Work Text:
Family is a complicated word until it isn’t.
She’s never known it until she does.
--
Marlene is the one who finds her after Riley.
Ellie is a bundle of raw nerves, cheeks stained with tears and speckled with blood. She doesn’t think she has anything left to give.
It was meant to be a special night and for a blissful moment it was.
And then it wasn’t.
Riley had been bitten. She saved Ellie’s life and Ellie wasn’t able to save hers.
Riley was her best friend, her person, her something. Her someone with one foot out the door who just agreed to stay.
And now it would be Ellie clinging to Marlene, considering pledging to the Fireflies in her place because one more moment in Boston would make her heart hurt too much.
There must be something extra special in the air, perhaps a shared sense of mourning or grief, maybe Marlene had been more attached to Riley or Ellie than she let on, but she shares something new with Ellie. She knows her mother, a Firefly who was stationed in a lab out west. Still alive.
Ellie isn’t sure if its rage or tears building inside of her, too exhausted to form words or find her way through her emotions.
Mothers were meant to protect and hers clearly hadn’t.
Abandonment was hard to rationalise, but it felt very much like her grief was due to her mother and if she’d never known Riley then Riley would’ve never known her. They’d both be fine and Riley would be alive and her chest wouldn’t hurt like this.
The realisation couldn’t have been recent, it didn’t make sense that Marlene hadn’t told her before. She admits to keeping tabs on Ellie but doesn’t specify why she stayed away.
The offer to journey west with Marlene feels like a form of salvation. She had considered returning to the military school but couldn’t go through with it.
Her arm itches, a deep graze stretching from her elbow to her wrist and smarting in a way that makes Ellie examine it closely, as though she may be bitten. She wasn’t though. Riley had saved her and she didn’t save Riley.
She had cycled rapidly through the first four stages of grief without ever touching acceptance, pacing and screaming and crying for hours. Riley sat resigned in a corner, staring at the gun in her lap as sweat began to build on her brow.
She gave Ellie the gun for protection, kissed her one last time and asked her to walk away.
It was a blur after that.
Marlene gets hurt, Ellie gets lumped with two smugglers and the Capitol building is full of dead Fireflies.
Ellie is fairly certain that either Joel or Tess used to a be parent. Potentially both. Potentially together? She isn’t sure. She overhears bits and pieces of hushed conversations, arguments about how far they are taking her and whether its worth finding the Fireflies and her mother.
Ellie isn’t entirely sure to be honest, the road is gruelling but she’s moving somewhere. Forward, onwards. It’s not like she can move back, and its not like she can stay with Joel or Tess. So onwards it is.
Bill’s town is a shit hole, Pittsburgh is a nightmare, and the suburbs outside of Pittsburgh sends her spiralling. Did Riley turn that way? Fall asleep and wake into oblivion? Was Riley still in there?
Her last conversation with Sam loops over and over in her brain, interrupted occasionally by Tess checking in. Asking and caring in a way that Ellie doesn’t deserve.
“Joel doesn’t handle grief well,” Tess says openly.
Ellie’s eyes flick over to watch Joel ahead of them.
“He pushes it down and refuses to speak about it, but you don’t have to do that,” Tess says, squeezing Ellie in a side hug as they walk. “I’m here whenever you need to speak, or whenever you wanna be silent.”
Ellie nods along but keeps it inside.
Joel shows care differently. He’s gruff and matter of fact and if there’s nothing that needs to be said then he says nothing. It takes Ellie a while to pick up on it because he’s Joel but he always makes sure she eats enough, that she’s between him and Tess, and he makes her put on a jacket when the weather changes.
The first time they meet Tommy is a turning point. They have power and a town and its nothing like the Boston QZ. Or Bill’s town. Or Pittsburgh.
It’s tempting.
Why rush after an unknown entity? A mother in the distance who abandoned her? Who she’d never known? Would their shared blood just make things click? The destination, the conclusion, the end. And what then? Would they get along?
Would Tess and Joel leave?
They wouldn’t stay.
Would Ellie stay?
Ellie’s lost in thought when the attack happens. Tess is immediately on her, making her crouch down under a table as Maria guards the door.
