"Singularity" Chapter 45: "Built by Ruin and Run on Sin" [45/49]
Title: "Singularity" Chapter 45: "Built by Ruin and Run on Sin" [45/49]
Fandom: The Last of Us (first game only)
Characters: Ellie, Joel, Tommy, Maria, OCs
Pairings: Joel/Ellie
Warnings: Underage
Word Count for this chapter: 8,501
Rating (for fic as a whole): R
Author's Note: Chapter title is a lyric from the song "Ghost Train" by North Country Gentlemen
~
Joel had found that he quite liked robbing trains. And he wasn't half bad at it, to boot.
He reckoned he should feel at least a smidge bad about what he was doing. Sure, the goods came from the government/military, but it was meant to be distributed to QZs. Although he was sure that the soldiers who received the shit also skimmed off the top for themselves (and then cooked the books as needed), there was that whole... 'two wrongs don't make a right' thing. Still, Joel didn't feel even the slightest twinge of guilt: he was simply taking care of his own. (It didn't matter that they were only temporarily his own -- they were all survivors.) The way he saw it, the three of them were entitled to as fair a share as anyone else on the planet, regardless of whether they resided inside a QZ or not. They didn't take much, and what they did take, they used. It was the killing that sometimes accompanied the stealing... that's what should have sparked more guilt. But since it fell into the realm of "only if I have to" -- and basically amounted to self defense -- it didn't trouble him much, if at all. He wasn't killing women and children here -- these were grown-ass men. Perhaps not soldiers, per se (he couldn't really tell for sure)... but in Joel's eyes, they were not innocents, and "may the best man win" applied.
Best at combat, of course. No other 'best' factored into it.
It worked out nicely, having two men and a jeep for the job. The west-bound train was the one they needed, and it came through their area every seventh day, barring inclement weather, which wasn't much of a problem in these balmy summer months. On Train Day, Paul would drop Joel off near the tracks some place where he could easily hide yet still watch the train, then drive down a ways to a designated area and wait to pick him up. Easy as pie.
...On paper, anyway. In reality, it was impossible to predict all the factors involved. Even the speed of the train tended to vary. But they never ended up so far apart from one another as to be out of 'flare' range (and they could afford to sacrifice one round a week for this purpose).
There was a lot of waiting involved. That was his least favorite part about it (yes, that ranked even below the danger, on his scale). It wasn't so bad on Paul and Karma's end -- they just had to stay out of sight of the tracks but not go so far out that they wouldn't hear when the train came, and they could do some foraging or scavenging in the meantime. Karma liked to count the train cars, so sometimes she would just hang out inside a house with a view of the train while Paul scouted the area. On Joel's end, though... he couldn't go very far, and any time he moved to a different spot, he risked not being able to get back to cover quickly enough to avoid being spotted. If the train ever came to a complete stop, there was a good chance someone knew something was up. Sweet little Karma had offered to wait with him before ("it's not fair that you're always by yourself -- don't you get lonely?"). Technically, there was no reason they couldn't all wait together, but it made more sense for the two of them to go do other things and let Joel do the 'lonely' waiting. The girl's presence would be a distraction at best, a disaster at worst.
The waiting around inevitably led Joel to do some more thinking (which he was supposed to be doing anyhow as his second job, with the primary being survival-related activities). And the thinking wasn't getting him any closer to a resolution. He wasn't sure what he had expected... a sudden light bulb moment of clarity that rendered perfect sense out of all the disparate and contradictory thoughts swirling around in his head? He was probably just as likely to be struck by a goddamn bolt of lightning.
Nevertheless, he kept on thinking... unless his brain didn't want to cooperate. Today, it was hit or miss. It was maybe the fifth or sixth time he'd done this, so he'd nailed down the perfect waiting spot. If it was the right time of day, he'd be almost entirely in the shade from the moment he left it until he jumped the train. (After Ellie had cutely said it that way, rather than the colloquial hopping, Joel had started thinking of it as 'jumping' himself. ...And then she'd vowed that they would do it someday. God he missed her...) His 'people sense' apparently didn't extend to trains... possibly dulled by the fact that there were always at least two people operating it. Fortunately, the trains in use these days -- at least for this particular route -- weren't the sleek high-speed electric ones that resembled bullets. Nope, today's trains chugged along at a much more leisurely pace, and afforded plenty of opportunities to jump aboard. Armed with a crowbar, he could pry his way into just about any door and any kind of crate or container as needed. Granted, trying to open a door from the outside while pretty much hanging off of it wasn't ideal, so he stuck with the open boxcars. They still had regular doors at each end, but big open spaces on the sides where the sliding doors were either open or missing -- those were his ideal targets. Even though they were also more likely to be occupied by humans than the closed cars (chances were still good that he wouldn't encounter anyone). He wanted to pick up some more oil for the jeep this time, if possible. It was so much easier to steal oil and gas than to scavenge it, and since most thieves had no use for it, Joel felt like he could snatch a barrel here and there and still fly under the radar.
Hell... we can basically fly under the radar with the whole operation... so far, he hadn't been spotted by anyone he hadn't been able to subsequently silence. The first time... Joel had just left the body in the car. A close examination would likely reveal that the cause of death was unnatural -- strangulation -- but would anyone be able to say where it had occurred along the route? The second one was more problematic due to the guy falling off the car during their struggle. Joel had had to hop off, finish killing him real quick, then run like hell to catch back up to the train (it seemed to slow down a little when negotiating curves, so that helped). If he hadn't heeded Paul's advice about utilizing the middle cars as a starting point rather than the end, he might not have been able to catch up. After meeting up with Paul -- way the hell down the line from their estimate -- Joel had had to speak in code to let him know they needed to go dispose of the evidence... which Joel had taken care of while Paul took Karma for a little joyride.
This time, he only spent somewhere in the ballpark of two or three hours thinking (or daydreaming, as it were) when his ears perked up: it's go time! He assumed a crouching position and peered through the shrubbery; he was probably somewhere between fifty and a hundred feet away from the tracks, only susceptible to discovery if he emerged from cover too soon. He never moved an inch until at least fifteen or twenty cars had passed by -- and he didn't bother using the binoculars anymore, as they were more hindrance than help. His gut would have to tell him which car to start with, and today it would be... that blue one-- it was the last of three connected open cars, which might give him a big enough take that he didn't need to bother with any others, and far enough behind the flatcar for comfort (he'd noticed guards hanging out on or near those before... whether for the increased visibility, or to deter thieves from choosing that easy spot to hop on, or because the larger equipment and shit on there was more valuable, Joel couldn't say)(...although he would like to see someone try to make off with a goddamn forklift, guard or no guard; the things he'd seen loaded on those cars ranged from vehicles to construction equipment to heavy-duty building materials, none of it useful to a run-of-the-mill bandit).
He'd gotten the timing down pretty good by now, so he didn't start running until he knew the car would be more or less right in front of him; the running start would make the jump real easy. This time was no different, except-- is that a dude in the gray car? Could be-- Momentarily distracted, he still made the jump just fine into the blue car. He took a quick look around before he'd even righted himself, then set about checking out the cargo. The man he'd caught a glimpse of in passing had been slumped against a crate, in the first car in the line of three Joel had targeted... and might have actually been a sack of potatoes or something -- that was how uncertain Joel was about what he'd seen, being so far away and not getting more than a split-second look. It could even be a strategically-placed corpse serving as a scarecrow (or so Joel had speculated the last time he'd encountered a dead person on board). Whoever or whatever it was, no shots or threats had rang out, so there was a good chance Joel hadn't been spotted. However, based on the other shit he'd glimpsed in that car, he felt like he needed to check it out when he was done with this one. He made sure to keep himself positioned to face the door at that end while he set about his business -- and he would have done that out of habit anyhow. Joel wasn't in the habit of giving people the opportunity to sneak up on him.
Food was always the most important commodity, and there was plenty of it in this car. About half the crates were already open, which made Joel think he wasn't the first thief to hit this train. He stuffed as many cans into the satchel he'd brought for this purpose, grabbing things indiscriminately. When the bag was full, he closed the flap and crouched as low as he could, reached as far as he dared, and deposited it beside the track. It didn't stay upright, and he suspected at least a few cans had tumbled out of it, but he didn't take the time to watch (surely it had fared better than last time, when it had tumbled into a ditch and expelled every single damn can).
The nice thing about the cars with doorways being connected like this was that he never had to climb up on top or creep along the side to reach his next target; Joel crossed over to the next car easily. He scanned it for humans before entering... either that guy I saw in the next car wasn't really a guy, he was looking the other way and didn't see me, or he's asleep. Or possibly he just didn't give a shit, as long as Joel left him alone... but that seemed unlikely. No one liked being robbed, and even if this shit didn't actually belong to the men on this train, they probably felt some sense of ownership towards it. Enough to harbor a not-on-my-watch mentality, at least. Perhaps he was lying in wait for Joel, rather than pursuing him, although that didn't strike Joel as the smartest thing to do, given that he'd already looted more than he could carry from the last car and might very well have decided to hop off without even visiting that first car. Whatever the reason, no one was coming after Joel at the moment, so he was free to loot the second car. This one had...
...Huh. On top of a stack of crates nearly as tall as Joel, a mesh bag had either toppled over or been laid on its side such that its contents had started to spill out. Joel found himself practically eyeball to eyeball with an animal he couldn't help but associate with Ellie: a giraffe. ...Well, a plush version. But it was a goddamn giraffe, and it was in danger of falling to the floor and possibly out of the train to its doom. He had to take it. Maybe it's the universe's way of telling me it's time to go see her? ... ...Shit. More like, RANDOM SHIT HAPPENS sometimes, asshole. I'm sure Karma will like it. Anything he took now needed to fit inside his backpack, and the giraffe took up valuable space... but it was squishable, and he could probably even get away with tucking it into his belt if he had to.
