A/N: This was suppose to be out last night but I got busy with family stuff and then this morning I got the cold. So I apologise if this chapter isn't my best work, know you all wanted this out. Anyway, hope you enjoy and I'll see you in the Epilogue, tomorrow :)

"You're not much for small talk, are you?"

Y/N had found himself on the other side of town, just a ways from the hospital. The crashing current of flooded water had sent him barrelling in the opposite tunnel and out the other end.

And here he was, with a Firefly.

"That's okay, I don't care for it either." Abby gave him a smile, "Mostly."

They were on one of the main streets heading east, abandoned vehicles littered ahead and more greenery than before. Abby, this wannabe firefly, was taking him to the hospital.

To Joel, and Ellie.

"How much further?" Y/N asked her. He wasn't going to needlessly small talk, only what was important, and getting back to his friends was everything. "Just up the street?"

"Yeah," Abby vaulted over a wrecked car and Y/N followed. "Just a couple minutes that way. Some friends up by that old water tower, make a stop there."

"Why?" Y/N wrinkled his nose. "More fireflies?"

Abby shrugged her shoulders, "It's only way through, the end of the street is blocked off by wrecks and the FEDRA walls. Gotta go over."

Y/N followed behind her, his rifle slung over his shoulder as he fiddled with his hand.

"Great."

"You don't have to worry about infected." Abby gazed at the pistol in his hands. Her own was placed in her back pocket. "City was cleaned out, above ground anyway."

"I don't take any chances." Y/N explained, turning direction as Abby led him up into a building, and out onto the open rooftops. "Safer that way."

Abby could agree with that, "Smart, guess if I was picked up by someone who claims to be a firefly I'd be cautious too."

She guided him along the rooftops, and soon enough the water tower was in view. He could see the fireflies not far off, huddling around a section of the roof near the tower, there were no more than four of them.

"There they are." Abby said before calling out to them. "Hey, John!"

The firefly in question turned at her call, and raised his shotgun, only to lower it when he noticed them.

"Jesus Christ, Abby." The firefly lowered the gun, along with the others that got up as they approached. "I could've shot you. Who's this?"

"Nice to see you too." Abby pointed to Y/N, who awkwardly stared back as he stopped at her side. "This is Y/N, he was with Joel and Ellie."

"Oh shit, yeah scouts said they saw a third one coming into the city with them, a boy." Another firefly piped up. "You okay, kid?"

Y/N chewed at his bottom lip, placing his pistol away, "I'm fine. Just need to get to the hospital."

"Right, soon as we pack up we'll head on over. Just give us a sec." The fireflies began packing up, and Y/N noticed another approaching him. "So, you got us the cure, huh?"

'What the fuck?'

Abby thought the same, punching the firefly in the arm, "What the fuck, Amy, she has a name."

"I'm sorry," Amy, this young firefly spoke up, "So you brought Ellie here, huh. Must've been quite the trip."

Y/N, who just wanted to get moving, simply nodded his head, crossing his arms over, "It wasn't just me. We had a lot of help..."

The journey to Salt Lake City, it had been hard and cruel, full of pain and misery, all of the people they had lost.

To get Ellie here. He hoped it was worth it.

"I get that." Abby sympathised with him, it only irked him more. "You can't go it alone anymore..."

Y/N had once thought the opposite, how wrong he was...

"Yeah, well after the doc makes the vaccine we won't ever have to deal with the fucking Infected no more."

Y/N gave them a small smile, "That'd be nice."

The last one spoke up as he finished with his pack. "Just a shame what has to happen though."

Frowning, Y/N turned his gaze to the last guy, confusion in his voice, "What do you mean, what has to happen?"

Suddenly an uncomfortable silence befell the group, they all stopped working and moving, staring at Y/N in particular.

Abby herself rubbed at her neck, choosing to speak up.

"They, uh... they said they have to remove the cordyceps." Y/N's frown only deepened as Abby stumbled her words. "I'm sorry." She moved on past him and headed to the nearest firefly, helping them with their belongings. "It's the only way."

