vaccination | contact ☣ ❝scorpions are pretty creepy.❞

[She stares. Face intact. Limbs accounted for. It's almost like he never left, like maybe Steph lied to her about him being gone. But she had made sure his name was off the network. He had been gone.]

Fuck, you made it sound like you were mutilated or something. [Ellie enters, eyes on him all the while like he's some sort of ghost.]

[Jesse's decided he doesn't want to lie to her, but he doesn't exactly feel great about telling her the truth, either. He looks down at his hands for a moment, then gestures vaguely.]

Ashraf did a good job fixing me.

Oh. [Right. Magic, she assumes. Even after all this time, it's hard to swallow the fact that someone can wave their hand and fix you right up. Things that would have meant the end at home might as well be a bruised knee here.]

Well, it's... I'm glad to see you again. [She's hesitant to say that it's good to have him back, because she's not sure if a month of being gone wipes away all the bullshit he had to deal with before.

Ellie takes a step towards Jesse to give him a hug, just like the last time she saw him. No prison cells, no whatever had happened to him. Things seemed okay right now.]

Welcome back.

[When was the last time someone hugged him - hugged him and meant it? It probably wasn't even that long ago, now that he can remember his life here again, but everything feels far away. How could a couple weeks in a dark cell mess with his sense of time more than actual time travel? It's weird.

But he welcomes the hug, tightly, and even smiles a little. He had no idea he missed Ellie for those weeks, but he's realizing how much he was missing now.]

Thanks. You got no idea... Yeah, it's real good to see you.

[Ellie doesn't care if her hug is more of a cling after a few moments, fingers curling into the fabric of his clothing. It weird to have people coming back. It's too easy to get her hopes up about others.

If Joel leaves, he could come back. With or without memories of what happened here. It's not a very big comfort, but she files this realization away for now.

She wants to jab Jesse in the ribs and remind him about Hawaii, but that's not what happens when she pulls back, rubbing at her nose before moving to take off her gloves.]

Has it been a long time for you? I don't really get how all of it works, but for stuff to have fucked you up, time had to have passed, right? At home.

[He doesn't mind her clinging. He's even disappointed when she lets go, though his arms drop to his sides instead of pulling her back like he wants to.]

It's... I dunno. It feels like a long time. I stopped being able to tell the days. But I don't think it was more than a month. Might not have been more than two weeks. I dunno.

[She moves over to the fire, crouching down in front of it for now to warm her hands, body turned to keep her sights on Jesse.]

What happened?

[The million dollar question.]

[He drifts after her, hovering off to the side with his hands wringing and his eyes averted.]

My partner turned on me. Handed me over to some bad people to get me outta his way.

Did they try to kill you?

[No use beating around the bush. When Ellie shifts to sit on the floor, she scoots over. He can sit by her. She won't bite.]

[After a moment's hesitation, he steps forward to take his seat.]

He told 'em to. But they didn't listen.

Kinda wish they had. Woulda been a lot easier on me.

That bad, huh. [Ellie frowns, playing with the hem of her jeans.]

[Worse. But he doesn't want to unload it all onto Ellie. Honesty is one thing. Traumatizing a kid is another.

But speaking of honesty...]

There's something else I gotta tell you.

[There's not much left to traumatize, but she's come to understand why Jesse wouldn't want to share. It's probably harder to talk about than to hear.]

Yeah, Jesse?

When... When Saul told everybody I went home, he wasn't telling the whole truth. I didn't just disappear.

Stephanie was the one that told me. Before Saul posted to the network.

[So whatever Jesse is about to say next, it'll fall on her.]

How much did she tell you?

She just told me you went home. That was it. You were gone.

[And though Steph didn't exactly say it, Ellie knew she was relieved. Jesse was a problem in her eyes. But Ellie's sensing a problem here herself, and it's difficult to not preemptively bristle.]

What did she not tell me?