He pulled the bag of animals close enough to cinch it up, then righted it in the corner. Food that tumbled off the train would get discovered and used, but stuffed toys like that would sooner get ruined by the elements than find their way into the hands of a child. It heartened Joel a bit just seeing that such non-necessities -- and ones clearly intended for children, at that -- had been included in this shipment.
...Not enough to abandon the train robbery. But a bit.
If this was a movie, maybe I'd rip open the giraffe and find a stash of narcotics inside... He supposed it was possible, but if someone were so inclined to discreetly move drugs across the country like that, he didn't think they'd need to go to all that trouble these days. ...Hell, what do I know? Maybe they reckon no one would bother to STEAL stuffed animals along the way, which would make 'em the safest place to hide their shit. At any rate, Karma didn't strike Joel as the type of child who would perform surgery on her toys, so the giraffe's innards didn't concern him much. The girl was also sensible enough -- or perhaps had been educated enough -- not to consume anything without running it by her dad first.
There were no other toys in that car, but Joel did help himself to some toiletries. He passed over the cleaning supplies, the fabric/clothing/what-have-you, and household things like light bulbs. With the haul he was acquiring, he didn't need to check every single crate. He was itching to get to that next car, the gray one... to search it, yes, but also to satisfy his curiosity about the man he thought he saw.
His gut... 'people sense'... whatever... was telling him it was a person -- and one that was still among the living. But he couldn't hear anything, and when he hopped over to that car and peered around the corner... Can't see shit. Whatever he'd seen was situated close enough to the edge to afford that glimpse earlier -- and he'd be facing forward, so that Joel could sneak up behind him, were it not for whatever he was leaning against. I bet at least one of those oil barrels across the way is the 5W-20 I need...
Joel crept inside the car, inching along the row of barrels...
He smelled the man before he could see him: bourbon. ...Dude is passed out DRUNK? His boots came into view first, followed by his legs... splayed out in front of him in such a way that Joel probably should have taken him for dead earlier. The guy was slumped into the side of the car, a rather large flask nestled in his crotch... his body all slack... his face all slack -- in fact, Joel still might have taken him for dead if it weren't for the clear rise and fall of his chest... and now a few twitches of his mouth. He was young. Early twenties, probably. Clean cut, youthful features... a dusting of freckles (which didn't look anywhere near as cute on him as they did on Ellie). Red hair, much lighter than Ellie's. Dressed like a soldier... but from what Joel had observed in the past, the men on these trains were more like glorified hunters than actual military. Not as well-armed, not as predictable... they just didn't feel as trained or regimented as cookie-cutter army men, anyway. They were more like army cast-offs.
Still, Joel knew better than to underestimate anyone... and the guy's sidearm did not escape his notice. I bet them long crates behind him have heavy-duty shit inside... like assault rifles. Joel and Paul were pretty well off on the weapons front. Extra ammo was always welcome, however... can't get to those crates to check with him right there, and these barrels won't have any...
He should probably just kill the kid (and forget that he looked rather like a male version of Ellie... maybe Joel was just imagining that, too. Christ!). Was there ever anyone so easy to kill as a completely shit-faced oblivious drunken bastard? But... that could very well be why Joel hesitated. The guy was clearly no threat in his current state. ...Other than being ARMED? That could be a problem. Maybe he'd been passed out for hours already and was on the verge of waking. Maybe a barrel being rolled off the train would startle him awake. Maybe... it's better to be safe than sorry. And any other applicable clichés.
Ellie didn't even kill that one soldier who tried to 'bring her in for questioning'... and she could have. She'd had the opportunity. But she'd thought about how it would affect Parker, and reckoned she and Joel could live with the consequences of not killing him. ...Actually, she hadn't done much reckoning of that sort at all, as Joel recalled -- she just plain didn't want to kill someone that Parker loved.
Joel had no such excuse here. Just... there's no harm in TRYING not to kill him. But if he wakes up, that's it.
Unfortunately, it was either a big-ass barrel of oil or nothing... and that goddamn thing was heavy. Joel managed to heft one onto the floor without smashing his foot in the process. His drunken companion stirred -- enough to freeze Joel in place with his hand over his holster -- but didn't wake. Joel hated to turn his back on the guy, but the barrel was going to have to roll out the opposite side if he wanted to spare those sprawled-out legs and thus avoid a confrontation. If they miss this barrel... maybe they won't chalk it up to thievery so much as negligence. "...Oh shit... I have no idea how it could've tipped over and rolled out... I was here the whole time..." That's what he gets for drinking on the job...
Joel lined up the barrel flush with the edge, poked his head out to make sure the train wasn't about to enter a tunnel or bridge or whatever, then gave it a decent shove. The barrel was sturdy enough not to bust open, so low to the ground. With no reason to stay on the train any longer, he collected himself for a moment, and then--
Shit!
He jumped -- but he shouldn't have, because in the moment he committed to the jump, he could hear (or maybe feel?) the guard waking up. Should've just killed the son of a bitch to begin with--
A gunshot rang out. Even though Joel's landing was pretty clean, he tucked himself into a roll to keep low... as he was untucking himself from the roll, a second shot sent him scrambling for cover so he could gather his wits about him. That one was way too close! Hunkering down behind the nearest tree, he caught his breath and readied his shotgun. The train was still chugging by, which severely hindered his listening ability... did the bastard actually get off the train? A quick peek confirmed that indeed he had -- and the train was slowing down -- probably coming to a stop. Either the engineer had heard the shots, or the freckled sentry had signaled him somehow.
"Come on out, motherfucker!"
Joel took another peek, and this time, he didn't even see the guy; he must have taken cover as well. Joel hadn't even so much as threatened him... but I reckon he took note of my gear... I better rotate a little... If the soldier meant to sneak around and get the angle on him, Joel didn't intend to present an easy target for him. However, he also didn't intend to waste time playing peek-a-boo with him when he reckoned there were at least two more men on the way. He already knows where I'm at... and he don't have one of them assault rifles... "Let me guess," Joel called back. "You won't hurt me -- is that right?"
"Not if you surrender peacefully!"
...Yeahhhhhh. (It could possibly be true -- and was probably the official protocol -- but in Joel's experience, they found it a whole hell of a lot easier to just kill you. It wasn't like they'd be held accountable for it.) Joel still couldn't see the guy, but now he'd pinpointed his location: that tree on the left. He aimed... moved tantalizingly out of cover...
As soon as Joel caught sight of movement -- something emerging from behind that tree -- he fired. --Got him! Right in the face.
But then... what the hell? ...sounds like Infected... After spending weeks in this area, Joel figured he should have flushed out any and all of those already. Was it the gunshots? Maybe the train noise was just like the wind to them... The train was loud, but gunshots were piercing. Joel's ear hurt just thinking about that. At any rate, they weren't extremely close; Joel had time to take cover again... time to think -- and this sort of tactical thinking didn't hurt his brain, like the other kind sometimes did. He moved to a cluster of boulder-type rocks, about fifty feet farther back, away from the tracks and the dead man.
Pretty sure Paul's gonna come over and check things out... especially when he realizes the train stopped. He won't bring Karma with him -- and, unlike Ellie with me, she'll actually obey him and stay put when it's important. ...Not that I think Ellie should OBEY me, exactly, as she's a lot older and everything... just... -Right, FOCUS. I can do this without Paul. What've we got: two guys coming back here, probably more prepared for a fight than this poor drunken kid, and at least two Runners headed this way from the north.
They just needed to fight each other.
He could see one of the Runners now... They've already 'lost the scent.' I'll help them find it... with... ? He really wished he had that satchel of food handy. The canned goods would work well. As would the soldier's thermos-sized flask... but no way had he taken that with him. If he had, he wouldn't have gotten those two shots off so quickly. No matter, he's too far away--
Joel decided he may as well dig out a smoke bomb. They were mostly helpful in situations where he needed to sneak by people rather than take them out, or in large groups where he could use the temporary blinding to his advantage. In this case, it would serve to simply make enough noise to draw both groups closer together. He should be able to chuck it out there far enough that it wouldn't even blind them to each other's presence -- they would spot each other while moving toward the source of the noise.
He waited. That one Runner was definitely close enough to react to the sound, and if it screeched, its buddies would come investigate.
What will the soldiers do? Catch sight of Infected and run the other way? "Well, we know what happened here -- let's beat it!"
Although a lot of soldiers seemed to get off on killing, so maybe they'd charge right in. And to be fair, it was possible they weren't even supposed to be real soldiers. Hired hands off the street... or out of a QZ?... whose sole purpose was to transport goods from Point A to Point B. In the old days, such folks would never be given the honor of dressing in army fatigues and whatnot... but of course, rules were different now.
I don't care WHAT they are: if they see me and realize what went down here, they're dead. Even if they DON'T see me... I don't know if Freckles gave them some kind of signal. He couldn't've told them much, seeing as how he hopped off of there so quick, but all it takes is some kind of little transmitter to relay a simple code. I better just toss this thing now before they get TOO close--
Joel couldn't hear any soldiers approaching yet -- and the large rock formations on this side obscured his view down the line -- but ideally, even if his throw wasn't perfect, the smoke would dissipate before they arrived on the scene and found the Runners near their comrade's body. The train was completely out of sight from his spot, but he knew roughly where it had come to a stop, and the last car wasn't that far down the line. He readied the bomb, aimed at a spot on the opposite side of the tracks to give himself a little breathing room, and lobbed it out there.