Y/N stared after her as the fireflies went back to work, his heart beating fast in his chest, he turned his gaze away and focused it on the hospital building not far from him.

"What?"

He found his voice had turned to gravel, his eyes lowering at what that meant. The fungus grew all over the brain, he knew it. And that meant...

"They're gonna..." Y/N swallowed the lump in his throat, as hands bared at side, his injured hand spiking with pain. "They're gonna kill her..."

One of the fireflies, he didn't care what his name was, looked up at him, a sad look on his face, "It's what she wants."

Ellie never said it would kill her. Joel never said...

Y/N felt sick, his stomach churning uncomfortably at thought of it all. Ellie was his friend, his best friend even. She had wormed herself into his life and he had let her in, destroying the walls that were holding everything back, holding him back.

She had made him care.

'What about what I want?'

"Look, kid." John, the lead firefly, approached him. "It's just the way it has to be. We've been searching for a cure for so long..." He sighed deeply, "We have to take it, even if it means she... passes."

His head was spinning, thoughts and memories going through his head. The first moment they met, all those days after, her laughter and smiles, her unwanted affection at the time.

"It'll be quick and painless."

He remembered the way he felt before he met her, how alone and morbid he was. He remembered the hugs she gave him, the way she called his name in panic and fear, when he had broken his own wall to hug her back the day they were sent to be slaughtered.

"She won't even know it happened."

Ellie had opened him up, made him whole in a way that no one ever could, and now they were just going to throw her away like a slab of meat?

"So, why don't we head down to the hospital and you can—"

Bang!

John fell dead to the floor with a bullet between his eyes, causing the rest of them to jump and flinch. Y/N moved his pistol and fired at the next one as they scattered, sending two rounds into Amy's chest, and the woman collapsed to her death.

Y/N's eyes were dark, his face hardened and hands shaking. Taking cover behind an old air conditioning unit, the two leftover fireflies opened fire at him, rounds bouncing off the cover. He peaked and noticed Abby vaulting over a table they had set up, making her own cover as the fireflies shouted out.

He didn't care. He was upset, angry, and the old him was coming out to play once more.

Y/N placed his pistol away and swapped it for his sniper rifle, going left he skirted round his cover to flank, pistol raised in both hands. One of the fireflies pulled out of cover went to fire at his cover, only to fall dead when Y/N fired rounds through the side of his body.

"Fuck!"

He couldn't stop himself, didn't care who they were. They were going to kill Ellie and that was all the justification he needed.

Y/N rounded the corner of the rooftop, past the dead firefly and turned, only for him to be grabbed from behind. Abby gripped onto his back hard, arms wrapping around his neck as the last firefly rushed towards them.

Acting fast, Y/N sent a head butt back into Abby's face, connecting with her nose he swore he heard it broke. The girl groaned in pain, falling back just as the firefly rushed him, grabbing at his rifle before he could shoot him. The shots went wide, fighting against each other.

Y/N let go with his injured hand and pulled his knife, stabbing the firefly in the leg. The man howled in pain and let go of him, doubling over onto the floor.

Breathing out hard, Y/N looked down at the firefly, and immediately smashed him in the face with his rifle, rage coursing through his very being. Each swing of the rifle, the contact of the stock against his bloodied face, Abby screamed out each time.

The girl was on the floor, her vision blurring and clutching at her nose, but she saw it. Y/N brutally murdered her friend at ease, his face set in stone, with each swing of the rifle, until there was nothing but her own tears and Y/N's breathing...

Turning from the body, he lifted his bloodied rifle up, and turned to Abby, her petrified form, tears in her eyes matched only by the blood covering Y/N. He stepped towards her, but then suddenly stopped, his gaze turning to the sun in the distance, and the hospital below.

Y/N scoffed, and rushed past her, there wasn't time. He had to get there before it was too late. Ellie and Joel needed him.

He left Abby behind to her sobbing mess of tears, and the eyes that trailed after him, before they settled into a seething tone that swore a revenge game that would shatter entire worlds.

She needed to get back to her dad...

—

10 Minutes Earlier

When Joel awoke he was assaulted by two things. The pounding in his head, and the burning of a light bulb hanging from the ceiling. He rolled to his side, eyes widening as he fully woke up, and found himself staring face to face with his benefactor.

