The Last Of Us (Fan-Fic)

Fall- Chapter Three- Part 3 Someone's Missing

"We gotta get to the girls!" Tommy says, sprinting quickly, "Right behind you" I reply. When we go inside again there are more bandits. I thought they said they were all gone? There was no time to argue. I threw a bottle at one man to distracting letting me get my gun out and shoot him. Tommy had a lot of men which made it easier to take each man down. We make it into another room and I can see Maria in a office, "Tommy?" She calls out, "Maria!" He says back in delight. "I'm alright! The kid's with me!".

Maria opens the door and runs over to Tommy. "You okay?" He asks, even though she had answered him before, "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine". Ellie comes out second and runs to me, "Joel. Oh man..." She says, I put my hand on her shoulder. "They were coming in from every direction", "Okay" I say. "Then Maria was like, "We gotta run!"", "Listen" I say, trying to get a word in. "And so we dove over these tables and this huge guy blasts in with a shotgun" She explains, doing actions. "Slow down, slow down. Listen-", I place both my hands on her shoulders.

"Hey, hey, are you hurt?" I ask. Ellie looks down at herself and then replies, "No". I can hear Tommy from a distance say, "Goddammit. I need to talk to you" To Maria.

A couple minutes later I sit on some boxes whilst Maria and Tommy argue. "Absolutely not. You tell him to go find somebody else" She says to him. "Maria, I can't have this hanging over my head". "Do you have any idea how many men we lost today?".

Ellie comes over to where I'm sitting, "Hey - What's that all about?" She asks me. I shake my head. "Does that have anything to do with me?" She asks as she listens in. "We'll talk about it later" I tell her, looking away. "Did he tell you where the lab is?". "We'll talk about it later" I repeat.

"Later..." Ellie says, unimpressed that I wasn't answering her questions. "Right" She says before walking off. For a second I wonder whether or not I should call back for her, but I decide not to. I hear Maria again, "It takes one. One fuck up. One fuck up and then I turn into one of those widows. Okay?". "I have to do this" Tommy tells her.

"I don't know what else to say". Maria shakes her head and raises her hands, "Fine". "Maria" Tommy calls after her as she walks up to me. "Here we go" I murmur under my breath so she can't hear. "You. If anything. Anything at all happens to him. It's on you" She says even though I don't keep eye contact. I don't reply to her in words, I only nod and she is quick to leave.

"She's thankful you know" Tommy finally says, "Yeah, I know" I reply. "I'll take that girl of yours to the Fireflies. You don't have to worry about it". I nod and reply, "It's best this way". "Maybe some real good will come of this" Tommy says. I hoped he was right, before leaving I tell him, "I need to talk to Ellie". Tommy nods and we both start going different ways.

I can hear Tommy speak into his radio, "Say it again. I didn't hear ya". Before I know it he calls after me, "Joel!". "What - what is it?" I ask, turning around. "That girl of yours, she took one of our horses and rode off" Tommy tells me as he walks they way I was about to. "Damn it. Which way?" I ask, "C'mon".

"I just saw her riding on outta here" A man says who leads two horses in our direction. "Go back inside. Help the others clean the place up". "Okay. Careful out there" The man says as me and Tommy both got on a horse each. "See the tracks? C'mon" Tommy says, following the tracks Ellie must had made when she left. Tommy leads the way down the weed covered roads, we jump over fallen trunks and dodge overgrown bushes. "She couldn't have gotten far. We'll find her. Don't worry" Tommy reassures me.

"Stubborn kid" I murmur as come up to a bridge which we go under. "She usually pull these stunts?" Tommy asks, "Nothing like this. I don't know what's going on" I reply. We pass tall green trees and overturned trucks before the road is blocked off by a mountain of rocks. "She didn't go down this way" Tommy says. We turned around and turn left, "Horse tracks. She went into these woods". 

I take the lead and start to go a little faster. "Ellie, what're you thinking" I ask, wishing I knew the answer. We down another hill, "There. More tracks" I point out to Tommy. "Okay, good". When we go to the bottom of the hill someone throws a Molotov in my direction, it frightens the horse, making me fall off close to the fire. "I got your back" Tommy tells me as I take cover behind a car.