He held his breath and listened, staying completely out of sight. At first, he only heard the screeching of the Runners. Then...
"Jesus fucking Christ! What the fuck was that!"
"Infected... with bombs?"
"All that smoke--"
...And the chatter died down as the men drew closer. The Runners were still in high alert mode for the moment... moving right along, past Joel...
"Ahhh!"
A barrage of gunfire. More screeching.
"Damn, bro."
"Shut up -- there might be more!"
"Nah... we'd've seen 'em by now."
"I dunno... there's lots of trees'n'shit, dude... and where's Matthews?"
"...MATTHEEEEEEWS!"
"Dude!"
"What? I just told you--"
Joel scooted over enough to peek around the side of the boulder -- the side farther away from them -- and realized he shouldn't have moved just yet. Goddamnit! Barreling through the trees behind him was a straggler--
The soldiers would probably hear the high-pitched whining noise coming from this... this girl. She definitely had her sights set on Joel. And she was definitely in the beginning stages of infection. One of the earliest stages he'd seen. He was struck by her curly hair and ghostly-pale skin...
It ain't THAT girl -- she's too old -- more like Ellie's age -- and her hair's browner --
He heard the soldiers coming -- watched the girl flying toward him --
--And snapped out of his momentary paralysis. In fact, he snapped out of it so hard that he emptied the rest of the shotgun's bullets into the girl. Which was pretty damn stupid, since he'd obviously just given away his location and these two assholes were about to flank him with an unloaded--
"Matthews!"
...Of course -- they'll think I'm their buddy! ...Except they were about to discover Freckles' body, out in the open as it was, and they would conclude that he was not the source of those shots Joel had just fired.
"Oh fuck -- oh my God... Matthews..."
One glance at the body would tell them the guy was dead. Joel couldn't hear what they said to each other next, but he knew they were conspiring to surround him. No pretense about offering surrender this time.
Joel had taken those few moments to switch guns. The Shorty was cocked and ready to take out the one coming around the right side, if Joel could just get him before the left dude made it around to--
-Another gunshot!
From the train--
Joel's target was clearly alarmed by this, giving Joel all the advantage he needed -- he moved and fired in one swift motion. The man staggered backward and fell, his assault rifle thumping harmlessly on the ground. Before Joel could duck back behind cover, another shot rang out -- a rifle, from the train... no, in front of the train -- er, behind it, technically -- it was Paul. The other soldier was now dead.
The guy who'd taken the Shorty bullet was still twitching and sputtering; Joel put an end to that by crushing his windpipe with the heel of his boot.
-Where's Ellie? Is she--
...Shit. Even after all this time?
While Ellie was never very far from his thoughts, it was usually only first thing in the morning that he actually forgot she wasn't with him. And not every morning, at that. Why his goddamn brain could register that fact during a hostile encounter, yet not immediately afterward, Joel couldn't say. This wasn't the first time it had happened; if it had been the first time, he might've been able to blame it on the memory he'd started to have regarding Ellie's invariable reaction to that particular brand of finishing a guy off. (Half disgust, half admiration.) (...Although he hadn't even crushed the man's face this time, just his neck.)
FOCUS, ASSHOLE--
Joel glanced around, but his gut was already telling him that the danger had passed. -The immediate danger, that is. There could be aftermath from this...
Paul was jogging towards him now, so Joel helped him out by meeting him halfway. They did the fist bump thing they'd gotten accustomed to doing on Train Day reunions.
"You okay, man?" Paul's relieved smile faded as he looked at Joel up close. "Other than your ear... shit..."
"My ear?" Joel instinctively raised his hand to where Paul was looking: his right ear. What he felt was warm and wet-- blood? How the hell...
"You didn't know?" Paul marveled. "How does it not hurt?"
"It does, some," Joel realized... and the blood spatters on his shirt weren't from his victim. That second bullet that whizzed by real close? "I guess I just... the adrenaline an' whatnot..."
"It's still bleeding. Hang on a sec, lemme get you a rag--"
"We need to get outta here," Joel protested. "They might've called someone from the train."
But Paul was already rooting around in his bag for a clean rag. "You think they did?"
"No idea. Where's the jeep at?" If a helicopter spots that--
"In a carport, don't worry. Here... I think we should clean it and dress it before heading--"
"We don't have time for that," Joel grumbled, but he did press the rag to his head.
"It won't take me that long. You want it to get infected?"
Joel sighed. "Fine -- but a half-ass job will do. I can full-ass it later... when we're somewhere safe. How far away is Karma? You got here awful quick."
"She was counting the cars -- we were close. Prob'ly... a quarter mile or so?" Paul estimated.
"I reckon she's pretty freaked out, yeah? Let's get back there and I'll apply pressure to this thing on the way."
Paul was amenable to this. He had taken the jeep and left his daughter in a safe area, so they could actually do the collecting and loading now, but Joel couldn’t help feeling more comfortable about things when they were all together, and he got the sense Paul felt the same way. Also, with the train stopped, they could possibly loot even more.
"Do you know how it happened?” Paul asked him. “Or, more importantly, where? If you maybe want to, uh... find the missing piece..."
Joel quirked an eyebrow at him. "Missin' piece? Shit -- how bad is it?"
"It's like... this much..." Paul traced the upper half of his own ear as measurement.
"Never mind -- it was a bullet that grazed me. Prob'ly blew that bit to shreds anyhow. Let's just--"
"Holy shit, man -- if that had been even an inch to the right... your left, I mean..."
"Yeah." Maybe more like a couple of inches to do serious damage. Don't tell Ellie... ...sure, 'cause maybe it will grow back by the time I see her again?
Aside from Ellie, of course, Paul was Joel's preferred co-pilot on the Outside. On the way back, Joel didn't even have to ask him to hold the questions or tale-trading talk for later. Paul was of the same mindset as Joel on this -- as every survivor should be, really, but some people got lax about things due to shit not happening most of the time. There was some luck involved with survival, yes, but a lot of it was just plain common sense. And although Paul might not have been quite so inclined as Joel to kill rather than spare people when possible, Joel knew he'd be on the same page this time once Joel laid it out for him. Hell -- Paul might have just killed that first man quietly, the way Joel should have. That would have prevented their current predicament entirely. If he'd been with Tommy, on the other hand... Joel shuddered to think of the lectures on the slate for tonight. And Ellie thinks MINE are bad? ...Truth be told, there would be more arguing than lecturing going on, actually.
Maybe he wasn't being fair to Tommy here; Tommy did admit that he probably would've done the same thing as Joel in Salt Lake City, after all. But... still. Joel had known what he had to do from the second that bitch Marlene had confessed Ellie's fate to him. Tommy would have been conflicted... and by the time he came around, would it have been too late? Plus, the odds of one man versus a shitload...
-It don't matter now. Ellie is NOT better off with you, asshole. You've proven that time and again. I'm sure Tommy's looking after her just fine. Assuming he made it back to Jackson... and Joel had to assume that, for his own peace of mind. Worrying about all the possible outcomes wouldn't do anyone any good. (Easier said than done, sometimes, but when the target of his worrying was anyone but Ellie, Joel usually didn't have too hard of a time shelving it.) Maria was pretty much tethered to the house with the newborn, so at least Joel knew she would be there for Ellie.
There was no sign of Karma when they pulled up to the house where Paul had left her; he hadn't told her to hide, per se, but he had said to stay away from the windows, and Joel was glad to see that she had listened. At least I hope that's-- STOP IT. Of course that's why. He stopped Paul before they headed inside. "Maybe I should stay out here..."
"What, 'cause of the blood?" Paul tsked. "She's not all that squeamish. Come on in."
Joel hung back while Paul called out to her, though. The little girl came flying down the stairs before Paul had even made it halfway up. "Daddyyyyyyy! I thought I heard you but I couldn't look out the window to check!"
...He just didn't hang back enough not to see Paul swoop her up in his arms. And I can't even look away. Even though I miss my baby girl so damn much it hurts... Despite the reassurances Paul must have given her prior to leaving, Karma had clearly been scared for him. The relief -- the love -- was plastered all over her face. And to think Paul would even CONSIDER giving her up, wanting to send her off to Jackson when we met... would she ever love anyone else the way she loved her father? How could she? It would never be the same. To dismiss that bond... to claim that he was replaceable... Shit. I would give anything for Ellie to come barreling down that staircase right now...
No -- I don't mean that. That's SELFISH. And I am NOT her father -- it's different.
Joel was glad she was safe. And hopefully happy, by now... now that he'd been gone a while... settling into being Grayson's big sister... and the kid's most likely recovered from that virus or whatever it was now -- Maria DID take him to the clinic and he wasn't that bad off, so...
Paul set Karma down (and he'd pivoted so that she wasn't facing Joel), then briefly explained to her that Joel had gotten a little hurt but he was okay, that he just had a wound that needed proper cleaning and dressing.
"Like when I get hurt enough that there's blood and you clean it for me?" she asked.
"Yes, like that, except with a little more blood," Paul replied.
"Because he's bigger," Karma reasoned.
"...Yeah. Sure. Soooo if you want to go back upstairs while I--"
"No! I'll help you!" Karma turned to look for Joel -- and he must have been a sight, because she gasped. "Uncle Joel, are you really okay???"
Joel chuckled as she ran up to him. "I'm fine. I don't think you need to help me, though, 'cause this--"
"Yes I do!" she insisted. "What if Daddy needs me to do it for him some time and I don't know how?"