It happens and then it’s over.
They stay one night in Jackson and then they continue.
Ellie tries to call things off. It seems like a safe place to stay, Tommy and Maria said they could come back if the university labs in Eastern Colorado didn’t pan out.
“We’ve come this far, Ellie,” Joel says resolutely.
“You should be with your family, Ellie,” Tess affirms. “It’s rare to have that in this world.”
Ellie clenches her jaw. She’s never known family, never felt it… so how would she know?
“We should at least go to this university.”
And so they do.
It’s another bust.
In a long string of bad luck, nothing changes.
The buildings are deserted, there’s some fucked up infected monkeys, a dead scientist and another location to trek to.
And then there’s FEDRA soldiers.
She’s never been more thankful for Tess in her life.
“There’s three in the building across from us, they’ll head this way soon,” Tess says curtly. “Let’s head two rooms back, wait for them in the hallway. Gunfire will bring more so we’ll hold our positions. Agreed?” Her voice is gruff, almost an imitation of Joel’s and despite the adrenaline rushing through Ellie’s veins, Ellie smiles.
Times moves slowly, the gun is Ellie’s hand is solid and she’s got five bullets which is more than normal so she feels confident.
The soldiers slowly drop.
They wait five minutes at each floor, slowly advancing forward.
Joel bounces his knee as they hide, and Tess divides her time between scanning the entryways and windows and glaring at Joel to ensure he plays by her rules.
They escape relatively unscathed. Joel is bleeding from the temple, his face a mess of red that Tess reassures Ellie is fine. Tess has a bullet graze on her upper arm, a worn grey bandage tied haphazardly over it to stop the blood flow but Ellie thinks it might just make the wound infected. Ellie’s tired, shallow cuts and grazes line her right side from falling onto shattered glass, her head is pounding and she’s over it.
She cries that night. Feeling alone and scared and stupid.
Family is dumb and overrated.
It’s clearly not for her.
Her mother had decided long again.
If her mother didn’t want her then she didn’t want her mother.
She curls into a ball in her sleeping bag, safe elsewhere but feeling unsafe. She presses her fists to her eyes as though it’ll stop her tears and she just shakes, her body wracked with sobs.
A warm hand falls on her back. It’s large and solid and just resting there.
She knows its Joel but can’t bear to look at him.
Tess strokes her hair where it meets the nape of her neck, and Ellie wants to sink into the ground just as much as she doesn’t want them to stop.
She doesn’t speak and neither do they.
--
From where they are in eastern Colorado, Jackson is northwest, and Salt Lake City is west. Its only a few days travel from Salt Lake City to Jackson on horseback. Tess takes the time the following morning to show Ellie on a map.
“If we’re heading back that way anyway, then it’s worth it to check,” Tess tells Ellie, tracing the route they’d take and informing her of their decision more than anything else.
“It’s not worth anything,” Ellie replies, scuffing her shoes on the ground.
“It’s your mum,” Joel says simply.
“Has someone told her that?” Ellie mutters.
Joel and Tess both grimace, sharing a look. Ellie knows family is complicated, she’s been told this and now she’s experiencing it.
“Ellie, she’s your-”
The rage bubbles up inside her before she can stop it. “Everyone I’ve ever loved has either died or left me,” Ellie says with a raised voice, her hands shaking jerkily in front of her. She’s tense and full of energy and she wants to punch something. She can feel tears coming and her throat is dry and it’s too much.
“Ellie-”
“So why should I run after someone who’s already left me?” Ellie yells. “Why should it be this hard? Why do we have to risk this much? Why do you have to risk anything at all?”
They say nothing. Ellie can see pity in their eyes, and before she can stop herself, she punches a tree.
It doesn’t make her feel better.
Joel bandages her hand, three of her knuckles split. He’s gentler than she’s ever seen him and it makes her feel small for some reason.
“Kiddo, we don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Joel says in a low tone. “You can- You can choose, it should be your choice.”
“It can’t be for nothing,” Ellie says bitterly, emotions swirling inside of her.
“If it doesn’t work,” Tess says, patting Ellie’s knee. “Then you don’t have to stay.”
