that-kid-from-vault-101

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

Ellie, long after the house had gone to sleep, had begun her plan. Firstly moving a chair up to Aaron's door to hold the gifts.

When he wakes in the morning he will be greeted with a drawing, the paper worn from hours of scratching in details of their little family. Joel and Aaron exchanging annoyed glances while Ellie holds up a kill. Beside it is a plate of cookies. Made with Dina's assistance. Then a card.

"I know it's fucking cheesy, but thanks for not shooting me between the eyes when we met. Happy father's day."

Ellie Williams-Sheling-Miller

He had forgotten what today is. He’s not sure if it’s simple forgetfulness, or if he’s subconsciously suppressed the information, just another reminder of all that’s been lost he doesn’t need.

He rises early, as he always has, shaving, dressing, rolling out his shoulders before he opens up his door, staring with confusion at the chair from their kitchen table that he’s certain shouldn’t be standing in the middle of the hallway, the objects that lay on it. He picks up the picture, a small smile gracing his face as he does so. He remembers that day, the slight bickering between him and Joel over the way way to handle transporting the deer Ellie had shot and the girls own pride at her kill.

The note is next as he picks up one of the cookies, idly wondering where in the hell Ellie and Dina had procured cinnamon as he sits in the now-vacant chair. He remembers, years ago, when Sarah and Catherine had attempted to bake a cake for him on this day, bashfully presenting him with an absolute mess of un-risen batter that he’d eaten without complaint regardless.

Williams-Sheling-Miller.

All that’s lost. More that’s found.

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

His lips purse, and his hands come to rest on his hips, a long sigh leaving him in response to Joel’s own hiss. Like he thinks Joel won’t draw on him, but the other man likely knows he’s smarter than that. Just thinking, the best way to word this, if there is such a thing.

“There is no cure, Joel.”

There it is. Rip off the band-aid, hair and all, because he knows Joel can handle that sort of harsh frankness that would bring Ellie’s entire world crumbling down around her. He scuffs his boot on the worn and half-rotted wood floor, shaking his head as he meets the others eye.

“I worked for FEDRA, for about three years before the Dallas QZ fell. Research. A cure, a vaccine, even just some sort of countermeasure. Nothing. The most we ever found was that the Cordyceps had a harder time coming to full virulence in soldiers who had suffered traumatic brain injuries, something about the neural damage that brought them out of human baseline and made it harder for the fungus. It bought them a few more days, at the very most.”

He casts his eyes to the side, to the stairs of the old dilapidated house, where Ellie was asleep in the most secure room they could find. His bottom lip disappears between his teeth, and he shrugs.

“That was when we had all of the resources what remained of the government could give us. The Fireflies might as well be banging rocks together. Whatever makes Ellie immune, it’s some quirk of genetics, something different about her nervous system that makes the fungus unable to infect her, I don’t know. What I do know is that whatever the Fireflies plan to do to her, she almost certainly won’t survive it. I’m not willing to let that happen, and unless I’ve judged you very wrongly, neither are you.”

There it was, the truth. Ellie had been discovered and yet…. Aaron seemed calm about it. Still his hand rested on his holster just in case that calm nature was what he had fear it was all this time. A huff hissed from his nostrils like some enraged bull, but he still stayed in place.

“You seem much calmer than people she has encountered in the past. I will give you one chance to explain why you are keeping her alive. The fireflies are a joke, I’m sure you know that, but here you are leaving safety to do what exactly."

Joel was never a believer of their foolish claims of taking over what FEDRA had ‘stolen’. He heard tales of Marlene and her band of marry idiots sending children to the front lines against trained soldiers. What was worse was the fact that he had seen it happen first hand. Teenagers on both sides blowing each other up for nothing.

Then there was Marlene, the queen bee. Taking someone far too old to be in military school let alone the ‘cure’. He didn’t believe they had a doctor, but Ellie held so fast to the hope that she would help, that she would save everyone that he couldn’t at least take her to them. From there… he would have to figure it out.