[Jesse has no doubt that Steph was relieved to see him gone. He doesn't entirely trust that she didn't play some role in what happened to him, either, even if the extent of it was probably just covering up something Saul did. But she did help him to safety when he returned, found him a healer. That means something, too. So he doesn't sound bitter when he says:]

They found me dead.

[Ellie's reaction is a slow one. Her body tenses, shoulders pulling her back ever so slightly.]

... say that again?

[She had to have misheard.]

[Gently:]

They found me dead. Mike found me first. He said I had a needle. It was just me there. I must've overdosed. I don't remember it, but I believe him.

[Needle doesn't mean anything to Ellie, but overdosed is about as plain as he can get. Drugs. She stares down at the space between them. The words come out slowly.]

You said you were okay, when we got down here. That last time I saw you.

[But maybe he'd said one thing and it was really something else entirely. Like Steph.]

And... and you said you were done with drugs. You were recovering or...

[She'd seen more than one corpse rotting peacefully in a bed with empty pill packaging on the nightstand. Or at least it looked peaceful, twenty years after the deed, but Ellie's mind races to try and put together a picture of Jesse overdosing with some drug in a needle. Suicide isn't what comes to mind--she wouldn't ever accuse him of that--but him doing something that clearly would fuck him up so much is so stupid Ellie doesn't want to believe it.

She leans back on her palms to look at him, waiting for an answer to the obvious question on her face. Why?]

[It's the look he's seen a thousand times before. On his parents' faces and on his brother's and his aunt's, on the faces of everyone who's ever tried caring about him or everyone who didn't but somehow expected more from him.]

I'm sorry.

[It always starts with that. And he means it, he really does.]

I was done. I don't remember using again, I don't remember finding the stuff. I'm pretty sure it was just the once. Just once, and some really bad luck.

But that's how it is with me. Recovering doesn't mean I'm better. It means I'm fighting. And all it takes is one bad night to make me backslide.

I wanted you to know the truth about it. I don't wanna lie about this. I'm an addict and that means I'm a complete asshole and I fuck up and I'm sorry for doing what I did, for leaving everybody like I did. I didn't mean to hurt any of you.

[Her eyes go back to the floor, the fire, whatever isn't Jesse as she thinks, letting out a slow breath.]

If you were a complete asshole you would have lied about it. Just sayin'.

[No matter how much she thinks about it, it's not something she feels she can truly grasp. Being an addict. Getting a brief good feeling followed by so much pain--or death. It's easier to be angry at Stephanie for lying, and be pissed at her and everyone else for making Jesse feel so shitty that he lost that fight. They broke him.

But she's not too furious at Saul. He did something fairly decent. God fucking forbid if he announced Jesse died, especially like that. How many people would say good riddance? How many would say he deserved it? Just thinking about Sonya's reaction makes Ellie's teeth feel like they're going to crack on each other.]

I won't tell anyone. [A given.] Not even the people that know what happened.

[Stephanie can go on thinking she's fooled her.]

[Jesse wipes at his eyes, shaking his head emphatically.]

No, no, no. I'm not - I'm not asking you to keep a secret for me. You can talk about it to whoever you want. If you need to. Or if you just want to. It's a big deal and it's fucked up. Don't feel like you gotta hold it all in for me or cover for me or... Or anything. It's all on me.

The only person I'd want to talk about this with is you. Even then, I don't really know what to say aside from that it's not all on you. You were treated like shit for a long time. Then you made a mistake.

[She can't be angry at him for it, just like she can't be angry at Henry for blowing out his brains in front of her, or any number of people that probably killed themselves during the outbreak. Looks like they took the easy way out, she'd said one time. Joel had been quick to correct her. It's not easy. She wants to believe it wasn't easy for Jesse to pick up that needle.

But she can be angry at Steph. She should have told her the truth.]

And... even if you don't believe that, I think you've been punished enough. [Dying and going home to some shitty situation in which you wished someone killed you sounds like a good time.]

contact ☣ ❝scorpions are pretty creepy.❞

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