a/n~ another trip down memory lane. hopefully it'll be obvious but incase i suck hahdbzdjfn
italics = memories

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THINGS CONTINUED TO improve for Josie, although her recovery was slower than she was hoping. The following morning, she was able to get up and move around for almost 15 minutes before she felt any pain. As much as she wanted to go hunting with Ellie today, at the younger girls insistence, they were going to give it one more day.

Ellie made sure Josie had a decent amount to eat for breakfast, and after they got Joel to take 4 bites before he passed out again, she decided she was going to explore the house more in-depth. She told Josie that because she was too scared to leave her and Joel alone for more than 10 minutes that first day, and she only poked her head into the bedrooms and bathroom. After triple checking that Josie was okay and would yell for help if something happened, Ellie finally headed upstairs.

As soon as she was gone, Josie's good mood deflated. She looked at Joel, the man she'd come to love, and her heart broke. The entire time she has known him, nothing this bad has ever happened. Even if they came upon dangerous situations, he was always the one to come to her rescue. She hated that she couldn't do the same for him right now.

"Joel?" Josie laid down next to him, moving his hand so that it lay on top of hers. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm right here, okay?"

The tiniest squeeze, so small that Josie almost thought she imagined it, let her know that Joel was there, and that he was listening.

"You have to get better," she tried, but failed, to stop her voice from cracking as she spoke. "I can't do any of this without you. And you need to get better so we can go back to Jackson and we can finally have that talk. I need to be able to tell you that I love you. We're supposed to have so much more time together."

She couldn't stop the tears from flowing at that point, so she slowly moved her hand out from under Joel's. Before she could move her hand completely away though, another small movement let her know that he wanted it to stay. After a moment, she thought it might help him if she kept talking. If anything, it would help take his mind off of the pain that he had to be in.

"You know what I remembered randomly while we were in Jackson? That time I was sick and you picked up extra jobs to earn the ration cards I was missing out on. Tess never said it when she gave them to me but I know it was you."

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Less than a year after she started working with Tess and Joel, Josie was out of commission for a few days when she developed a bad cold that resulted in an even worse cough. The coughing was severe enough that she was left with almost no voice, and Tess insisted that she stay home and not work until she at least sounded better.

Of course, this made Josie panic. No work for a few days meant no incoming ration cards for a few days. And that also meant she couldn't work with Tess and Joel on their side hustle either.

"Relax," Tess insisted after Josie expressed her concerns. "Joel and I will cover you until you're back on your feet. Trust me you'd rather suck it up and stay home than risk working. If the wrong guard hears you so much as cough, they'll shoot and claim you were infected."

Immediately, Josie agreed. And she still managed to make herself useful. Before Josie came along, Tess and Joel weren't organized when it came to keeping track of supply runs and customers.

Sure everything was written down, but all on individual scraps of paper tossed into a box. Luckily for Josie, said box had been recently moved into her apartment since the guards didn't know her as well and weren't likely to search her if Joel or Tess pissed them off.

She found an unused notebook in her apartment and spent the first 2 days being sick, hunched over her table. The first day alone was spent putting all the scraps of paper in chronological order, and Josie was thankful that they at least wrote the dates down. Day 2 was when she copied it all down into the notebook.

When she showed the notebook to Tess that second night, she was a little surprised at the reaction. Tess repeatedly thanked her and sat down on Josie's couch to flip through the book, a smile on her face as she said this would make things so much easier. She also was able to see a few customers that had yet to pay them, and it added up to quite a bit of ration cards.

After staying to talk for a few more minutes, Tess tried to give Josie some ration cards, at least for food. But Josie insisted on not taking any payment. Still, on her way out Tess shoved a card under the door.

Tess ended up going right next door to Joel's, who was worried that he hadn't seen Josie in 2 days even if he wouldn't admit it. When Tess showed him the book that Josie had made and organized for them, even he admitted that he was impressed.

"Where is she, anyway? This what she did today instead of burning duty? Heard one of the women taking and saying that she switched shifts with Josie."

"Oh," Tess shrugged. "She's out sick. Seems a lot better today though, hopefully only out for another day or two. Tried to pay her for the book but she only took one ration card. I'm gonna see if I can get my hands on something more for her."

Tess left his apartment not long after, and Joel spent the rest of the night worried about Josie.

That third day, Josie felt much better. But her voice hadn't fully gone back to normal yet, so she made the hard decision to stay in her apartment one more day.

Joel, on the other hand, had an extra long work day. Sewage cleanup in the morning, then straight to burning duty in the evening. It was nearly 8pm by the time he finished for the day, and he was exhausted. Still, when he walked home with double the ration cards, he wasn't complaining. And he'd done the same thing the day before.

Wondering if he should just skip the cards under her door or hand them to her, Joel decided to knock and hand them to her in the end.

"Joel, oh, hi," Josie was surprised to open the door and see him standing there.

"Tess just wanted me to give these to you," he handed over the ration cards from his second shift.

Josie's eyes widened as she reluctantly accepted the payment. "Oh my— I told her she didn't need to give me any more, this feels like way more than I deserve. You should give these back to—"

"You should just keep 'em, you know how stubborn she can be."

Josie laughed, for the first time in a few days, and Joel hated how the sound made him feel.

"Well I'll thank her tomorrow morning then, I'm pretty sure we picked the same job."

Joel tensed, but only for a second. He could only hope Josie didn't notice. "She uh, she said not to make a big deal of it. Might wanna..."

