place. She loves the beaches here, the sight of the sanguine sun setting into the ocean. She’d technically seen the ocean before, back in the Boston QZ, but it wasn’t the same.
As exhausted as she is, sleep does not come easily. Memories swirl in her mind, painful and happy, mundane and extraordinary. Eventually, cautiously, she lets her mind turn to thoughts of Joel, something that had been strictly off limits to her for a long time. Meeting him for the first time, thinking he was a world class asshole. Leaning into him, his arm around her after Sam and Henry had died. Caring for him during that long, bitterly cold winter. Learning to swim on summer afternoons in a smelly, muddy pond outside Jackson. Hearing him play guitar for her for the first time, his hands over hers teaching her basic chords. Sitting in the space capsule with him, the recording on her Walkman transporting them to a better time, a better place.
Silent tears roll down her face. She closes her eyes and lets them come this time, lets the emotion swell up inside of her. Sadness, and loss, and pain, but also joy, love, mirth. She remembers the last time they’d spoken, on the porch that night. The way he'd accepted her, without question. The way his voice had cracked. The relief from years of tension she’d seen plain on his face, and also felt in herself. He’d resumed playing guitar as she walked away, the warm, soothing sound following her into the darkness of the night. Ellie holds the music in her mind, replaying it over and over, until she finally drifts off into a deep, peaceful sleep