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

“I’m always very upfront with my patients.”

A little hiss of amusement from his nostrils, as he finally puts all of his supplies back into their places and zips up his bag. He slides it against the wall of their shelter, standing up and shaking out his hands.

Joel’s caution is unsurprising, and Aaron has been prepared for it for some time. He isn’t sure what Joel’s plan is for the long term, what, shoot him whenever he has to treat a gash on Ellie’s arm? He leans against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Oh, y’know. FEDRA, the orphanage she grew up in, we talked about the Old World quite a bit, people we’ve lost. The Fireflies, and why she needs to get to them.”

His eyebrows raise, and he shrugs.

“I had to drop an IV in both her arms, Joel. Like I said, if I was going to hurt her, I already would have.”

Aaron was not nearly as tell all as he would like, really trusting him was something the surgeon had managed to do time and time again when caring for Ellie or himself when the inevitable. It was much nicer to be stitched up by a surgeon as compared to the shaky hand of a teen that should never have to do this in the first place.

His response really only made a chuff of a laugh leave his throat. “At least you’d give the courtesy of telling me.” Joel mumbled, though the humor in his voice was something that rarely involved itself in adult conversation. Aaron was just funny.

Ellie had not been on to keep her mouth shut when it came to talking about… literally anything. Hell there were times he wished he could get her to shut up for a few moments while he listened for the infected that would kill him with a single bite then tear her apart. So the thought of her… on pain meds talking to someone was enough to make his heart stop.

“What all has she told you, because she sure doesn’t talk about her past with me. I just make assumptions because I knew Boston better than most.”

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

It’s not something he can help, or at least he doesn’t think so. It’s been his modus operandi for so long that for a long time he wasn’t sure if there was anything genuine left behind his smile. Admitting it is…interesting. He expected to feel lighter. He doesn’t.

“Not a bad policy. If it had been you who stumbled into my crosshairs that day, I’d have shot you.”

That’s something he likes about talking to Joel. The man says what he means, blunt and inelegant, it’s a breath of fresh air in many ways.

“If I was going to hurt her, I had ample opportunity. If I was going to hurt you, I’d have already tried. Poison would be easy enough, that vial I keep telling you not to touch is nightshade extract. Digging that bullet out of your arm a month ago, I could see your brachial artery.”

He pauses for a moment, contemplating, before going back to his supplies.

“We had a lot of time to talk after I stitched her up. She’s a good kid, deserves better than the hand she’s been dealt.”

@that-kid-from-vault-101

At least in this moment Joel understood. Really knowing what lay below that ever pleasant demeanor that the medic put up, making it easier for him to sleep at night as compared to watching Ellie as she slept as if Aaron were another threat to them.

It had been so long with just the two of them that when she stumbled back into his life in the arms of a well prepared surgeon…. Well it just seemed to good to be true. “I ain’t one for readin’ between the lines. Everyone is bad until proven otherwise. You just happened to be carrying your one saving grace that day.” He starts with a low tone. “But you have continued to be trust worthy. And I won’t deny how relaxed Ellie is around you.”

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

( flxshy - Joel )

"How do you do it... Manage to keep yourself after everything."

“I’m not sure I did.”

Aarons voice is little more than a muttering as he sifts through his supplies, checking seals and vials, not quite meeting Joel’s eye as he speaks.

“I’m just good with people, I always have been. Now though it’s all…fake. Pretend. Looking for gaps to get what I want or to slip a knife into if I need to.”

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

“Understandable. Gunning people down like animals, sick or not, and…it never really got better. She deserved a chance.”

He runs his tongue over the back of his bottom row of teeth, searching for words.

“I loved her more than I thought I could ever love anything, man. I mean…that moment I held her, I just…you get it. We tried so hard to give her a life a kid deserves and…I tried.”

