vaccination | TLV

Ellie shakes her head.

"No. I met--Tess' person, and then after Joel was gone I just..."

Needed time. Alone.

"Who was she?"

He absolutely fucking understands needing time alone, so he just nods.

He can't say out loud what Becca was, can't make himself say the words, but he can fumble out the little notebook she left him-- about four inches tall, just barely small enough to fit into a pocket, with a spiral binding and a leather cover with a ribbon to keep it closed-- and turn it to the first letter, one of the two places he has dog-eared. It explains that "this is Becca, your sister" and her last understanding of him being dead and her being so sorry for everything that happened. And then that she's going to leave him lots of notes while she's here, which is presumably what fills up the rest of the little book.

Ellie can read however much she wants to, of course, but that letter is the bit B's using to answer her question.

Confused at first, Ellie only needs to skim that first page to realize what this is. Moving through a wasted world, she's read dozens of heartbreaking letters, but never really any concerning people she knows.

"Oh. Oh, man... do you--really want me to read this, B?"

It feels like an intrusion.

"If you want to. I can't. Threw it across the room. Twice." And yet he keeps it on his person at all times, so it's clearly important to him. He's even tried to carefully smooth the crumpled pages back out, so they lay flat when it's in his pocket. "But that one page answers your question."

Ellie does read a little, frowning.

"Do you want me to summarize them for you or something? I think..." She turns a page. "I think you'd wanna see this, B."

"No. Just if you wanted to read it, to answer your question. Might throw you across the room if you tried to tell me what's in it." He pauses, then adds, "Don't want to do that."

They're at the art room now, at least, so he can duck inside and head for the piano.

"Yeah, don't think I want that either."

It's why she follows him and hands back the notebook.

"Keep trying, though."

"I will. Later." Probably much later. He really doesn't want to risk damaging it. He takes it back and tucks it back away in its pocket, then pulls the piano bench out a little so he can sit. "Joel wasn't too bad. A little mean until he decided you liked me. But so was I until I realized who he was." So it was fair to be a little mean, back.

Ellie brings over a chair, sitting and setting the guitar down beside her. She'd like to pretend Joel was never here, never touched anything in this place or spoke to anyone, but there's no avoiding it.

"He was just like that. He was a huge prick to me when we first met. I wish I'd have gotten letters from him like you got."

She got a note, a brief note, but she would give anything for books and books worth of words from Joel. But. She never made that clear to him when he was alive.

He watches her feet and the feet of the chair a moment. "I wish you could have, too. You'd probably be able to appreciate them." He wonders if maybe he should have said something, after all. Told Joel just what her deal was, so he'd know how much he mattered to her. Hrm.

But she's clearly not happy. And she'd needed time alone, so she wasn't happy then, either. "We don't have to talk about it. Sorry."

Ellie gives the piano bench a gentle kick with her shoe.

"Don't apologize. I wouldn't talk if I didn't want to. How often do I try to get you to talk?"

"A lot," he allows, ducking his head. "So. Does that mean it's okay to do the same? To you?" He doesn't know how this whole friend thing works, or if they're even that, or what's allowed. But he's getting a little better at asking things, so here he is, asking. It's practice.

"Yeah," she says quietly, but easily. "It's only fair. And I know you won't go running around and telling people my business, just like I won't go around telling people yours."

"Even if you did. Not like it matters, really." His idea of privacy is a little warped and very scant, to be honest. The important thing here is that she said it was okay to prod her a little bit, like he just had, so he says, "But thank you."

And, looking back up in her direction through his hair, he adds, "Are you okay? After the two people you knew being here."

"Not... super okay?" She admits, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them for a moment. "But could be worse. I expected to be worse."

It helps that there's no one to take her anger and upset out on, in a way. It has no choice but to fizzle out in her chest, leaving her feeling empty and tired.

He tilts his head a little, watching her but keeping his eyes to things like her knees and the top of her head. "Why worse?"

"Joel, he... he killed the one person I knew in the world who knew my mom. I didn't know that. I guess I might have suspected, but... now I know for sure. I thought I'd hate him for it, but after talking to her..."

There's a lot of trailing off there, and Ellie shrugs.

"I don't know. It's upsetting but I guess I'm--maybe I get it more than I thought I would."

There's another shrug.

"I knew she was dead anyway, so. Dead is dead."

Well, dead is not always dead, not here. But he gets what she means. He looks back at the piano keys, though he doesn't touch them yet, still. The conversation seems more important.

The thing to ask seems to be: "Why did he do it?" If it was for a good reason, maybe that's why she's not angry about it. (Just unhappy. Because she's clearly that.)

"Because she was going to use me to make a cure for the infection. He killed... everyone," she says, frowning and looking down at the toe of her shoe on the edge of the chair rather than Bucky.

Abby. Abby, the daughter of the surgeon, Marlene had said. Abby came to avenge her father's death, and she did.

"Everyone" sounds like a thing the Asset would do. He can see the gruff man he'd met doing that, maybe, but he's not sure why. "He didn't want a cure?" he asks.

He did. He had to have wanted there to be a cure to even consider taking Ellie all the way there to begin with. It couldn't have just been because she'd been so desperate for one herself. To have her life mean something.

"No, he did. He fought like hell to get me to the people who could have done it, but turns out, making a cure would kill me in the process."

Something in the brain. Ellie seems rather nonchalant about that part, though.

"So, he stopped them."

There, yes. That fits neatly into his observations about the man, and he nods. "He cares about you. A lot. And didn't want you to die." He tilts his head thoughtfully, and decides that yes, it definitely does sound like a thing he'd do. If he cared about someone that much.

And maybe he does. Godric made him reconsider his definition of "friend", and if anyone here besides Rogers and Godric himself fits an expanded definition, Ellie is it. So he says it. Communication seems like it should be important. With friends. "I'd have done the same thing. I think."

Ellie knows why Joel did what he did. Even if she can't forgive him for it, she knows he did it because he loved her.

It makes her feel all the more awful.

"Even if it fucked over humanity? He killed the one person who might have been able to do something."

He has to think through his answer a moment, so there's a long pause before he says anything, brows together to show he's thinking hard. "The people who. Owned me. They had me kill people. Lots of them. To make the world better, they said. I'm the only thing that could do that. Bring the world the freedom it deserves." He shudders a little, visible but not too bad, at the repetition of his handler's words. "But I'm not supposed to do that now. Right?"

He hasn't quite hit the point of being able to put a value judgment on that, to say it was wrong. It was his job, and even if he didn't like it, he can't quite call it "wrong". But he can see the comparison, when Ellie lays it out like that. A person who would have killed Ellie (who he very much does not want to be dead) to make the world better, compared to him who absolutely killed people to supposedly make the world better.

Ellie listens, frowning, trying to figure out where he's going with this.

"Right. Because the people who made you do those things weren't good people."

She wouldn't say killing in of itself is bad because she's been in so many situations where she's had to kill or be killed.

"You weren't given a choice." Neither was she, one way or another. No one ever asked her if she'd be willing to die for a cure. Marlene assumed yes. Joel, no. Everyone made the choice for her.

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