"Ah, gotcha. I won't say anything. Well, thank you, I guess."

Less than an hour later, there was another knock on her door. Now that, Josie knew was Tess. She had a late night deal that she was taking care of and asked Josie if she could come log it in the book after.

"Before you say no, here. We'd be fucked without the book you put together, so please don't try to refuse. This is part of the missed payments we collected, split between you, me, and Joel." Josie held her hand out and Tess gave her 4 more ration cards. Josie hoped she didn't look as surprised as she felt.

Of course, Tess hid the actual truth, because Joel asked her to. Of those 4 cards, only 1 was payment that she collected that day. There were other customers, but they were given until the end of the week to complete their payments. Tess chipped in 1 of her own ration cards, but the remaining 2 came from Joel.

Tess had started to ask why he didn't just give them to her himself, but he just asked that she drop it, and made her promise to not say they were from him. She had her suspicions though, and they came from the way she'd catch him looking at Josie when he thought no one was looking.

Stubborn bastard, she'd thought to herself.

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On the morning of day 4, Josie was feeling a lot better. She wasn't anywhere close to recovering, but when she woke as the sun rose, she was able to stand for half an hour. After discussing it with Ellie, the 2 decided they'd hunt after having breakfast. They weren't quite out of rations just yet, but with the 3 of them plus needing to feed the horses, it would run out after dinner that evening.

Before breakfast, Ellie and Josie worked together to divide up the rest of the rations. Ellie grabbed the 2 portions set aside for the horses, and told Josie she was going to go feed them and refill the bucket of snow.

Once she was gone, Josie moved closer to Joel and took his hand in hers.

"I don't know if you can still hear me, but we're almost out of food. After we've all gotten something to eat, Ellie and I are gonna go hunt. I'm hoping to at least catch some rabbits. I don't think we could handle anything bigger. You know how bad I am at butchering larger animals, there's a reason you always did it."

Josie leaned down and gave Joel a kiss on the cheek. "You have to be okay," tears formed as she closed her eyes, once again leaning over Joel so that their foreheads touched. "I can't do this without you."

There was no movement, but Josie felt the slightest twitch from the hand that she was still holding. If Joel could've spoken, if he had the energy to even open his eyes, he would've begged Josie and Ellie to stay inside. The thought of them out there, alone, without him to at least watch their backs, it terrified him even in his current state.

In order to save time, since Josie knew that Ellie wanted to get their outing over with just as much as she did, Josie helped Joel to drink some water. He only managed 2 sips, and then had 4 tiny bites of food, but she just kept telling herself that anything was better than nothing.

Josie could tell pain was beginning to set in again, so she sat near his head and ran her fingers through his hair. After a minute, his breathing returned to normal.

"You know what else I was thinking about?" A smile found its way onto Josie's face. "The second time it was just you and I that went to Bill and Frank's. When that really bad thunderstorm came out of nowhere and we had to stay the night. I know you would've started making your way back to the QZ, but you stayed the night, for me."

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Josie's face had lit up when Frank immediately offered up one of the guest rooms.

"Sorry, I'd offer you both your own room but we brought back a lot of stuff from the boutique and..." he opened the door to the second guest room, revealing boxes and boxes all over the bed and floor. "We've got lots of extra blankets and pillows though, whatever you both need. It's been raining nonstop for hours, and I'm pretty sure I heard thunder not too long ago. I don't think it's safe for you guys to head out now. You're more than welcome to spend the night."

As much as it was considered somewhat of a luxury to stay at Bill and Frank's, and as much as he loved having a hot shower, sometimes even 2, Joel still wanted to leave.

Despite the thunderstorm, he didn't like being away from the QZ. Subconsciously, Joel was punishing himself. He didn't think he deserved a hot shower or home cooked meal. He almost needed the QZ as if he felt those living conditions were what he was worth.

But he remembers a conversation he'd had with Josie once just a few months ago when the 2 of them ventured outside of the QZ on a supply run.

It started to rain, and Josie said she was just thankful that there wasn't thunder and lightning. Joel asked why, aside from the obvious, and he wasn't at all prepared for her answer.

"There was a storm when Pietro and I were separated," she spoke softly. "When he ran in the opposite direction to save me, I don't remember the sounds the infected were making. But I remember the thunder and seeing the lightning."

As Joel replays that conversation in his head, he already knows what his answer is going to be.

"Thank you, we'll take you up on that offer."

Josie turns to face Joel. She'd been expecting him to say no and that they needed to be on their way. So when she heard the opposite, she threw her arms around Joel, and then Frank.

"Thank you! Bill said he was about to clean his guns, I'm gonna go watch so I can learn how." Before either of the men in the room could respond, Josie practically ran out of the room. Less than a minute later, they heard laughter. And just as it happened the first time Josie met them, the laughter came from Bill.

"I don't think you or Tess have gotten that sound out of him yet. She's kind of like magic, isn't she?" Frank gave Joel a pat on the shoulder before leaving the room and telling him that he was welcome to take another shower.

"Yeah," Joel spoke to himself, "she is."

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Just as Josie gives Joel another kiss on the cheek and readjusts the blanket over him, Ellie appears on the stairs.

"Ready?" She goes to Joel's things and grabs his rifle, as well as both handguns.

Once Josie secures her bow and arrows, she accepts one of the handguns. Making sure they have a decent amount of bullets, she follows Ellie back up the stairs.

"Yeah, let's go hunting."

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