No kid that young should have to think that way, but... that's Old World thinking, on my part. Reality is, she's right. Just... "That's real nice of you, but..." He looked to Paul for direction.
"You do such a good job taking care of me," Paul told her with a smile.
"Yeah. Just like Ellie takes care of Joel. Since she's not here right now, I think she'd like it if I took care of him for her! Don't you think so, Uncle Joel?"
Joel's chest did that uncomfortable tightening thing again, but he managed to speak in an almost-normal-sounding voice. "I bet she'd like that, yeah. Only I bet she'd also tell you to leave the gross stuff to your dad. You don' need to see... what's under this rag."
"Joel's right, sweetie. But you can stay here if you want, and I'll explain what I'm doing. Just don't look at the wound, okay?"
"It ain't pretty," Joel added. He didn't need to see it for himself to know that much.
"I still wanna see it," she said crossly. "What's the big deal? I've already seen the blood."
Paul thought for a moment. "You might get upset. It might give you nightmares. Remember the ones you used to have about the bunnies?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, when I was like... six. I'm older now! And I've seen a million dead bunnies since then."
It was so... Ellie. The eye-rolling... the exasperated declaration... the exaggerated rabbit count...
"Well, I don't want you having a different kind after you see--"
"But you have to look at it, don't you? To do the stuff -- the cleaning? And bandaging? I'm just as brave as you, aren't I?"
Paul chuckled. "You are. And now I s'pose you have a morbid curiosity, so if you really want to see it... and Joel doesn't mind the freak show treatment..."
"I just wanna get this show on the road so we can finish up out there," Joel said truthfully.
"Right right right -- okay, why don't we... sit over here, then..." He indicated a couch in the living room -- a couch which, like most furniture they encountered, had clearly seen better days, but they weren't going to find anything that passed for a sterile environment out here.
Karma watched the proceedings calmly, listening to her dad explain as he extracted things from the first aid kit and set up shop on the coffee table in front of Joel, laying the items out on a clean towel. The sight of all the blood on Joel's clothes... his hand... the rag... it didn't seem to faze her. This kid has an iron stomach, Joel thought appreciatively. He was pretty sure the bleeding had been stymied by now, so he slowly lowered the rag from the side of his head.
The little girl avidly watched the unveiling -- and promptly shrieked in horror.
* * * * * * * *
No one came for the train over the next day or so, leading Joel to believe that the men hadn't been able to contact their base or anyone with the capability of remedying the situation. Maybe they just can't remedy it that QUICKLY... Joel assumed that was an eventuality, once the train was reported as egregiously late. Paul agreed it would be best to lay low for a bit, even after the train shipments resumed. They took advantage of the opportunity to search each car on this one thoroughly, pilfering things here and there, as well as helping themselves to entire crates full of goods. They rearranged what they weren't taking to hide the missing loot as best they could (although surely at this point, a little thievery by anyone passing through was to be expected).
They had also rearranged the 'crime scene' to adhere more to their chosen narrative: the soldiers had either spotted Infected or been ambushed by them, and had nobly given their lives taking them out. It wasn't a perfect narrative: three dead Runners and three dead soldiers who had conveniently all killed each other, no survivors? But perhaps there had been a larger group, with the surviving Infected ambling off to... wherever. If enough time passed, they could have dispersed to parts unknown... perhaps been killed by others so that from afar (that is, from above), they simply blended in with the other corpses rotting in the countryside.
The freckled kid as a victim of Infected was an easy sell; his face was such a mess that clearly the Runner now situated beside him had been going to town on him before the other soldiers had ended it by pumping the creature full of lead. As for the other two... well, Joel had mangled the one a bit, but it was still clear he'd suffered a gunshot wound to the chest. Paul's man was obviously killed by a bullet as well. If no one actually took a close look, it was staged just fine. But the military might want to recover the bodies -- it wasn't like they were in a ravine or somewhere like that where it would be hard to fetch them... hell, they could just toss them on the train.
So, Joel and Paul agreed to add some flair to the narrative: all three men had been drinking. There was enough booze splashed onto their skin and clothing to make that obvious... at least until the next rains came. Since summer rain wasn't exactly uncommon, each man was given a bottle from one of the crates (a crate that neither Joel nor Paul had any interest in looting for themselves, as drinking Outside was just plain stupid), and each bottle had little or no alcohol remaining in it. As Paul could attest to, drunk people had no business firing guns... anything could happen. Friendly fire, even.
Yeah, still a bit of a stretch... one man could perhaps be hit that way, but two out of three?
It would have to do. It was better than hiding the bodies, possibly triggering a search of the area (which was a risk regardless, but perhaps they wouldn't be too thorough after so many days had gone by since the incident?). They had even toyed with the idea of starting the train and sending it on its way engineer-less, at a slow speed... but, assuming they could even figure out how to do that, they ended up deeming it unnecessarily reckless.
They took care to keep the jeep out of sight while they worked, only pulling it alongside the tracks to load the oil barrel. Everything else could be lugged into the shady patch of trees and loaded there. Joel kept his ears ever-perked for the whirring of a helicopter. Well, the ONE ear, anyhow...
The unsightly ear still had a bandage over it, the gauze wrapped around his head. He could still hear out of it (as he had assured poor Karma: "the outside part is just for decoration, and as an ugly old dude, I don' need to look pretty -- I ain't really hurt, see?" ...which probably wasn't much of an exaggeration), just not well enough to deliver adequate warning as far as hearing-related danger detection was concerned. Paul was on alert too, of course, and he was capable... but Joel couldn't help trusting his own instincts better than anyone else's. Besides, Paul was distracted by his daughter. Karma had begged them to let her help search the train (although her 'searching' was more like playing), and it really was more convenient to keep her with them when there was no immediate danger, so Paul told her to stay close to him, and not enter any cars until he or Joel had cleared them. Joel, however, stuck more to the back cars -- the better to keep Karma from seeing all the bodies. (They might have downplayed the attack just a bit when answering her questions about what had happened.)
Karma, bless her heart, was generally super-conscious of making sure Joel never felt like that proverbial third wheel. It was sweet, albeit unnecessary. He was the odd man out; there was no getting around that. It was fine. He wasn't... jealous, or anything like that. Did he wish Ellie was there to balance things out? Hell yes he did. But she wasn't, and that was his own doing. Sooner or later, he was going to have to figure out how to move forward... with or without her.
The sooner the better, because that gaping Ellie-shaped wound is going to open right back up if I end up leaving again, no matter how long we're apart. For him, at least... he couldn't speak for her. She might be farther down this road than he was. At any rate, Ellie deserved a resolution. Closure, if nothing else. Yes, closure was a 'luxury item' these days (hell -- even in the old days), but he could give her that... or at least approximate it...
Except that ain't what I want. I want... HER. To see her smile, and laugh -- to MAKE her smile and laugh. To make her happy. Kiss her lips, touch her skin, pet her hair... feel the weight of her in my arms... to tell her how I feel... I can't really ever find the words to describe it adequately-- but I WANT to. I want to try. To let her know how very special she is. And, by God, yes, I want to make love to her... therein lies the problem.
More and more, he felt like he couldn't make this decision on his own. That he needed to talk it through with her. But logically, that made no sense; he and Ellie had never seen eye to eye on this problem. Talking to her would only be beneficial if she decided she didn't want him back. He could see her reaching the point where she'd had it with his bullshit. There you go: decision made. He could live with that.
He was living it: life without Ellie was not exactly hell. It had its unbearable moments, sure, but it wasn't hell. Now, a world without Ellie in it? That was a whole different animal. That would be... intolerable. Unfathomable. Knowing she was safe in Jackson went a long way towards making his life... not hell.
But I DON'T know that for sure. Maybe she left again. Maybe shit happened. I WON'T KNOW... until I lay eyes on her.
That was just... life, though, wasn't it? You couldn't just check in with family and friends through Facebook. Everyone Joel knew back in Boston could be dead now. Everyone he'd ever met, regardless of where -- even Jacksonites. There were a dozen people either dead or unaccounted for between the time they'd left for Monterey and the time they'd returned. His own brother might not have made it back, for all he knew. ...To be honest, that may have been one reason Joel was reluctant to return; sometimes it was better not to know. Although it would sure be easier to leave if the whole town hated me, Ellie included...
Now would be a good time to leave, since Paul didn't really need his help -- especially with no train robberies in their immediate future. And they were extremely well-provisioned, after this extended one. They had extra gas, oil, and even tires for the jeep... enough ammo and nonperishables to live on for months... he knew Paul liked the security of having Joel around, but he didn't need him. Joel had shared what he'd learned about the dissolved Boise QZ, and after a camp fire brainstorming session, Paul had decided to make his way to the Idaho medical center instead, with the hope of joining forces with others there -- those who were not Jackson-bound, assuming such folks existed in the area. It was worth a shot. If things worked out, he would need Joel even less. Karma had gotten used to Joel being around, but Joel made sure to keep reminding her that he was 'just visiting' and would be leaving again someday (he had to catch himself from pointing out that the sooner he left, the sooner he could return for another visit with Ellie -- because he didn't need to be promising things that might never happen).
The problem was... well, Joel felt like he ought to have his shit together before he went back home. That was the whole point of the break, after all. Signs might be pointing towards him going back, but he was still waiting for that lightning bolt of clarity to strike him with all the answers first. I need a sign to tell me what the right course of--
--What the hell was that?
Joel abandoned the toolbox he'd been examining and moved to the doorway of the car, staying out of sight for the most part as he tried to determine the source of the noise... to the south, in those trees maybe? Paul was probably fifteen or twenty cars away and wouldn't have heard it. This one's on me...