“Where else can I go?” Ellie asks, squeezing her eyes shut, cheeks burning with embarrassment.
“There’s always Jackson,” Tess offers.
“But- I-”
“With us,” Joel says awkwardly. “If- if you wanted.”
Ellie’s throat is tight.
“I could teach you how to play guitar,” he offers. “I reckon you’d like that.”
“Maybe,” Ellie says softly.
And they continue on.
The journey from Colorado to Salt Lake City isn’t an easy one. Nothing was ever easy.
The weather gets colder which makes it harder to navigate, harder to find food, and harder to sleep.
She feels more as they get closer. More scared, more nervous, more anxious.
Just more.
She struggles to make sense of it, not sure what she’s looking for or what they’ll find. What she’s already found.
They’re on form. Heading through a bus depot, exiting the last highway and clearing through an underground tunnel.
They’re almost there and then there’s rushing water and straining lungs and darkness.
--
Ellie wakes in a hospital with a stranger beside her bed.
The woman’s eyes are green, her expression is soft, and she tuts over Ellie sitting up too early.
“Easy, easy,” the strangers says, hands reaching out to help Ellie sits up.
Ellie’s body freezes, jerking away from her. “Where are Joel and Tess?”
“I asked them to give us some time alone,” the woman says. “I’m your- I’m Anna.”
Ellie takes her in with wide eyes, waking into an anticipated moment was hard to process. “Can- where’s- I don’t-”
Anna hushes her and draws Ellie into a tight hug that she doesn’t relax into.
Meeting Anna doesn’t make things easier for Ellie.
There’s a sense of warmth there, honey in Anna’s voice, a soft touch and an excited expression.
Anna rushes through excuses, building a narrative of a complicated birth, a missing father and a sense of duty to the Firefly cause. She didn’t want Ellie to come out here, she was safer in a QZ until her mother had figured out the cure she’d devoted her life to. Her words are sure and well-spoken, she pauses in places like she anticipates Ellie reassuring her, and then she continues painting her picture of abandoning Ellie for noble reasons.
Ellie nods along.
It ticks so many boxes, but something is off and Ellie cannot place it. There’s a hardness behind Anna’s eyes, something she’s sometimes seen in her own, and it feels off.
“Do you have any questions, my love?” Anna asks, tone saccharine.
“Where’s- where’s Joel and Tess?” Ellie asks awkwardly.
Anna’s smile turns a little bitter at her words but she takes Ellie to them nonetheless.
“We’ve got it from here,” Marlene says, her voice is muffled but Ellie picks up the words as they approach. “You can take the guns as agreed.”
“We’re not leaving without checking on her,” Tess’s voice says firmly.
Anna’s steps turn heavy, as though to announce her approach.
Marlene changes the conversation quickly as they enter.
“Ellie!”
Ellie throws herself at Tess, initiating a hug for the first time in their long journey. She clings to her, relaxing in the safety of her arms.
“It’s good to see you up, kiddo,” Joel says, a protective hand on Ellie’s shoulder.
She hugs him as well, relieved to be reunited and to see Joel in one piece after the tunnels.
“You’re welcome to stay for a couple of days,” Marlene says curtly.
It’s clear she doesn’t mean it.
Joel and Tess stay anyway.
--
Anna is involved in testing to find a ‘cure’ for the infection. She works with some doctor. Talks about how she used to be a nurse and had diversified her skills over the last 14 years in immunology, pathology and mycology.
Anna seems to want to share everything, tell Ellie everything and nothing, unable to sit in the silence that Ellie offers.
Ellie doesn’t particularly care, too focused on the way that the Fireflies hover over Joel and Tess like they aren’t allowed to go to certain parts of their hospital or their base. The way that whispers cease when she turns a corner, the blood splatter on doctor’s coats, and the weird feeling that Infected are nearby.
It feels off.
There’s something out of place.
It doesn’t take long to click.
Or at least, it doesn’t take Ellie long to venture where she’s not allowed to go. She uses every trick Joel and Tess taught her about being stealthy, sneaking passed Fireflies to reach the upper floors of the hospital in the middle of the night.