"I never forgave them ... FEDRA I mean. They took her from me. She was in my arms, hurt from a car crash and they shot her like she was a threat." His voice fell to a new dark tone. The anger in his form painfully obvious that in twenty years he had not recovered.

"Catherine sounds like she was pretty well loved, for a girl raised by jar heads."

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

“Yeah.” It’s more of a breath than a word. A manifestation of the fatigue old men get when remembering things long past. At least they have that in common. “November ‘06. Dallas QZ fell a year earlier, we’d been on the road a while when we found out Sarah -my wife- was pregnant.”

He catches the break, his lower lip disappearing between his teeth for a moment. The outbreak had been shitty enough, trying to navigate it with a family was unthinkable. “I’m sorry. That was a shitty night.”

A low hum left the tired smuggler, he couldn't bring himself to look at Ellie. Too many failings were put in his lap for him to feel worthy of even guarding her. Still he sighed and traced the raised edges of the sutures over his shirt. A bitter reminder of what had started all of this.

"I don't feel that's a fair assessment. My Sarah... well she wasn't spoiled, but she sure as shit didn't have to live through this." He gestured vaguely at the door to their shelter, the ever present reminder that they were one wrong moment from being thrust back into the insanity that had put them here. "I don't know about your girl, but I sometimes wonder if I would have done things differently if it were her and not Ellie."

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

“Maybe. Too different, I can’t imagine growing up in this shit.”

He looks to the door, back to the aperture that separates this little pocket of relative safety from the unpredictability and pitiless cruelty of the world outside. He grips his rifle a little tighter.

“Catherine was older, not much, but older. We taught her everything we knew, but she was still a kid, you know? What could you have done different?”

A low hum left the tired smuggler, he couldn't bring himself to look at Ellie. Too many failings were put in his lap for him to feel worthy of even guarding her. Still he sighed and traced the raised edges of the sutures over his shirt. A bitter reminder of what had started all of this.

"I don't feel that's a fair assessment. My Sarah... well she wasn't spoiled, but she sure as shit didn't have to live through this." He gestured vaguely at the door to their shelter, the ever present reminder that they were one wrong moment from being thrust back into the insanity that had put them here. "I don't know about your girl, but I sometimes wonder if I would have done things differently if it were her and not Ellie."

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

Jesus. Is Joel talking about the past? Sound an air raid siren.

“I get what you mean.”

He taps his fingers idly on the receiver on his M4, returning his gaze for a moment back to where Ellie fitfully sleeps.

“My Catherine was a lot like her, but so different at the same time. I guess in certain ways a teenage girl is a teenage girl regardless of circumstance.”

@that-kid-from-vault-101

"She reminds me a lot of her.... Sarah I mean. I know they are different people, but it is hard not to see her in everything she does."

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

It’s a strange sort of generational gap, much different than the ones there had been before. That space between those who had lived before and those born after. Those who had lost every single thing they’d ever had, and those who had never had anything to begin with. It always makes talking about loss…odd. Because he remembers a time when it wasn’t just another order of the day.

“Oh man, so cool, I don’t even know how she got into spaceships, some books or comics she liked.” Her smile is returned warmly, as he puts away his instruments. There’s a sort of relief to it, the reminiscence, like the weight of loss is lessened by the memory of life lived. “She and my wife, Sarah, were always the ones with the plan. I had some of my own of course, but they always had that…spark. Especially Cat. All of these ideas about setting up radio broadcasts, trading with other settlements, yknow.”

A thanks to a dead girl, for the safety she’d never gotten to fully benefit from. A confirmation that all of the sweat and blood and lead hadn’t been in vain. It means more than she could possibly know.

“That you are. And that you do. She was always fixed like that, they both were. When they decided what needed to be done there wasn’t any stopping them. It’s not a bad quality to have.”

The apology was not needed at all, she forgave him the moment he had transgressed against her. Ellie knew what it was like to be unable to talk to anyone about what happened. Joel and her both suffered similarly, but getting that old man to even admit someone had been lost like that was impossible and always ended with her head severed by his sharp tongue.

