a/n~ i know you're not supposed to eat / drink fresh snow especially if it isn't fresh because of germs and blah blah blah so i guess just pretend it's actively snowing. also let's pretend joel's injury doesn't need stitches,

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     ELLIE THOUGHT SHE KNEW what fear was before. With all that she'd gone through, even before meeting Joel, Josie, and Tess. But at least in the moment, that paled in comparison to watching Joel collapse on the ground and not immediately force himself to get up.

As hurt as she obviously was, considering blood had now completely soaked the front of her shirt, Josie managed to get back off of the horse.

"You're gonna have to do most of the heavy lifting," she spoke so softly that if Ellie hadn't immediately run to her side she wouldn't have heard her. "We have to get him on the horse. Sit him in front like usual, but he's gonna have to lean on the horse while I take the reins. We'll... we'll look for the first place— that we find shelter."

Ellie noticed the way Josie's voice seemed to get softer, and her guess was that she was still losing blood and it was only a matter of time before she passed out too.

A small miracle occurred when Joel opened his eyes. He didn't speak, and he was barely conscious but he nodded when Ellie said they had to get him back on the horse, and she explained how he was going to have to lean forward while Josie had the reins.

Where Joel getting on a horse should've taken seconds, it now took all 3 of them over 5 minutes. More than once, Josie had to stop and close her eyes for a second as she put her hand to her stomach. She lifted up her shirt briefly, and Ellie pointed out that the blood had slowed a lot, which must've been good.

"Let me... I'll take the..." Joel tried to hold the reins, but he was so weak and still going in and out of consciousness that he didn't even fight it when Ellie demanded he "lean the fuck forward".

Josie was barely conscious as she held on and waited for Ellie to mount her horse. Once she did, she told Josie to follow her. It was a bit of back tracking but she's pretty sure that she remembered seeing an abandoned neighborhood a ways back.

The second miracle, is that Josie manages to stay awake until they reach the neighborhood. She's even alert enough to tell Ellie they shouldn't go to the first house they see, because if raiders happen to find the neighborhood too, it'll be that house that gets searched first. Ellie has the idea to open the garage door and close it once they're inside, that way the horses wouldn't be spotted if anyone happened to pass by.

Joel regains consciousness juuust long enough to get off of the horse and accept Ellie's help to get into the house and down to the basement.

There are 3 old mattresses, and Ellie quickly lays them right next to each other. Joel practically collapses onto one, and Ellie has to help him roll onto his back. Josie lays down on the other mattress, and gently pushes Ellie's hand away when she tries to look at her injury.

"Help Joel first," she whispers, eyes now closed. "Check him."

"N—no," he mumbles. He stares at Ellie and she nods, understanding what he's asking without him having to actually ask out loud.

Ellie goes to Josie and lifts her shirt up. "Fuck," there's so much blood that she can't actually tell how bad the wound is. She spots a bucket in a corner of the room and shouts that she'll be right back. She runs back outside and quickly fills the bucket with snow before running back down to the basement.

She runs to her backpack and grabs one of her shirts, and dips it in the bucket until it's soaked from the snow. "I'm sorry," Ellie tells Josie as she presses down as gently as possible trying to get the blood off of her.

Josie cries out, begging Ellie to stop. It's the loudest she has sounded since before she was hurt.

Hearing her, Joel opens his eyes. But his body is too weak to do anything, and a tear falls as all he can do is watch Josie cry while Ellie cleans her blood. Finally, once most of its gone, Ellie is able to inspect the wound more closely.

"It's deep, but maybe six inches long and it's not wide at all. He must've just used a tiny pocket knife or it would be a lot wider."

Tears fall down Josie's face as she looks at Ellie. "I don't think it needs stitches but it needs time to heal. But we can't... I mean..." she closes her eyes for a few seconds and Ellie worries she lost consciousness again, but is relieved when her eyes open.

"Wait! I have an idea." Ellie runs to Josie's backpack and dumps everything on the ground. When she spots some medical tape, she feels a small sense of victory. "Okay," she wipes the fresh blood off of Josie's stomach again. "This isn't the best thing, but it'll help for now. I'll wipe the blood every so often and we'll take the tape off in the morning see if it made any difference."

"Thank you," Josie whispers once Ellie finishes. Her eyes are closed again, but Ellie is just happy she's still able to talk. "Check on Joel please, I'm— okay."

Ellie knows that's a lie, but nevertheless, she listens. She bends down next to Joel and looks at his injuries. There isn't nearly as much blood as there was on Josie, but it's still a lot. And she figures there must be more internal damage for him to barely be conscious.

When she repeats the same process to clean the blood off, Joel's eyes shoot open as he writhes in pain, unable to even cry out like Josie did.

Not sure what else she can do, she grabs the gauze that was also in Josie's backpack and puts a few layers over the wound, using the last of the medical tape to hold the gauze down. While she trusts Josie when she says her wound doesn't need stitches, as she looks at Joel, she gets a sinking feeling that he does need stitches.

"Ellie," Josie whispers. "My ba—backpack. Get the... medicine and syringe."

Ellie gets up, returning to her spot as she rips open the package and pulls out the syringe. She fills the entire thing with the penicillin, and is about to life Josie's shirt to inject it when Josie puts a hand over Ellie's.

"No. Give it to Joel."

She turns to Joel, who opens his eyes just long enough to shake his head. He looks at Ellie until she nods again.

"I'm sorry I have to..." Ellie lifts Josie's shirt up, first dipping another corner of her shirt into the bucket and then wiping away the new blood.