"Welcome to the Fireflies." Marlene offered him a smile, and gestured to the man's head. "Sorry about the... They didn't know who you were."

The guard in the room shuffled on his feet.

"And Ellie?" Joel asked, pulling himself up from the bed.

"She's alright. They brought her back." Marlene calmed his worries, and settled into her chair, a strange look in her eyes as she searched him. "You came all this way... How'd you do it?"

A part of him still asked that question. Earlier he had placed it to luck, back in Boston? Now, he knew it was something else. Something stronger than luck.

"It was her." Joel confessed. "She fought like hell to get here. Maybe it was meant to be."

"I lost most of my crew crossing the country. I pretty much lost everything." Marlene's bitterness was clear to see, even as she looked away. "And then you show up, and somehow we find you just in time to save her." Her smile returned. "Maybe it was meant to be..."

He looked around the room, it was a patient's room in the hospital. A cot, some blankets, nothing else. And yet there was only him, Marlene and the guard.

"Where's Y/N?"

Marlene frowned, taking the question in stride.

"Who's Y/N?"

"A kid, he was with us from Pittsburgh." Joel took Marlene's silence for bad news. "He didn't wash up in the tunnel with us?"

"No," Marlene told the truth, rubbing at her elbow, a nervous sign. "I'll send some guys out, take another look for you. It's the least I can do."

"I'm grateful. Now Ellie, take me to her."

She shook her head, "You don't have to worry about her anymore. We'll take care of—"

"I worry." Joel insisted. "Just let me see her. Please."

"You can't." Marlene gazed away from him, her eyes filled with a deep sadness she wished not to have. "She's being prepped for surgery."

Joel narrowed his eyes, standing up from the cot, "The hell do you mean, surgery?"

Marlene held her hand out, stopping him in his tracks, "The doctors tell me that the cordyceps, the growth inside her, has somehow mutated. It's why she's immuned. Once they remove it they'll be able to reverse engineer a vaccine. A vaccine."

Joel's frown only deepened, "But it grows all over the brain."

"It does..."

Taking a deep breath, Joel stepped forward, a dangerous look in his eyes, "Find someone else."

"There is no one else." Marlene argued.

"Listen," Joel got right in her face, his hands balling at his side." You are gonna show me where—"

Suddenly he was sent stumbling to the ground by the guard kicking him in the back of his knee.

"Stop." Marlene ordered, before looking down at Joel, her face expressive and full of hardship. "I get it. But whatever you think you're going through right now is nothing to what I have been through. I've known her since she was born. I promised her mother I would look after her."

Joel lowered his head bitterly, "Then why are you letting this happen?"

"Because this isn't about me." Marlene snapped, pressing a palm against her abdomen. "Or even her." She pointed a finger at him wildly and shook her head. "There is no other choice here."

Scoffing, Joel settled back on the floor, hands gripping hard at his knees as he glared hard at Marlene, "Yeah... You keep telling yourself."

Marlene stared him down, mirroring his expression, before she spoke to the guard at her side, "March him outta here. If he tries anything, shoot him." She sighed, and moved to the door. "Don't waste this gift, Joel."

Joel watched her leave as the door shut behind her and soon settled his gaze to the floor, defeated and torn down, as the firefly guard in the room approached him, pistol in hand and aiming right at him.

"Get up." He didn't move. "I said get up." Reluctantly, Joel stood up and made it to the door, sneaking a look at the guy from behind as he stopped. "Give me an excuse."

"Which way?"

The guard gestured down the hall with his gun, and Joel headed that way. Passing by a nurses' station, he eyed his bag that was left against the counter, along with his weapons. Bringing himself to a stop when he hit the threshold of the wall, he had a plan.

"What the fuck are you doin'? I said keep walking—"

The guard went to jam the gun into Joel's back, but he suddenly sent his elbow crashing backwards into the man's arm, a shot went wide. He grabbed the man's pistol and shoved him into the wall, before he gave him two pistol whips to the face, and jammed the gun into the man's junk.