How though was she supposed to talk with him. Was it appropriate for her to talk about Riley to relate, or would it be better if she simply let him talk and probe him where it would be appropriate to.

Hearing about her made her smile ever so fondly, empathy evident on her face. “She sounds so cool. I bet if your wife is anything as cool as you are Cat was that and so much more, but I may be biased because I like spaceships too.” Her tone was light, hoping  to urge him to speak as much as he wanted to. “You made it a safe haven for yourself, and in turn saved my life. So thank you Catherine.”

The determination that came from him, so focused on ensuring that she made it out alive was both reassuring and scary. This was a big wound to recover from, and she had already broken stitches in the first twelve hours that she had been conscious. “I’m stubborn. Gotta make it to the fireflies.”

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

"Happy mother's day Aaron! I made cookies."

“That’s very kind of you, I’m sure Maria will appreciate them!”

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

He’s being less careful, less cautious about his actions, and maybe that’s a symptom of the feelings he’s trying to push down and away. He realizes it as soon as her leg is clean, and me looks at the rag, then her leg, muttering a soft ‘sorry’ as he puts it away.

“I don’t know that I’m bottling it up, necessarily, I just…don’t get to talk at all, much. Much less about her.” He isn’t expecting the contact, and he tenses, hard for a moment, before that tension laxes and the feeling of skinny adolescent arms wrapped about him forces a shuddering breath from his lips. One arm curls awkwardly about her shoulders, and he gives her a small squeeze, wondering when was the last time anyone had touched him with something kindness.

“I know. You’ll live, I’ll make sure of it.” It’s a reassurance to both of them, given with a resolute nod as he once more sits on the table. “She would have been seventeen this year. She had a sharp mouth on her, like her mother, kind of like you but with a bit less cursing. She liked sharks, and spaceships, and she was just…so sure that we would turn this place into a proper settlement.”

Ellie was entirely familiar with that expression. Joel sported it every time he looked at her. Giving her that entirely powerful feeling of feeling ostracized around the old man. The feeling only seemed to settle in even more when Aaron seemed to shove it all away in favor of picking her up without so much as an ask.

“Why do you guys do this to yourself? I know its hard to lose someone, but keeping it bottled up can’t be healthy.” She spoke, watching as he worked without even a single care to how she felt or if she even wanted to be tended to. Then it came, the name. “Cat… Catherine are the same person.” The sound that she was so painfully aware of made her sigh and the moment he pulled away she moved.

Her leg falls free, unceremoniously and painfully, but she made no noise. He violated her space, so she would share him the same courtesy. So with arms that are far too tired she wrapped them around his shoulders and offered… probably the most awkward hug she had ever done.

“You don’t have to talk about her if it hurts too much. I’m okay though, I’m alive and fighting.”

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

“You don’t know that.”

Comes the lilting response, the riot-gear clad doctor chiming cheerily as he closes the cabinet. Indeed, it’s the third sweep they’d made of this room, and they’d come away with nothing more than half a roll of bandages and maybe a few ounces of isopropyl. He’s covering his frustration with humor.

“We were in the middle of an opioid crisis like no other when the infection hit, and now we can’t find the damn things anywhere. Did someone come along and just eat all of the oxycodone while we weren’t looking?”

Stops for looting took so much longer now that he had both a teenager and a surgeon drug along, and for once he considered those damned children leash they had back before this infection thing. It was stupid back then but now? Now he understood.

"Okay.... Aaron you have opened that cabinet at least three times there, the fucking drug fairy isn't goin to drop morphine in there. Lets leave." Despite the humor in his voice he was serious. "Ellie has already gotten bored."

@that-kid-from-vault-101

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

He isn’t sure if what’s carved into his expression is worry, terror, or shame. All three perhaps. Worry for her condition, terror at the fact that she’d dragged herself all the way here, or shame that he’d woken her with an old nightmare, one he’d had a thousand times before.