"How many you see?" He asks, "Too goddamn many" I complain. I switch to my El Diablo, letting me kill a man from quite a distance. I use the same gun to kill to other men, including a sniper. I make a health kit when i'm in a secure house and use it straight away. As i leave the house there was a hunter directly outside. I indistinctly take out my shotgun and shot him in the chest, making him fly backwards. I shoot another man who was behind me as well before taking cover again. I use a shiv to kill the last men as I don't have bullets to waste.

"That's all of them" Tommy says as we go back, "C'mon. Back to the horses" I reply, rushing him.Tommy whistles and the horses come over to us, I jump onto the horse and ride off, following the road. "Tracks keep going this way" Tommy tells me. "Just hope they didn't get to her" I reply, imaging the worst. After a while we come across a large ranch house. "Look. By the ranch. That's our horse. She's gotta be there" He points out to me.

We get close and get off our horses, leaving them outside the house where the other horse was. I walk into the house, "Ellie?" I call out. There's no answer. "Ellie?!" I shout out again, searching each room. "I'm up here" I hear her say. "Jesus Christ" I murmur, I couldn't believe she had made me so worried. "I'll keep an eye out. Reckon you guys need to have a chat" Tommy says, keeping his gun out. 

I run up the stairs and head into the first room which she is not in. I try another, she's not in that one either. I go in two different bathrooms and she wasn't in those. Lastly I try the room at the end, one of the only closed doors.

When I go in I find Ellie sitting on a window sill reading a book. "Is this all they had to worry about?" She asks me, "Boys. Movies. Deciding which shirt goes with which skirt?". Ellie laughs, "It's bizarre" she adds, tracing her fingers across the page. "Get up, we're leaving. C'mon" I say to her already heading for the door. I noticed that she hadn't moved, "And id I say no?" Ellie says to me.

"Do you even realize what your life means. Huh? Running off like that. Putting yourself at risk... It's pretty goddamn stupid". Ellie had put the book to the side and was sitting properly now, "Well, I guess we're both disappointed with each other then". "What do you want from me?" I ask, stepping forwards. "Admit that you wanted to get rid of me the whole time" Ellie argues. I think about my answer for a second of two, before I finally come out with, "Tommy knows this area better than-", "Agh, fuck that-" She cuts me off. "Well, i'm sorry. I trust him better than I trust myself" I say to her.

"Stop with the bullshit. What are you so afraid of? That i'm gonna end up like Sam? I can't get infected. I can take care of myself" Ellie argues, "How many close calls have we had?" I remind her. "Well, we seem to be doing alright so far". "And now you'll be doing even better with Tommy" i shout at her. I turn my back to her, unable to look her in the eyes anymore.

"I'm not her, you know" She says in a calmer voice, "What?" I ask, turning around. I didn't understand what she was saying. "Maria told me about Sarah. And I-", I stop her, "Ellie. You are treading on some mighty thin ice here" I say as a warning. "I'm sorry about your daughter, Joel but I have lost people too" She says. "You have no idea what loss is" I quickly reply, coming closer to her.

"Everyone I have cared for has either died or left me" Ellie says as she steps forwards. I could see the tears forming in her eyes. "Everyone - fucking except for you" She says, pushing me back slightly. "So don't tell me that I would be safer with someone else - because the truth is I would just be more scared". I had never thought about it that way before, Ellie has never had a mother or father. Marlene left her with me and Tess, maybe she had loss people they way I had. "You're right..." I say after a while. "You're not my daughter, and I sure as hell ain't your dad. And we are going our separate ways" I tell her, I couldn't let her win me over, I had to do what was right, and this was the right choice.

Suddenly Tommy bursts into the room. "Get it together. We're not alone". I move over to the window and look out, "I got two walking in" I say as I watch them enter the house. "There's more inside already". Ellie moves next to Tommy, faced with the fact that she was guilty for them and us being here.

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