A flash of movement caught Joel's eye and he whipped out a gun.
Oh my God--
~Continue to Chapter 46~
Fandom: The Last of Us (first game only)
Characters: Ellie, Joel, Tommy, Maria, OCs
Pairings: Joel/Ellie
Warnings: Underage
Word Count for this chapter: 8,501
Rating (for fic as a whole): R
Author's Note: Chapter title is a lyric from the song "Ghost Train" by North Country Gentlemen
~
Joel had found that he quite liked robbing trains. And he wasn't half bad at it, to boot.
He reckoned he should feel at least a smidge bad about what he was doing. Sure, the goods came from the government/military, but it was meant to be distributed to QZs. Although he was sure that the soldiers who received the shit also skimmed off the top for themselves (and then cooked the books as needed), there was that whole... 'two wrongs don't make a right' thing. Still, Joel didn't feel even the slightest twinge of guilt: he was simply taking care of his own. (It didn't matter that they were only temporarily his own -- they were all survivors.) The way he saw it, the three of them were entitled to as fair a share as anyone else on the planet, regardless of whether they resided inside a QZ or not. They didn't take much, and what they did take, they used. It was the killing that sometimes accompanied the stealing... that's what should have sparked more guilt. But since it fell into the realm of "only if I have to" -- and basically amounted to self defense -- it didn't trouble him much, if at all. He wasn't killing women and children here -- these were grown-ass men. Perhaps not soldiers, per se (he couldn't really tell for sure)... but in Joel's eyes, they were not innocents, and "may the best man win" applied.
Best at combat, of course. No other 'best' factored into it.
It worked out nicely, having two men and a jeep for the job. The west-bound train was the one they needed, and it came through their area every seventh day, barring inclement weather, which wasn't much of a problem in these balmy summer months. On Train Day, Paul would drop Joel off near the tracks some place where he could easily hide yet still watch the train, then drive down a ways to a designated area and wait to pick him up. Easy as pie.
...On paper, anyway. In reality, it was impossible to predict all the factors involved. Even the speed of the train tended to vary. But they never ended up so far apart from one another as to be out of 'flare' range (and they could afford to sacrifice one round a week for this purpose).
There was a lot of waiting involved. That was his least favorite part about it (yes, that ranked even below the danger, on his scale). It wasn't so bad on Paul and Karma's end -- they just had to stay out of sight of the tracks but not go so far out that they wouldn't hear when the train came, and they could do some foraging or scavenging in the meantime. Karma liked to count the train cars, so sometimes she would just hang out inside a house with a view of the train while Paul scouted the area. On Joel's end, though... he couldn't go very far, and any time he moved to a different spot, he risked not being able to get back to cover quickly enough to avoid being spotted. If the train ever came to a complete stop, there was a good chance someone knew something was up. Sweet little Karma had offered to wait with him before ("it's not fair that you're always by yourself -- don't you get lonely?"). Technically, there was no reason they couldn't all wait together, but it made more sense for the two of them to go do other things and let Joel do the 'lonely' waiting. The girl's presence would be a distraction at best, a disaster at worst.
The waiting around inevitably led Joel to do some more thinking (which he was supposed to be doing anyhow as his second job, with the primary being survival-related activities). And the thinking wasn't getting him any closer to a resolution. He wasn't sure what he had expected... a sudden light bulb moment of clarity that rendered perfect sense out of all the disparate and contradictory thoughts swirling around in his head? He was probably just as likely to be struck by a goddamn bolt of lightning.
Nevertheless, he kept on thinking... unless his brain didn't want to cooperate. Today, it was hit or miss. It was maybe the fifth or sixth time he'd done this, so he'd nailed down the perfect waiting spot. If it was the right time of day, he'd be almost entirely in the shade from the moment he left it until he jumped the train. (After Ellie had cutely said it that way, rather than the colloquial hopping, Joel had started thinking of it as 'jumping' himself. ...And then she'd vowed that they would do it someday. God he missed her...) His 'people sense' apparently didn't extend to trains... possibly dulled by the fact that there were always at least two people operating it. Fortunately, the trains in use these days -- at least for this particular route -- weren't the sleek high-speed electric ones that resembled bullets. Nope, today's trains chugged along at a much more leisurely pace, and afforded plenty of opportunities to jump aboard. Armed with a crowbar, he could pry his way into just about any door and any kind of crate or container as needed. Granted, trying to open a door from the outside while pretty much hanging off of it wasn't ideal, so he stuck with the open boxcars. They still had regular doors at each end, but big open spaces on the sides where the sliding doors were either open or missing -- those were his ideal targets. Even though they were also more likely to be occupied by humans than the closed cars (chances were still good that he wouldn't encounter anyone). He wanted to pick up some more oil for the jeep this time, if possible. It was so much easier to steal oil and gas than to scavenge it, and since most thieves had no use for it, Joel felt like he could snatch a barrel here and there and still fly under the radar.
Hell... we can basically fly under the radar with the whole operation... so far, he hadn't been spotted by anyone he hadn't been able to subsequently silence. The first time... Joel had just left the body in the car. A close examination would likely reveal that the cause of death was unnatural -- strangulation -- but would anyone be able to say where it had occurred along the route? The second one was more problematic due to the guy falling off the car during their struggle. Joel had had to hop off, finish killing him real quick, then run like hell to catch back up to the train (it seemed to slow down a little when negotiating curves, so that helped). If he hadn't heeded Paul's advice about utilizing the middle cars as a starting point rather than the end, he might not have been able to catch up. After meeting up with Paul -- way the hell down the line from their estimate -- Joel had had to speak in code to let him know they needed to go dispose of the evidence... which Joel had taken care of while Paul took Karma for a little joyride.
This time, he only spent somewhere in the ballpark of two or three hours thinking (or daydreaming, as it were) when his ears perked up: it's go time! He assumed a crouching position and peered through the shrubbery; he was probably somewhere between fifty and a hundred feet away from the tracks, only susceptible to discovery if he emerged from cover too soon. He never moved an inch until at least fifteen or twenty cars had passed by -- and he didn't bother using the binoculars anymore, as they were more hindrance than help. His gut would have to tell him which car to start with, and today it would be... that blue one-- it was the last of three connected open cars, which might give him a big enough take that he didn't need to bother with any others, and far enough behind the flatcar for comfort (he'd noticed guards hanging out on or near those before... whether for the increased visibility, or to deter thieves from choosing that easy spot to hop on, or because the larger equipment and shit on there was more valuable, Joel couldn't say)(...although he would like to see someone try to make off with a goddamn forklift, guard or no guard; the things he'd seen loaded on those cars ranged from vehicles to construction equipment to heavy-duty building materials, none of it useful to a run-of-the-mill bandit).
He'd gotten the timing down pretty good by now, so he didn't start running until he knew the car would be more or less right in front of him; the running start would make the jump real easy. This time was no different, except-- is that a dude in the gray car? Could be-- Momentarily distracted, he still made the jump just fine into the blue car. He took a quick look around before he'd even righted himself, then set about checking out the cargo. The man he'd caught a glimpse of in passing had been slumped against a crate, in the first car in the line of three Joel had targeted... and might have actually been a sack of potatoes or something -- that was how uncertain Joel was about what he'd seen, being so far away and not getting more than a split-second look. It could even be a strategically-placed corpse serving as a scarecrow (or so Joel had speculated the last time he'd encountered a dead person on board). Whoever or whatever it was, no shots or threats had rang out, so there was a good chance Joel hadn't been spotted. However, based on the other shit he'd glimpsed in that car, he felt like he needed to check it out when he was done with this one. He made sure to keep himself positioned to face the door at that end while he set about his business -- and he would have done that out of habit anyhow. Joel wasn't in the habit of giving people the opportunity to sneak up on him.
Food was always the most important commodity, and there was plenty of it in this car. About half the crates were already open, which made Joel think he wasn't the first thief to hit this train. He stuffed as many cans into the satchel he'd brought for this purpose, grabbing things indiscriminately. When the bag was full, he closed the flap and crouched as low as he could, reached as far as he dared, and deposited it beside the track. It didn't stay upright, and he suspected at least a few cans had tumbled out of it, but he didn't take the time to watch (surely it had fared better than last time, when it had tumbled into a ditch and expelled every single damn can).
The nice thing about the cars with doorways being connected like this was that he never had to climb up on top or creep along the side to reach his next target; Joel crossed over to the next car easily. He scanned it for humans before entering... either that guy I saw in the next car wasn't really a guy, he was looking the other way and didn't see me, or he's asleep. Or possibly he just didn't give a shit, as long as Joel left him alone... but that seemed unlikely. No one liked being robbed, and even if this shit didn't actually belong to the men on this train, they probably felt some sense of ownership towards it. Enough to harbor a not-on-my-watch mentality, at least. Perhaps he was lying in wait for Joel, rather than pursuing him, although that didn't strike Joel as the smartest thing to do, given that he'd already looted more than he could carry from the last car and might very well have decided to hop off without even visiting that first car. Whatever the reason, no one was coming after Joel at the moment, so he was free to loot the second car. This one had...
...Huh. On top of a stack of crates nearly as tall as Joel, a mesh bag had either toppled over or been laid on its side such that its contents had started to spill out. Joel found himself practically eyeball to eyeball with an animal he couldn't help but associate with Ellie: a giraffe. ...Well, a plush version. But it was a goddamn giraffe, and it was in danger of falling to the floor and possibly out of the train to its doom. He had to take it. Maybe it's the universe's way of telling me it's time to go see her? ... ...Shit. More like, RANDOM SHIT HAPPENS sometimes, asshole. I'm sure Karma will like it. Anything he took now needed to fit inside his backpack, and the giraffe took up valuable space... but it was squishable, and he could probably even get away with tucking it into his belt if he had to.