“You…you’re a good kid Ellie. I appreciate it.” There’s a genuineness, a vulnerability in his eyes that certainly had not been there in any of their previous interactions. Maybe it’s the sleep still clouding him, maybe it’s the soreness that still clings to his heart. But it’s the look of a tired man who’s seen too damn much for one lifetime. “Let’s…get you back on the couch. Okay?”

He stands, taking a moment just to…stand there. Compose himself, eyes closed, a single deep breath before he bends down to pick her up, gently. There’s a small sigh that leaves him a she sees the rivulets of blood trailing down her thigh with the popped stitches, but he can’t find it in him to scold her. Telling someone off for hurting themselves in the process of helping someone? That would just make him a hypocrite. So he says nothing, bearing her softly back onto the couch and digging back into his supplies.

“This is lidocaine gel.” He explains as he picks up the tube and his sutures, squeezing some out and beginning to apply it around her wound before taking up his needle. “I won’t give you anymore morphine, but this will numb the area while I fix your stitches.”

“A hug? Ha, that’s…generous. Thank you. No need.” He waits the moment it takes for the drug to take effect before digging into his work, losing himself for a moment in the tug of needle and thread. It’s over in no time, and he wets a cloth and begins to clean the fresh blood from her skin. The silence drags on, and he breaks the silence with a small sigh.

“Catherine was my daughter. She was a little younger than you when she…” His voice catches, and he forces himself to steady with a breath. “She got sick. I didn’t have what I needed to help her.”

Worry carved deep into Ellie’s pale, fever-warmed face, her brows knit tight with concern. When Aaron jolted awake and called her Cat, it hit something old and sore inside her—not anger, not confusion, just that familiar sting of being mistaken for a ghost. She’d been someone else's memory before. Joel used to call her Sarah in his sleep.

She didn’t ask. Didn’t pry. She knew enough to understand what it meant to say a name like that while drowning in dreams.

He gripped her hand, just tight enough to hold on, and for once, she didn’t pull away. There was a flicker of something in her expression—tired, raw, but real. He remembered her faster than Joel ever did. That meant something.

“It’s fine,” she said, her voice low and rasping with strain. “You were talking in your sleep. I didn’t want you to… suffer through it alone.”

She tried to keep her breathing slow, but each inhale came with a wet rattle. The heat in her chest was rising again, her lungs locking up in that miserable, familiar way. She hunched forward slightly to make room for the next breath, suppressing the cough bubbling in her throat. Her body trembled with the effort.

“I know you probably won’t want to, but… a friend once told me I was a decent listener.” She smiled faintly, managing a weak huff of laughter.

Shifting her weight made the pain in her leg flare like wildfire. The stitches had definitely pulled—probably tore open again—and the warm, slow seep of blood soaked deeper into her already-filthy bandages. She gritted her teeth against it, but the flash of pain still broke across her face.

She was already on the floor, legs sprawled out in front of her awkwardly, leaning against the couch like it was the only thing holding her up. When he asked what the hell she was doing there, she just shrugged, the movement tight and tired.

“I’m not going anywhere. Believe me, if I could stand, I would’ve been pacing laps by now.”

A cough finally broke through—wet and sharp. She turned her head and muffled it into her shoulder, doing her best not to let the wheeze afterward show just how much it hurt. Her eyes watered from the effort.

“Are you okay?” she asked again, voice quieter now. “I can’t get you water or anything… I’d probably faceplant if I tried. But if you need—like—I dunno… a hug or something? I got that.”

It wasn’t much. But in a world like this, a bleeding, feverish, stubborn-ass teenager willing to sit in pain just so someone wouldn’t be alone in theirs? That had to count for something.

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

He’s used to it at this point. Some nightmare, waking up in the dark, alone, looking around for just a moment before his waking mind creeps back to the fore and he remembers that he is all alone. Then he’ll sit in silence, staring at the ceiling until exhaustion takes him or it’s time to go about his day anyway.