There’s Infected in cages. Dozens of them.
She supposes it makes sense if you’re studying immunology to find a vaccine.
Cages are marked with numbers and dates.
#259, vaccine 23, injected: 20/04/34, infected: 21/04/34, turned: 22/04/34
#260, vaccine 23, injected: 20/04/34, infected: 21/04/34, turned: 23/04/34
Her eyes linger on the dates, only days prior, comparing those around her.
Someone passes the room she’s in, footsteps audible between the groaning of the Infected and Ellie is terrified.
She hides under a desk, flashlight off, in the total darkness of a room filled with nightmares.
Once she’s certain they are gone, she gets up, hands shaky as she searches through paperwork.
It confirms what she thinks.
She drops the notebook in shock, the sound alerting several of the runners. Within seconds they are snarling, baring their teeth, and pounding on the doors of their cages.
They’re locked away and yet she’s never been more terrified, stuck in place and trembling.
She hears guards shouting, footsteps rushing closer.
The room is flooded with light when they arrive, and Ellie finally moves. She rushes forward, ducking passed them in the doorway.
She runs and she doesn’t stop.
They don’t shoot and they don’t chase her.
--
She finds comfort when she finds Joel and Tess. Too overwhelmed and too worked up to be able to explain what she saw and what she now knows.
Her mother is experimenting on humans to find a cure.
Injecting them with a trial vaccine, infecting them with the virus, studying them as they turn, and then dissecting them.
Hundreds.
#260.
The knock at the door that goes ignored so Marlene and Anna enter anyway.
Joel stands in front of them, partially shielding Ellie and Tess from view.
“What can I help you with?” Joel asks, crossing his arms. His tone is serious and its impossible to tell that Ellie has shared nothing with him.
“I just wanted to explain what Ellie saw,” Anna says, holding her hands up. “Sometimes sacrifice is needed for the greater good, I’m sure you understand that.”
Tess stiffens against Ellie, holding her tighter. “Are you okay?” She whispers in Ellie’s ear.
Ellie nods but she’s uncertain, she pulls away to watch, eyes studying Anna.
“In order to create a vaccine,” Anna continues. “There’s a need for trials. There are- we’ve had-” She falters, clenching her hands into fists by her sides. “Immunology is complex and working tirelessly in order to create a vaccine for animals which do not ordinarily get Infected does not necessarily help to create a vaccine for animals that do.”
Ellie narrows her eyes. “So you test on humans instead?” She offers plainly. “You make up a vaccine, you give it to someone and you infect them and you just take notes as they suffer.”
Anna’s nostrils flare.
“We’re learning a lot,” Marlene says. “We don’t like it either but it needs to be done.”
“Two hundred and sixty times?” Ellie asks.
Tess swears.
“Where are you finding two hundred and sixty people to experiment on?” Joel says threateningly.
“We have to think about the future,” Anna says coldly.
“You’re monsters,” Ellie snarls.
Anna’s jaw tightens, she shakes her head as though she’s deciding the argument isn’t worth it and she walks away.
“They’re not good people, Joel,” Marlene says, rubbing her eyes. “Most of them are hunters and- and think of how many people we could save if we get this right.”
“We’re leaving in the morning,” Joel tells her. “Please go.”
And Marlene does.
Ellie sits stiffly on the bed, fidgeting with her hands as Joel and Tess talk circles around her.
“Human testing?”
“Hundreds of people.”
“What if they never find a vaccine? How many more will they go through?”
“I always knew the Fireflies were misguided but fuck.”
She zones out, disassociating more than anything else as she thinks about Riley and Sam, about hundreds of Rileys and Sams, about being cold and feverish and knowing what’s coming and not knowing how it would come.
She must fall asleep at some point because she wakes up to Tess stroking her hair and smiling sadly.
Joel and Tess have packed and they’re ready to leave.
It takes Ellie several sluggish moments, heartbroken and half asleep, to register than they mean to take her too.
“Really?” Ellie asks.
“Of course,” Tess says, like its nothing.
“We’re family,” Joel says, like its everything.
--
Ellie leaves with them.
Anna doesn’t really say goodbye and neither does Ellie.