He pulled the bag of animals close enough to cinch it up, then righted it in the corner. Food that tumbled off the train would get discovered and used, but stuffed toys like that would sooner get ruined by the elements than find their way into the hands of a child. It heartened Joel a bit just seeing that such non-necessities -- and ones clearly intended for children, at that -- had been included in this shipment.
...Not enough to abandon the train robbery. But a bit.
If this was a movie, maybe I'd rip open the giraffe and find a stash of narcotics inside... He supposed it was possible, but if someone were so inclined to discreetly move drugs across the country like that, he didn't think they'd need to go to all that trouble these days. ...Hell, what do I know? Maybe they reckon no one would bother to STEAL stuffed animals along the way, which would make 'em the safest place to hide their shit. At any rate, Karma didn't strike Joel as the type of child who would perform surgery on her toys, so the giraffe's innards didn't concern him much. The girl was also sensible enough -- or perhaps had been educated enough -- not to consume anything without running it by her dad first.
There were no other toys in that car, but Joel did help himself to some toiletries. He passed over the cleaning supplies, the fabric/clothing/what-have-you, and household things like light bulbs. With the haul he was acquiring, he didn't need to check every single crate. He was itching to get to that next car, the gray one... to search it, yes, but also to satisfy his curiosity about the man he thought he saw.
His gut... 'people sense'... whatever... was telling him it was a person -- and one that was still among the living. But he couldn't hear anything, and when he hopped over to that car and peered around the corner... Can't see shit. Whatever he'd seen was situated close enough to the edge to afford that glimpse earlier -- and he'd be facing forward, so that Joel could sneak up behind him, were it not for whatever he was leaning against. I bet at least one of those oil barrels across the way is the 5W-20 I need...
Joel crept inside the car, inching along the row of barrels...
He smelled the man before he could see him: bourbon. ...Dude is passed out DRUNK? His boots came into view first, followed by his legs... splayed out in front of him in such a way that Joel probably should have taken him for dead earlier. The guy was slumped into the side of the car, a rather large flask nestled in his crotch... his body all slack... his face all slack -- in fact, Joel still might have taken him for dead if it weren't for the clear rise and fall of his chest... and now a few twitches of his mouth. He was young. Early twenties, probably. Clean cut, youthful features... a dusting of freckles (which didn't look anywhere near as cute on him as they did on Ellie). Red hair, much lighter than Ellie's. Dressed like a soldier... but from what Joel had observed in the past, the men on these trains were more like glorified hunters than actual military. Not as well-armed, not as predictable... they just didn't feel as trained or regimented as cookie-cutter army men, anyway. They were more like army cast-offs.
Still, Joel knew better than to underestimate anyone... and the guy's sidearm did not escape his notice. I bet them long crates behind him have heavy-duty shit inside... like assault rifles. Joel and Paul were pretty well off on the weapons front. Extra ammo was always welcome, however... can't get to those crates to check with him right there, and these barrels won't have any...
He should probably just kill the kid (and forget that he looked rather like a male version of Ellie... maybe Joel was just imagining that, too. Christ!). Was there ever anyone so easy to kill as a completely shit-faced oblivious drunken bastard? But... that could very well be why Joel hesitated. The guy was clearly no threat in his current state. ...Other than being ARMED? That could be a problem. Maybe he'd been passed out for hours already and was on the verge of waking. Maybe a barrel being rolled off the train would startle him awake. Maybe... it's better to be safe than sorry. And any other applicable clichés.
Ellie didn't even kill that one soldier who tried to 'bring her in for questioning'... and she could have. She'd had the opportunity. But she'd thought about how it would affect Parker, and reckoned she and Joel could live with the consequences of not killing him. ...Actually, she hadn't done much reckoning of that sort at all, as Joel recalled -- she just plain didn't want to kill someone that Parker loved.
Joel had no such excuse here. Just... there's no harm in TRYING not to kill him. But if he wakes up, that's it.
Unfortunately, it was either a big-ass barrel of oil or nothing... and that goddamn thing was heavy. Joel managed to heft one onto the floor without smashing his foot in the process. His drunken companion stirred -- enough to freeze Joel in place with his hand over his holster -- but didn't wake. Joel hated to turn his back on the guy, but the barrel was going to have to roll out the opposite side if he wanted to spare those sprawled-out legs and thus avoid a confrontation. If they miss this barrel... maybe they won't chalk it up to thievery so much as negligence. "...Oh shit... I have no idea how it could've tipped over and rolled out... I was here the whole time..." That's what he gets for drinking on the job...
Joel lined up the barrel flush with the edge, poked his head out to make sure the train wasn't about to enter a tunnel or bridge or whatever, then gave it a decent shove. The barrel was sturdy enough not to bust open, so low to the ground. With no reason to stay on the train any longer, he collected himself for a moment, and then--
Shit!
He jumped -- but he shouldn't have, because in the moment he committed to the jump, he could hear (or maybe feel?) the guard waking up. Should've just killed the son of a bitch to begin with--
A gunshot rang out. Even though Joel's landing was pretty clean, he tucked himself into a roll to keep low... as he was untucking himself from the roll, a second shot sent him scrambling for cover so he could gather his wits about him. That one was way too close! Hunkering down behind the nearest tree, he caught his breath and readied his shotgun. The train was still chugging by, which severely hindered his listening ability... did the bastard actually get off the train? A quick peek confirmed that indeed he had -- and the train was slowing down -- probably coming to a stop. Either the engineer had heard the shots, or the freckled sentry had signaled him somehow.
"Come on out, motherfucker!"
Joel took another peek, and this time, he didn't even see the guy; he must have taken cover as well. Joel hadn't even so much as threatened him... but I reckon he took note of my gear... I better rotate a little... If the soldier meant to sneak around and get the angle on him, Joel didn't intend to present an easy target for him. However, he also didn't intend to waste time playing peek-a-boo with him when he reckoned there were at least two more men on the way. He already knows where I'm at... and he don't have one of them assault rifles... "Let me guess," Joel called back. "You won't hurt me -- is that right?"
"Not if you surrender peacefully!"
...Yeahhhhhh. (It could possibly be true -- and was probably the official protocol -- but in Joel's experience, they found it a whole hell of a lot easier to just kill you. It wasn't like they'd be held accountable for it.) Joel still couldn't see the guy, but now he'd pinpointed his location: that tree on the left. He aimed... moved tantalizingly out of cover...
As soon as Joel caught sight of movement -- something emerging from behind that tree -- he fired. --Got him! Right in the face.
But then... what the hell? ...sounds like Infected... After spending weeks in this area, Joel figured he should have flushed out any and all of those already. Was it the gunshots? Maybe the train noise was just like the wind to them... The train was loud, but gunshots were piercing. Joel's ear hurt just thinking about that. At any rate, they weren't extremely close; Joel had time to take cover again... time to think -- and this sort of tactical thinking didn't hurt his brain, like the other kind sometimes did. He moved to a cluster of boulder-type rocks, about fifty feet farther back, away from the tracks and the dead man.
Pretty sure Paul's gonna come over and check things out... especially when he realizes the train stopped. He won't bring Karma with him -- and, unlike Ellie with me, she'll actually obey him and stay put when it's important. ...Not that I think Ellie should OBEY me, exactly, as she's a lot older and everything... just... -Right, FOCUS. I can do this without Paul. What've we got: two guys coming back here, probably more prepared for a fight than this poor drunken kid, and at least two Runners headed this way from the north.
They just needed to fight each other.
He could see one of the Runners now... They've already 'lost the scent.' I'll help them find it... with... ? He really wished he had that satchel of food handy. The canned goods would work well. As would the soldier's thermos-sized flask... but no way had he taken that with him. If he had, he wouldn't have gotten those two shots off so quickly. No matter, he's too far away--
Joel decided he may as well dig out a smoke bomb. They were mostly helpful in situations where he needed to sneak by people rather than take them out, or in large groups where he could use the temporary blinding to his advantage. In this case, it would serve to simply make enough noise to draw both groups closer together. He should be able to chuck it out there far enough that it wouldn't even blind them to each other's presence -- they would spot each other while moving toward the source of the noise.
He waited. That one Runner was definitely close enough to react to the sound, and if it screeched, its buddies would come investigate.
What will the soldiers do? Catch sight of Infected and run the other way? "Well, we know what happened here -- let's beat it!"
Although a lot of soldiers seemed to get off on killing, so maybe they'd charge right in. And to be fair, it was possible they weren't even supposed to be real soldiers. Hired hands off the street... or out of a QZ?... whose sole purpose was to transport goods from Point A to Point B. In the old days, such folks would never be given the honor of dressing in army fatigues and whatnot... but of course, rules were different now.
I don't care WHAT they are: if they see me and realize what went down here, they're dead. Even if they DON'T see me... I don't know if Freckles gave them some kind of signal. He couldn't've told them much, seeing as how he hopped off of there so quick, but all it takes is some kind of little transmitter to relay a simple code. I better just toss this thing now before they get TOO close--
Joel couldn't hear any soldiers approaching yet -- and the large rock formations on this side obscured his view down the line -- but ideally, even if his throw wasn't perfect, the smoke would dissipate before they arrived on the scene and found the Runners near their comrade's body. The train was completely out of sight from his spot, but he knew roughly where it had come to a stop, and the last car wasn't that far down the line. He readied the bomb, aimed at a spot on the opposite side of the tracks to give himself a little breathing room, and lobbed it out there.