"Where's the operating room?" The man said nothing. "I ain't got time for this." Joel fired off a round, and the man grunted and groaned in pain. "Where?" He fired again at the silence, "Where?"

"Top floor... The far end."

Joel released his hold on the man, and let him drop to his knees, before placing the barrel of the gun to his head and pulling the trigger. The man dropped dead just as the shouts and orders of Firefly soldiers pierced the air not far off.

"Gunshots! Search the floor!"

Joel grabbed his bag and rushed for cover as he pulled it on, as he crouched by a low wall.

"Oh shit."

The fireflies were out in force, half a dozen at least just waiting in the hallway on this floor. Shit, he'd need to flush them out with a smoke bomb, or a molotov could work—

Bang!

"Sniper!"

One of the fireflies dropped dead, half his head missing from his body, then another, and another, and before long three bodies were dropped to the floor as the rest of them rushed into cover.

Acting quick, Joel pushed up and aimed over the counter and pulled the trigger of his shotgun, the buckshot shredding through what remained of the distracted fireflies.

He aimed for another one that was cowering by a wall and lined the sight up and fired. The man dropped dead, his friends followed the same route, as Joel picked them off.

They didn't last long, not between Joel and Y/N's sniper fire.

Ducking at the nurse's station, Joel placed his shotgun away and pulled his revolver just as the last guy dropped dead, a clean red mist that followed in the wake of his torso being blown open.

Standing up, he pushed past the bodies, and came to a stop. He looked out the window, the familiar muzzle flash of a rifle staring back at him before it vanished.

"Good work, kiddo." 

Joel proceeded through the floor, making his way down the hallway where the fireflies emerged from. He took care of them, putting them down before finding an exit, a set of double doors leading to a stairwell.

"Oh shit." Joel turned and quickly noticed a chair. "There." He grabbed it and shoved it into the handles of the door, jamming it shut just as the rushing footsteps of soldiers sounded.

He rushed up the stairs and made his way two floors up, the rest of the doors blocked off, and stopped as he entered. It was the top floor, the one that the guard mentioned. Ellie had to be here.

She had to be...

"They're not responding." The voice of a firefly called out to his fellow soldiers. "Take up positions. No matter what, he doesn't get through here."

Joel wasn't going to let them stop him.

He took action, sending smoke bombs their way and blinding them, the smoke allowing him to slip through. Each firefly was gunned down, and when the smoke lessened only a handful remained.

Joel couldn't stop, he had to find her. He fought like hell and back, pulling his shotgun to bare, he pumped them full of buckshot, their bodies collapsing to the ground in a pool of their blood as limbs and brain matter exploded along with him.

And when the last firefly fell, he rushed to the end of the floor, signs of the surgery room ahead of him.

Entering through the end of the room, Joel closed the double doors behind him and quickly blocked them, shoving a medical cart in its way. With the doors secured he rushed down to the end of the hallway, he could make out the surgery room ahead, and a Firefly symbol that was branded on the nearby wall.

He was close, Ellie was here.

Opening the door up, he was greeted by the silhouettes of doctors and nurses working, it caused his heart to skip a beat, his hands shaking. He moved to the door to the surgery room itself and yanked it free. Stepping in, the head doctor and nurses turned at his sudden presence, flinching on the spot.

"Sweet Jesus."

Ellie was hooked up to medical machines, a respirator, IV and whatever else meds they had, pumping through her veins as she lay unconscious on the operating table.

They were going to just... cut her up, like a piece of meat.

"What are you doing in here?" The doctor asked, covered in blue scrubs and a mask.

Joel stepped forward, his face darkened and eyes full of something he hadn't felt in a long time.

"I won't let you take her. This is our future. Think of all the lives we'll save." He grabbed a scalpel, its bladed end pointing right at Joel. "Don't... come any closer."

Joel wouldn't let the doctor stop him, he pushed on towards him and disarmed the knife from him, before stabbing it right into his heart, killing him. His body dropped to the ground in a gurgle of blood, as one of the nurses screamed.

"No! You fucking animal!"

The nurses flinched and cowered, jumping back as shock filtered through their bodies, their colleague dead on the ground.