It had felt like Anna was trying to build something between them, but she was really pretending something was already there. But there was nothing. No spark, no connection, no meaning. The journey had been worthless.
Ellie shouldn’t have run after someone who already left her.
Family was both complicated and simple.
Out of reach and sneaking up on her.
Her mother was nothing and no one, and the smugglers were now something and someone.
--
“It’s kinda pretty, ain’t it?” Joel says, gesturing to the snow-capped mountains surrounding them.
“Yeah, it’s gorgeous in Spring, Texas,” Tess grins, helping Ellie over a fence. “This whole area is covered in wildflowers.”
They’re on the outskirts of Jackson, almost back to where they were months previously. Months of danger and sleeplessness and darkness.
Risks and close calls.
For nothing.
“Sarah and I used to take hikes like this all the time,” Joel says easily. “I reckon the two of you would’ve been friends.”
Ellie nods along, thoughts elsewhere.
“Just a little bit further now,” Tess says eagerly, giving Ellie a boost onto a higher bit of ground.
Joel lends a hand to stabilise her and then pulls up Tess.
“Hey, wait,” Ellie says, looking out toward Jackson and then down at her hands. She sighs as she tries to find her words. “I’ve been meaning to tell you but, back in Boston… before I left, I was- I was somewhere I shouldn’t be with my friend. My best friend. She got bit and we didn’t know what to do so we tried to wait it out and she made me leave before she turned.”
“I’m sorry, Ellie,” Tess says quietly. “I know how hard that can be.”
“Do you think they-” Ellie rubs the back of her neck. “Do you think they’re still inside? Like they’re stuck?”
“No. No, Ellie I don’t,” Tess says. “I think they’ve moved on. They’re at peace.”
Joel is silent and awkward, but his eyes are kind.
“I’m sorry we went all that way for nothing, I-” Ellie falters, biting her lip. “You both risked so much and I don’t think I could have handled someone else dying or- or turning because of me.”
“Your friend’s death wasn’t your fault,” Tess says.
“I feel like it should have been me and not her,” Ellie admits.
“Ellie, I’ve struggled a long time with surviving,” Joel says. “But no matter what, you keep finding something to fight for.”
Ellie fidgets with her fingers, scratching at her arm. “I just-” She huffs. “I just feel like we fought through all of that for nothing. We came all this way and for what?”
“For you,” Joel says plainly.
Ellie tears up, nodding and sniffing and doing her best to keep it together.
Family is a complicated word until it isn’t, she’s never known it until she does, and she feels it constantly in Jackson.
In their meals together, in learning how to play guitar, in movie nights, in sharing books, learning how to swim, and to grow and move forward.
She tells them she loves them on her sixteenth birthday in an abandoned museum.
She tells Tess and Joel she likes girls the day that she decks someone for taunting her about Cat.
She goes hiking with Joel when she and Cat inevitably break up, finding peace in the open air.
She cries on Tess’s shoulder when Dina and Jesse get back together for the third time. A mess of complicated feelings loud in her chest.
Joel helps her practice playing her song for the end of harvest bonfire and Tess helps her pick out a shirt to wear to the town’s winter dance.
“I’m just a girl, not a threat,” Ellie says softly.
“Oh, Ellie, I think they should be terrified of you,” Dina murmurs. Her eyes are bright, she feels warm and perfect in Ellie’s arms, and she steals Ellie’s breath long before she kisses her.
She distantly hears someone calling out, too lost in the tenderness of the moment to register it properly.
“God, I-” Ellie laughs at herself and her breathlessness, eyes lingering on Dina’s affectionate smile before she kisses Dina again.
Once. Twice. Soundly and enthusiastically.
When she pulls back the second time, she notices Joel and Tess having words with Seth. They look angry and Maria seems to have put herself in the middle, mediating and ushering Seth outside.
Dina’s hand on her cheek makes her refocus.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a while,” Dina whispers playfully.
Ellie’s cheeks flush pink, smiling in disbelief, her fingers flexing on Dina’s lower back. “Me too,” Ellie admits shyly.
Dina leans her forehead against Ellie’s again, swaying them together slowly under the twinkling lights.