He held his breath and listened, staying completely out of sight. At first, he only heard the screeching of the Runners. Then...
"Jesus fucking Christ! What the fuck was that!"
"Infected... with bombs?"
"All that smoke--"
...And the chatter died down as the men drew closer. The Runners were still in high alert mode for the moment... moving right along, past Joel...
"Ahhh!"
A barrage of gunfire. More screeching.
"Damn, bro."
"Shut up -- there might be more!"
"Nah... we'd've seen 'em by now."
"I dunno... there's lots of trees'n'shit, dude... and where's Matthews?"
"...MATTHEEEEEEWS!"
"Dude!"
"What? I just told you--"
Joel scooted over enough to peek around the side of the boulder -- the side farther away from them -- and realized he shouldn't have moved just yet. Goddamnit! Barreling through the trees behind him was a straggler--
The soldiers would probably hear the high-pitched whining noise coming from this... this girl. She definitely had her sights set on Joel. And she was definitely in the beginning stages of infection. One of the earliest stages he'd seen. He was struck by her curly hair and ghostly-pale skin...
It ain't THAT girl -- she's too old -- more like Ellie's age -- and her hair's browner --
He heard the soldiers coming -- watched the girl flying toward him --
--And snapped out of his momentary paralysis. In fact, he snapped out of it so hard that he emptied the rest of the shotgun's bullets into the girl. Which was pretty damn stupid, since he'd obviously just given away his location and these two assholes were about to flank him with an unloaded--
"Matthews!"
...Of course -- they'll think I'm their buddy! ...Except they were about to discover Freckles' body, out in the open as it was, and they would conclude that he was not the source of those shots Joel had just fired.
"Oh fuck -- oh my God... Matthews..."
One glance at the body would tell them the guy was dead. Joel couldn't hear what they said to each other next, but he knew they were conspiring to surround him. No pretense about offering surrender this time.
Joel had taken those few moments to switch guns. The Shorty was cocked and ready to take out the one coming around the right side, if Joel could just get him before the left dude made it around to--
-Another gunshot!
From the train--
Joel's target was clearly alarmed by this, giving Joel all the advantage he needed -- he moved and fired in one swift motion. The man staggered backward and fell, his assault rifle thumping harmlessly on the ground. Before Joel could duck back behind cover, another shot rang out -- a rifle, from the train... no, in front of the train -- er, behind it, technically -- it was Paul. The other soldier was now dead.
The guy who'd taken the Shorty bullet was still twitching and sputtering; Joel put an end to that by crushing his windpipe with the heel of his boot.
-Where's Ellie? Is she--
...Shit. Even after all this time?
While Ellie was never very far from his thoughts, it was usually only first thing in the morning that he actually forgot she wasn't with him. And not every morning, at that. Why his goddamn brain could register that fact during a hostile encounter, yet not immediately afterward, Joel couldn't say. This wasn't the first time it had happened; if it had been the first time, he might've been able to blame it on the memory he'd started to have regarding Ellie's invariable reaction to that particular brand of finishing a guy off. (Half disgust, half admiration.) (...Although he hadn't even crushed the man's face this time, just his neck.)
FOCUS, ASSHOLE--
Joel glanced around, but his gut was already telling him that the danger had passed. -The immediate danger, that is. There could be aftermath from this...
Paul was jogging towards him now, so Joel helped him out by meeting him halfway. They did the fist bump thing they'd gotten accustomed to doing on Train Day reunions.
"You okay, man?" Paul's relieved smile faded as he looked at Joel up close. "Other than your ear... shit..."
"My ear?" Joel instinctively raised his hand to where Paul was looking: his right ear. What he felt was warm and wet-- blood? How the hell...
"You didn't know?" Paul marveled. "How does it not hurt?"
"It does, some," Joel realized... and the blood spatters on his shirt weren't from his victim. That second bullet that whizzed by real close? "I guess I just... the adrenaline an' whatnot..."
"It's still bleeding. Hang on a sec, lemme get you a rag--"
"We need to get outta here," Joel protested. "They might've called someone from the train."
But Paul was already rooting around in his bag for a clean rag. "You think they did?"
"No idea. Where's the jeep at?" If a helicopter spots that--
"In a carport, don't worry. Here... I think we should clean it and dress it before heading--"
"We don't have time for that," Joel grumbled, but he did press the rag to his head.
"It won't take me that long. You want it to get infected?"
Joel sighed. "Fine -- but a half-ass job will do. I can full-ass it later... when we're somewhere safe. How far away is Karma? You got here awful quick."
"She was counting the cars -- we were close. Prob'ly... a quarter mile or so?" Paul estimated.
"I reckon she's pretty freaked out, yeah? Let's get back there and I'll apply pressure to this thing on the way."
Paul was amenable to this. He had taken the jeep and left his daughter in a safe area, so they could actually do the collecting and loading now, but Joel couldn’t help feeling more comfortable about things when they were all together, and he got the sense Paul felt the same way. Also, with the train stopped, they could possibly loot even more.
"Do you know how it happened?” Paul asked him. “Or, more importantly, where? If you maybe want to, uh... find the missing piece..."
Joel quirked an eyebrow at him. "Missin' piece? Shit -- how bad is it?"
"It's like... this much..." Paul traced the upper half of his own ear as measurement.
"Never mind -- it was a bullet that grazed me. Prob'ly blew that bit to shreds anyhow. Let's just--"
"Holy shit, man -- if that had been even an inch to the right... your left, I mean..."
"Yeah." Maybe more like a couple of inches to do serious damage. Don't tell Ellie... ...sure, 'cause maybe it will grow back by the time I see her again?
Aside from Ellie, of course, Paul was Joel's preferred co-pilot on the Outside. On the way back, Joel didn't even have to ask him to hold the questions or tale-trading talk for later. Paul was of the same mindset as Joel on this -- as every survivor should be, really, but some people got lax about things due to shit not happening most of the time. There was some luck involved with survival, yes, but a lot of it was just plain common sense. And although Paul might not have been quite so inclined as Joel to kill rather than spare people when possible, Joel knew he'd be on the same page this time once Joel laid it out for him. Hell -- Paul might have just killed that first man quietly, the way Joel should have. That would have prevented their current predicament entirely. If he'd been with Tommy, on the other hand... Joel shuddered to think of the lectures on the slate for tonight. And Ellie thinks MINE are bad? ...Truth be told, there would be more arguing than lecturing going on, actually.
Maybe he wasn't being fair to Tommy here; Tommy did admit that he probably would've done the same thing as Joel in Salt Lake City, after all. But... still. Joel had known what he had to do from the second that bitch Marlene had confessed Ellie's fate to him. Tommy would have been conflicted... and by the time he came around, would it have been too late? Plus, the odds of one man versus a shitload...
-It don't matter now. Ellie is NOT better off with you, asshole. You've proven that time and again. I'm sure Tommy's looking after her just fine. Assuming he made it back to Jackson... and Joel had to assume that, for his own peace of mind. Worrying about all the possible outcomes wouldn't do anyone any good. (Easier said than done, sometimes, but when the target of his worrying was anyone but Ellie, Joel usually didn't have too hard of a time shelving it.) Maria was pretty much tethered to the house with the newborn, so at least Joel knew she would be there for Ellie.
There was no sign of Karma when they pulled up to the house where Paul had left her; he hadn't told her to hide, per se, but he had said to stay away from the windows, and Joel was glad to see that she had listened. At least I hope that's-- STOP IT. Of course that's why. He stopped Paul before they headed inside. "Maybe I should stay out here..."
"What, 'cause of the blood?" Paul tsked. "She's not all that squeamish. Come on in."
Joel hung back while Paul called out to her, though. The little girl came flying down the stairs before Paul had even made it halfway up. "Daddyyyyyyy! I thought I heard you but I couldn't look out the window to check!"
...He just didn't hang back enough not to see Paul swoop her up in his arms. And I can't even look away. Even though I miss my baby girl so damn much it hurts... Despite the reassurances Paul must have given her prior to leaving, Karma had clearly been scared for him. The relief -- the love -- was plastered all over her face. And to think Paul would even CONSIDER giving her up, wanting to send her off to Jackson when we met... would she ever love anyone else the way she loved her father? How could she? It would never be the same. To dismiss that bond... to claim that he was replaceable... Shit. I would give anything for Ellie to come barreling down that staircase right now...
No -- I don't mean that. That's SELFISH. And I am NOT her father -- it's different.
Joel was glad she was safe. And hopefully happy, by now... now that he'd been gone a while... settling into being Grayson's big sister... and the kid's most likely recovered from that virus or whatever it was now -- Maria DID take him to the clinic and he wasn't that bad off, so...
Paul set Karma down (and he'd pivoted so that she wasn't facing Joel), then briefly explained to her that Joel had gotten a little hurt but he was okay, that he just had a wound that needed proper cleaning and dressing.
"Like when I get hurt enough that there's blood and you clean it for me?" she asked.
"Yes, like that, except with a little more blood," Paul replied.
"Because he's bigger," Karma reasoned.
"...Yeah. Sure. Soooo if you want to go back upstairs while I--"
"No! I'll help you!" Karma turned to look for Joel -- and he must have been a sight, because she gasped. "Uncle Joel, are you really okay???"
Joel chuckled as she ran up to him. "I'm fine. I don't think you need to help me, though, 'cause this--"
"Yes I do!" she insisted. "What if Daddy needs me to do it for him some time and I don't know how?"
No kid that young should have to think that way, but... that's Old World thinking, on my part. Reality is, she's right. Just... "That's real nice of you, but..." He looked to Paul for direction.