"Joel," Josie turns her head and finally allows herself to look at him. "There's only one dose. You have to—"

"Baby please," he manages to speak. "Please, for me."

What Josie wanted to say was you have to be the one that survives. And even now, she wants to insist, to beg Ellie to give the single dose of medicine to Joel.

"Half," Josie counters. Even on what feels like her death bed, Joel thinks, she's still stubborn.

"Okay," he whispers.

Ellie gives Josie her half of the dose first, then Joel, injecting both of them right around their wounds. She glances at Josie, and is equal parts relieved and worried to see that she has fallen asleep. She cautiously approaches Josie and bends down feeling for a pulse. "Oh thank fuck."

The sun is finally starting to set when Ellie notices that Joel has fallen asleep too. She pulls the 3rd mattress over to them and lays it so that she's by their heads. That way if they make any noise, she'll be able to wake up immediately.

That first night, Ellie gets very little sleep. Every hour or so, Josie or Joel would make a noise. Each time, Ellie would sit up and scramble to go check on them. Neither woke up, at least not enough to open their eyes, but she knew she had to keep checking on them. Her fear was that if she stopped, one of them would stop breathing.

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Around 4am, Joel and Josie both slip into a deeper sleep, and Ellie manages to get 4 consecutive hours. When she wakes up again, she almost sheds tears of joy when she sees them both still breathing.

That joy continues when Josie wakes up and with help, is able to slowly sit up. It didn't do as much, being only half a dose, but Ellie can see how much the medicine has helped Josie already.

But the same can't be said for Joel, as the medicine doesn't appear to have had any sort of effect on him, at least none that they can see.

Josie asks Ellie to go dump out the bucket, clean it out with snow, dump that, then fill it again. Ellie hated having to take charge and make decisions on her own, and she's beyond happy to have Josie giving her instructions once again.

Before she reaches the top of the stairs, Josie calls her back. She tells Ellie to see if there's a second bucket upstairs, and if there is, fill that with snow and put it near the horses. The inside of the garage, although cold, is dry, so there isn't any snow for the horses to lick up for hydration.

Ellie returns about 10 minutes later, telling Josie that she did find a larger bucket and she took that to the horses. When she finally makes it to the bottom of the stairs, she sees Josie kneeling in front of Joel, helping him put some of the snow into his mouth. It's clear that being up even just a few minutes has taken quite a toll on her, so Ellie rushes to her side and insists that she go lay back down.

"I'm sorry," Josie says as she collapses back onto her mattress. Her teeth chatter from the cold when she speaks. "You shouldn't have to do all of this."

"You guys have saved my ass, and you're the only reason I've made it this far. I kinda owe you one." Ellie attempts to make light of the situation, and knows that was the right call when Josie lets out a soft laugh. "I just hope I can do enough. We don't have much food and I looked through all of the cupboards and cabinets. There were 2 cans, neither were open so we can eat those but even combined with what's left in our backpacks, added to the fact that you both should be eating extra food because you need it, I don't think we'll last more than a few days."

Josie tries to come up with a plan. "You said a few days, right?" When Ellie nods, she continues. "I think it was too soon for me to start getting up and doing things, even something as small as helping Joel get water. I'm gonna stay laying down and try to move as little as possible for the rest of the day, and maybe tomorrow if it's still bad. I'm obviously not a doctor but I'm gonna guess that the best thing for me, well Joel too, is rest and little movement. We've gotten all the medicine we can get, now we just need time. When we're about to run out of food, I'll go hunting with you."

"But you shouldn't—"

"I won't do too much, promise. It'll give you a chance to put your shooting skills to the test. Depending on what we're able to find, I may need to use my bow and arrow but that'll only be a last resort, promise. You'll do most of the work, I'll just be along for the ride."

Ellie wants to protest, but she knows she's worried about going out to hunt and not being able to catch anything. "Okay, but only when you're able to get up and walk around for more than a few minutes."

The entire rest of the day is a blur. Joel doesn't open his eyes except for a few seconds, and for the most part, he stays asleep. He only briefly wakes up when Ellie wipes the blood and replaces the gauze. During the extremely short period of time when his eyes do open, Ellie quickly grabs a spoon she found and cleaned with the snow, and one of the cans she'd found upstairs.

Joel only manages a few bites of food and a few sips of water before even Josie can see that his body desperately wants to go back to sleep. It's only a very minuscule amount of food, and a few sips of water, but hopefully it's better than nothing.

Josie ends up sleeping most of the day too, only waking up to eat.

While they sleep, Ellie occupies herself by exploring the home. When she's upstairs, she comes to the conclusion that the home must've been lived in by 3 people.

3 bedrooms, none of which have beds. But she thinks of the mattresses in the basement and guesses before they left, the family decided to put them down there. There's also the small dining table, with only 3 chairs around it. There is technically a 4th chair but it's outside on the porch.

And the best find, is 3 huge blankets stuffed at the bottom of a hallway closet. Ellie wonders why the family didn't take them, but she doesn't question it too much as she remembers how freezing it was last night.

Exhaustion forces Ellie back downstairs, and she figures she should sleep while she can incase it's another rough night.  After placing blankets over Josie and Joel, she lays down and covers herself, falling asleep in only a few minutes.

While Ellie was upstairs, Josie woke up and managed to move her mattress closet to Joel's so that they're touching. Before she falls back asleep, she puts a hand on Joel's chest, needing the reassurance that he's still alive.

The first night was so much pain and exhaustion that Josie didn't dream. At least, she didn't remember dreaming. But that night, sleep comes much easier. And the pain isn't nearly as severe.

And when she does dream, it's of Joel.

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