This time it’s different. That little start that always accompanies snapping awake from a traumatic dream, eyes snapping open and his breath catching, but this time he isn’t alone. There’s a little hand grasping his, and this time he allows himself to settle back down into the chair, letting out a steadying breath as he gently squeezes the hand, noting distantly that the beginnings of her calluses feel odd. Differently placed than he remembers.

“What’re you doing out of bed, Cat?” He murmurs, yawning widely, his eyes slowly slitting open as he tries to blink the sleep out of them. His voice is indelibly soft, fond, the scolding clearly born out of a place of deep and personal care. Then his eyes fall on her, red hair, green eyes, and his waking mind finally catches up with reality.

“Shit…sorry, Ellie…” he murmurs, releasing her hand and setting it back on the arm of the chair. He sits up slightly, looking down at her and then back at the couch, a small and displeased sigh leaving him. “I thought you were…what are you doing over here?”

“Hmm.”

It was all she could manage—a tired, broken sound slipping past cracked lips before the dark claimed her. The silence of sleep was nearly terrifying in how complete it was. No screaming. No boots slamming down the hall. No infected screeching in the distance.

Just numbness.

Ellie wasn’t used to dreaming. Not really. It was more like drifting just under the surface—like those alligators in the book she once read, floating with only their eyes above the water. Alert even in rest. Watching. Listening. Danger had long since become her lullaby.

So when Aaron mumbled in his sleep, her eyes snapped open.

“Catherine.”

The name punched through the quiet like a gunshot. Ellie shot upright with a gasp, hands already scrambling for the pistol wedged under the couch cushion—always close. Her heart pounded as she swept the room with sleep-blurred eyes, half-ready to shoot whatever threat had breached their tiny safehouse.

But there was nothing. Just shadows. Just... him.

Aaron twitched in his chair, brows tight, breath ragged. That wasn't a warning. It was a nightmare.

The familiar freeze set in—memories of wardens screaming, of fists, of being shaken awake hard enough to bruise. Yelling never helped. Not ever. It only pushed her deeper into the dark. And he didn’t deserve that.

Her eyes flicked toward the crutches. Too far. Useless.

“Shit,” she hissed under her breath.

Ellie shifted, rolling to the edge of the couch with all the grace of a wounded animal. Her muscles screamed. Her ribs ached. But it was the leg that betrayed her—pain like fire spiking from thigh to hip as she slid her weight down onto the floor.

Her hands dug into the couch cushion as her breath caught in her throat, face going pale with the sudden wave of nausea. Then came the unmistakable sting—wet, warm, wrong.

She felt the tear. Somewhere deep in the stitched-up mess of her leg, something had pulled loose.

“Fuck—” she whispered sharply, eyes squeezed shut as her vision swam.

A cough clawed up her throat. She bit down on her knuckle to muffle it. Another followed—wet, rattling, like broken glass shaking in her chest. She wheezed hard, gasping for breath like she’d run a mile uphill in the snow.

Still—she moved.

Bit by bit, dragging herself closer across the floor with trembling arms and a fever-warmed hand outstretched. Her whole body shook from the effort, but eventually she reached him.

“Aaron…”

Her voice was hoarse, raw from suppressed coughing, but it carried nothing sharp. Just the kind of gentle worry she barely knew how to show.

Fingers closed around his hand—burning with fever, clammy from exhaustion. She gave it a squeeze.

“Hey. It’s me. Ellie. You gotta wake up.”

She didn’t know who Catherine was. Didn’t ask. But she knew what it meant to wake up alone in the middle of a nightmare.

So she stayed there on the floor beside him, leg screaming, lungs aching, but her hand never leaving his.

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

“Probably not, but kids are all their own unique version of weird. Always a surprise, but what can you do.”