"You do such a good job taking care of me," Paul told her with a smile.
"Yeah. Just like Ellie takes care of Joel. Since she's not here right now, I think she'd like it if I took care of him for her! Don't you think so, Uncle Joel?"
Joel's chest did that uncomfortable tightening thing again, but he managed to speak in an almost-normal-sounding voice. "I bet she'd like that, yeah. Only I bet she'd also tell you to leave the gross stuff to your dad. You don' need to see... what's under this rag."
"Joel's right, sweetie. But you can stay here if you want, and I'll explain what I'm doing. Just don't look at the wound, okay?"
"It ain't pretty," Joel added. He didn't need to see it for himself to know that much.
"I still wanna see it," she said crossly. "What's the big deal? I've already seen the blood."
Paul thought for a moment. "You might get upset. It might give you nightmares. Remember the ones you used to have about the bunnies?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, when I was like... six. I'm older now! And I've seen a million dead bunnies since then."
It was so... Ellie. The eye-rolling... the exasperated declaration... the exaggerated rabbit count...
"Well, I don't want you having a different kind after you see--"
"But you have to look at it, don't you? To do the stuff -- the cleaning? And bandaging? I'm just as brave as you, aren't I?"
Paul chuckled. "You are. And now I s'pose you have a morbid curiosity, so if you really want to see it... and Joel doesn't mind the freak show treatment..."
"I just wanna get this show on the road so we can finish up out there," Joel said truthfully.
"Right right right -- okay, why don't we... sit over here, then..." He indicated a couch in the living room -- a couch which, like most furniture they encountered, had clearly seen better days, but they weren't going to find anything that passed for a sterile environment out here.
Karma watched the proceedings calmly, listening to her dad explain as he extracted things from the first aid kit and set up shop on the coffee table in front of Joel, laying the items out on a clean towel. The sight of all the blood on Joel's clothes... his hand... the rag... it didn't seem to faze her. This kid has an iron stomach, Joel thought appreciatively. He was pretty sure the bleeding had been stymied by now, so he slowly lowered the rag from the side of his head.
The little girl avidly watched the unveiling -- and promptly shrieked in horror.
* * * * * * * *
No one came for the train over the next day or so, leading Joel to believe that the men hadn't been able to contact their base or anyone with the capability of remedying the situation. Maybe they just can't remedy it that QUICKLY... Joel assumed that was an eventuality, once the train was reported as egregiously late. Paul agreed it would be best to lay low for a bit, even after the train shipments resumed. They took advantage of the opportunity to search each car on this one thoroughly, pilfering things here and there, as well as helping themselves to entire crates full of goods. They rearranged what they weren't taking to hide the missing loot as best they could (although surely at this point, a little thievery by anyone passing through was to be expected).
They had also rearranged the 'crime scene' to adhere more to their chosen narrative: the soldiers had either spotted Infected or been ambushed by them, and had nobly given their lives taking them out. It wasn't a perfect narrative: three dead Runners and three dead soldiers who had conveniently all killed each other, no survivors? But perhaps there had been a larger group, with the surviving Infected ambling off to... wherever. If enough time passed, they could have dispersed to parts unknown... perhaps been killed by others so that from afar (that is, from above), they simply blended in with the other corpses rotting in the countryside.
The freckled kid as a victim of Infected was an easy sell; his face was such a mess that clearly the Runner now situated beside him had been going to town on him before the other soldiers had ended it by pumping the creature full of lead. As for the other two... well, Joel had mangled the one a bit, but it was still clear he'd suffered a gunshot wound to the chest. Paul's man was obviously killed by a bullet as well. If no one actually took a close look, it was staged just fine. But the military might want to recover the bodies -- it wasn't like they were in a ravine or somewhere like that where it would be hard to fetch them... hell, they could just toss them on the train.
So, Joel and Paul agreed to add some flair to the narrative: all three men had been drinking. There was enough booze splashed onto their skin and clothing to make that obvious... at least until the next rains came. Since summer rain wasn't exactly uncommon, each man was given a bottle from one of the crates (a crate that neither Joel nor Paul had any interest in looting for themselves, as drinking Outside was just plain stupid), and each bottle had little or no alcohol remaining in it. As Paul could attest to, drunk people had no business firing guns... anything could happen. Friendly fire, even.
Yeah, still a bit of a stretch... one man could perhaps be hit that way, but two out of three?
It would have to do. It was better than hiding the bodies, possibly triggering a search of the area (which was a risk regardless, but perhaps they wouldn't be too thorough after so many days had gone by since the incident?). They had even toyed with the idea of starting the train and sending it on its way engineer-less, at a slow speed... but, assuming they could even figure out how to do that, they ended up deeming it unnecessarily reckless.
They took care to keep the jeep out of sight while they worked, only pulling it alongside the tracks to load the oil barrel. Everything else could be lugged into the shady patch of trees and loaded there. Joel kept his ears ever-perked for the whirring of a helicopter. Well, the ONE ear, anyhow...
The unsightly ear still had a bandage over it, the gauze wrapped around his head. He could still hear out of it (as he had assured poor Karma: "the outside part is just for decoration, and as an ugly old dude, I don' need to look pretty -- I ain't really hurt, see?" ...which probably wasn't much of an exaggeration), just not well enough to deliver adequate warning as far as hearing-related danger detection was concerned. Paul was on alert too, of course, and he was capable... but Joel couldn't help trusting his own instincts better than anyone else's. Besides, Paul was distracted by his daughter. Karma had begged them to let her help search the train (although her 'searching' was more like playing), and it really was more convenient to keep her with them when there was no immediate danger, so Paul told her to stay close to him, and not enter any cars until he or Joel had cleared them. Joel, however, stuck more to the back cars -- the better to keep Karma from seeing all the bodies. (They might have downplayed the attack just a bit when answering her questions about what had happened.)
Karma, bless her heart, was generally super-conscious of making sure Joel never felt like that proverbial third wheel. It was sweet, albeit unnecessary. He was the odd man out; there was no getting around that. It was fine. He wasn't... jealous, or anything like that. Did he wish Ellie was there to balance things out? Hell yes he did. But she wasn't, and that was his own doing. Sooner or later, he was going to have to figure out how to move forward... with or without her.
The sooner the better, because that gaping Ellie-shaped wound is going to open right back up if I end up leaving again, no matter how long we're apart. For him, at least... he couldn't speak for her. She might be farther down this road than he was. At any rate, Ellie deserved a resolution. Closure, if nothing else. Yes, closure was a 'luxury item' these days (hell -- even in the old days), but he could give her that... or at least approximate it...
Except that ain't what I want. I want... HER. To see her smile, and laugh -- to MAKE her smile and laugh. To make her happy. Kiss her lips, touch her skin, pet her hair... feel the weight of her in my arms... to tell her how I feel... I can't really ever find the words to describe it adequately-- but I WANT to. I want to try. To let her know how very special she is. And, by God, yes, I want to make love to her... therein lies the problem.
More and more, he felt like he couldn't make this decision on his own. That he needed to talk it through with her. But logically, that made no sense; he and Ellie had never seen eye to eye on this problem. Talking to her would only be beneficial if she decided she didn't want him back. He could see her reaching the point where she'd had it with his bullshit. There you go: decision made. He could live with that.
He was living it: life without Ellie was not exactly hell. It had its unbearable moments, sure, but it wasn't hell. Now, a world without Ellie in it? That was a whole different animal. That would be... intolerable. Unfathomable. Knowing she was safe in Jackson went a long way towards making his life... not hell.
But I DON'T know that for sure. Maybe she left again. Maybe shit happened. I WON'T KNOW... until I lay eyes on her.
That was just... life, though, wasn't it? You couldn't just check in with family and friends through Facebook. Everyone Joel knew back in Boston could be dead now. Everyone he'd ever met, regardless of where -- even Jacksonites. There were a dozen people either dead or unaccounted for between the time they'd left for Monterey and the time they'd returned. His own brother might not have made it back, for all he knew. ...To be honest, that may have been one reason Joel was reluctant to return; sometimes it was better not to know. Although it would sure be easier to leave if the whole town hated me, Ellie included...
Now would be a good time to leave, since Paul didn't really need his help -- especially with no train robberies in their immediate future. And they were extremely well-provisioned, after this extended one. They had extra gas, oil, and even tires for the jeep... enough ammo and nonperishables to live on for months... he knew Paul liked the security of having Joel around, but he didn't need him. Joel had shared what he'd learned about the dissolved Boise QZ, and after a camp fire brainstorming session, Paul had decided to make his way to the Idaho medical center instead, with the hope of joining forces with others there -- those who were not Jackson-bound, assuming such folks existed in the area. It was worth a shot. If things worked out, he would need Joel even less. Karma had gotten used to Joel being around, but Joel made sure to keep reminding her that he was 'just visiting' and would be leaving again someday (he had to catch himself from pointing out that the sooner he left, the sooner he could return for another visit with Ellie -- because he didn't need to be promising things that might never happen).
The problem was... well, Joel felt like he ought to have his shit together before he went back home. That was the whole point of the break, after all. Signs might be pointing towards him going back, but he was still waiting for that lightning bolt of clarity to strike him with all the answers first. I need a sign to tell me what the right course of--
--What the hell was that?
Joel abandoned the toolbox he'd been examining and moved to the doorway of the car, staying out of sight for the most part as he tried to determine the source of the noise... to the south, in those trees maybe? Paul was probably fifteen or twenty cars away and wouldn't have heard it. This one's on me...
A flash of movement caught Joel's eye and he whipped out a gun.
Oh my God--
~Continue to Chapter 46~