His jaws part in a yawn, pulling the lever of the recliner to kick up the leg rest, settling back with a sigh and a small, satisfied smile. The feeling that settles over him is that sort of satisfaction you only get knowing you’ve done a solid days work with a hopefully decent sleep ahead of you. He stays awake until he’s sure she’s at least pretending to sleep before he finally allows himself to fully relax, crossing his arms over his chest as he begins to drift.

His sleep is not decent, or restful. Fitful, as it so often is now.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you, sweetheart.”

He’d doffed his mask, he couldn’t bear wearing it anymore. Her hand feels so small in his, her grip weak even though he knows she is grasping his palm will all of her might. Her breathing is rapid, shallow, her lips and nailbeds tinged a deep blue from oxygen debt. They just had to hold on a little longer. Kodiak was going to come back with the antibiotics, he simply had to.

Her eyes crack open, the same blue as his, little strands of straw colored hair stuck to her forehead with the sweat of her fever. She coughs, wet and rattling and when she speaks her voice sounds muffled.

“Please don’t leave me…”

He grips her hand tighter, bringing her fingers to his lips, willing his voice to be stronger than he feels.

“I won’t, Cat. I swear. I’m right here.”

He twitches in his sleep, eyebrows furrowed, his face set in a grimace even as he slumbers. He whimpers, a pathetic and helpless sound, even as her name drifts from his mouth like a cold fog.

“Catherine…”

It was true, not a day in her life passed by where she didn’t truly feel secure. The orphanage alone had her on edge, constantly terrified of another bombing or another shooting. Fireflies claiming to free the children aging zero to twelve from the horrible future that FEDRA offered…. Or some shit.

She was three when it happened the first time. Ellie remembered waking up to the sound of a piercing alarm and her warden ripping her out of bed without so much as a word. Honestly she had no clue what was going on until an explosion happened behind her, a hot piece of rubble hit her bare foot scalding it so bad that the scar remained even to this day.

Safety was a foreign concept to her.

Aaron opening up again about his life only made her more on edge. Friendliness was always a bad sign, but he seemed so… gentle? So she inhaled the steam, enjoying the way her lungs relaxed for the first time in what felt like forever. Even the ever present cough didn’t even rear its head until she sat back once more.

Once she was leaning back exhaustion hit her like a freight train, the shuddering sigh was enough to settle her back into the lingering pain that kept her awake. She would take first watch, or at least enough of a watch where she could pass out.

It was easy to watch someone sleep, much easier than trying to force herself stay asleep just enough to survive till morning. Behind that steel door though… well it had already proven to be more than enough to hold back enough infected. It was the closest thing to safety that she really had ever experienced. The taste of hot food and medicine was more than enough to give her a feeling that she couldn’t even describe.

“You have no fucking clue how weird I am.” Her tone was exhausted, a feeling of vulnerability that she never really understood. Still it was more than nice, the clean comfy couch held her in all the right places and it would not be long before she was entirely out. She could even feel the darkness pooling at the edges of her vision.

Minutes later she was in a gentle state of unconsciousness, spurred on by blood loss and over all fatigue.

[that-kid-from-vault-101]

Laxity, complacency, in the old world they meant one had grown comfortable. In this world they meant death. Comfort is something that has been shaken from him in favor of alertness, preparedness, but he still remembers what it had felt like. She never did, not really. Even in the QZs, ‘safe’ simply meant less risk of being infected, and more risk of being shot. Clawing to the surface for a breath of air is all she’s ever known, and not having to do that must chafe against all of her sensibilities. It’s nice to see some sense of ease there.

“My dad always did this for me when my airway was fucked, I had really bad allergies when I was a kid.” Hot showers or baths would do the same thing, but Ellie can barely move, much less bathe herself, and despite his generally high standard of patient care that’s not an option. “It’s a temporary fix but an effective one.”

Another laugh, as he sits back in his chair and settles in, giving a small sigh of relief. Large amounts of talking don’t bother him much, as a point of fact it’s nice to hear another humans voice somewhere other than the radio. Excitement in any form is just…different. A change is just as good as a rest, as they say.

“That’s travel for you these days. Early on it was everything smelling like vomit, and I mean everything! I remember picking up a can of beans that smelled like someone had just horked it up, never was sure how that happened.”

As she speaks of her traveling companion, he hums, tilting his head to one side as his eyes drift shut. That all sounds reasonable to him, it’s a rare thing in this world that a stranger doesn’t approach you with some ulterior motive.

“I get that, but it’s not bad advice. I think the end of the world just made everyone worse, yknow? Good people became just a little bit shitty, and people who were already a little bit shitty eat people now. That said, I get the desire to just…ease up every once in a while.”

One eye cracks open slightly, and he smiles, shrugging before it slips shut again, settling his head back into the armchairs headrest.

“I’ve been called worse things, by shittier people. You’re alright too, Ellie. Weird kid, but alright. Get some sleep if you feel like it, it’ll help you heal faster.”

Patient…

That word sat in her stomach like a rotten rock.

It made her skin crawl, like she was back on that table again—wires in her veins, people talking around her like she wasn’t even there. A thing. Not a person. It was what she signed up for though, wasn’t it? To become the cure, she had to be poked and prodded. Blood samples, scans, all of it. So why the fuck did it feel so wrong now?

Maybe because, for once, she wasn’t dying for a cause. She was just dying.

Helplessness wasn’t something Ellie handled well. She was action. She was fire and fight and kicking people in the shins when she didn’t like their tone. She’d survived goddamn everything, and now one wrong fall onto the jagged edge of a rusted-out truck—one stupid fall—might’ve ended her whole story? No. Fuck that.

Aaron’s rant about the place she called home didn’t shock her. She’d heard people spit venom about FEDRA schools and Firefly cells alike. But something about his tone stuck—real barbed-wire wrapped around something raw. Personal. She wasn’t gonna ask. Joel taught her better. Old men and their traumas were like wasps’ nests—poke too hard, and you got stung.

Still, the steam remedy he set up was… kind of amazing.

"Ah, finally some bullshit past remedy," she grinned, and this time it was genuine—She leaned forward over the pot, hands resting on the table, slowly inhaling the vapor with a few light coughs in between. Her lungs still rasped with each breath, but the tension in her shoulders finally began to melt.

It hurt to lean like that. Her thigh screamed beneath the stitched-up gash—muscle torn and already swelling—but for once she didn’t immediately brace or flinch. She breathed. Sort of.

"This is fucking nice."

There was a pause. A real pause. The kind that came with trust.

Then she launched, like a slingshot wound too tight finally let go.

"Okay but seriously," she began, voice muffled through steam, "I haven’t had time to just—relax in, like, I don’t know… months? Maybe more? Ever since I left Boston it’s just been moving, running, hiding, more running. I slept in a truck once, with the smell of old socks and beef jerky mashed into the seat. Like, how the fuck does that smell even stick that hard?!"

She laughed to herself, though it ended in a wince—her leg throbbed under the blanket like a living thing. The torn tissue and rust-touched edges of that damn truck had shredded her thigh, and even with meds and stitching, it was a mess. Any movement yanked at the angry skin.

"And like, don’t get me wrong, I love Joel—he’s like, old and grumpy and emotionally constipated but I’d die for him—but the guy cannot chill. It’s always: ‘Keep your guard up, don’t talk to strangers, stay low, head down.’ Like, bro, I get it. But also, sometimes I want to see the sky without worrying if it’s gonna shoot me, y’know?"

She sniffled once, coughed twice—deep and wet and rattling—then adjusted her posture with a soft hiss as the edge of the blanket snagged on the stitched skin. Her teeth grit hard until the pain passed.

Her voice was quieter now, almost sleepy. "I forgot what it was like to just… be somewhere and not feel like I’m about to get shot, eaten, or abandoned."

She peeked up at Aaron from under her lashes, then back to the steam. "You're alright, doc. Weird as hell, but alright."