"Kari, shut the hell up!"

Joel rushed to Ellie's side and pulled the mask off of her face, removing the IV drips, and carefully picked her up, "C'mon, bay girl. I gotcha..." He hefted her up in his arms, cradling her close to his chest, and looked up.

The hounding sound of boots and voices filled the air, followed by dozens of flashbacks back from where he had come in, Firefly soldiers breaching the hallway. Steadying Ellie in his arms, Joel turned to the other end of the room and rushed to the other door.

Only to freeze when the door opened, and a firefly soldier appeared before him, wearing a gas mask and an assault rifle in hand aimed right at him, the light flashing deep into his eyes.

"Don't move!"

The sight of it, the familiarity, it rose up something dark in Joel. He felt like he was back in the past, all those years ago.

The day he lost everything.

The day he lost Sarah...

"Oh shit."

Joel stepped back as the man moved forward, hands shaking and bile rising in his throat, he couldn't see a way out...

"I've got him!—"

Bang!

The firefly suddenly jerked forward, collapsing onto his face as a bullet struck through the back of his head. Joel flinched and steadied his grip, and looked up.

"Y/N..."

—

"We need to go."

Y/N lowered his rifle and gestured for Joel to follow.

"C'mon, they're coming."

He led Joel out of the room and down the hallway, sparing a concerned glance at Ellie before he focused on the path. Alarms and sirens blaring all around them, red lights flashing in the dark as the fireflies ran after them.

"They're getting away!"

"I got you, I got you." Joel murmured as he followed Y/N, the boy leading them out, through the hallways as the place began to swarm with troops.

"Stop!"

Y/N fired his pistol at the first firefly, dropping him with a couple rounds to the body, before turning back, "This way!"

More fireflies were coming that way, they were forced to skirt around, through different sections of the hospital floor.

"We're okay... we're okay."

They rushed round a corner and their eyes settled on the end of the hallway, a working elevator that was open, their only way out as the other ends were blocked.

"Joel!"

"I see it!"

Y/N let Joel rush on ahead, following behind him as he blind fired while running, shots going wide and hitting the walls as his movement caused his aim to worsen.

"Get back!"

"This is your last chance, drop her!"

Y/N fired wildly, his breathing heavy and hard, he rushed into the elevator just after Joel. He pressed the button to the garage floor, and watched the door closed as the fireflies tried to stop them.

"Wait! Stop!—"

The two of them breathed in, gulping for air as the door closed completely, and the elevator began to descend deeper through the hospital floors, elevator music playing out of all things.

"Are you okay?" Y/N asked him, hands at his knees as he bent over, catching his breath.

Joel nodded, hefting Ellie up in his arms, "Are you?"

Y/N chuckled out a laugh that bared no humour, "I've felt worse."

Relieved at that, the both of them waited for the elevator to arrive at the garage. The door soon opened up followed by the elevator ding, and as they stepped out, they were greeted by none other than the Queen Firefly.

"You can't save her." Marlene aimed her pistol between the two of them, her face set in steel. "Even if you get her out of here, then what?" Y/N glared at her, his grip on his own sidearm intensifying. "How long before she's torn to pieces by a pack of clickers." They circled each other, like two hostile cats. "That is if she hasn't been raped and murdered first."

Sticking his nose up at her, Y/N snapped, "That isn't for you to fucking decide."

Marlene shook her head, eyes turning to the teenager, "It's what she'd want." Y/N found his eyes dropping at that, grip slacking as her words pierced him. "And you know it." She moved a hand away from her pistol, hoping to calm them. "Look... You can still do the right thing here..."

But the other half of him, the selfish, the human part, it said otherwise. He had made his choice, and no matter what Ellie would think of him, he'd stand by it. For her, and himself.

He'd already lost everything that ever mattered to him, and he wasn't going to lose her too...

"She won't feel anything..."

Y/N knew deep in his heart that no matter what — He'd burn the whole goddamn world down before he'd let them take her from him. Suddenly his face darkened, and his eyes turned a sinister colour, he blackened his heart like all those years ago, and moved his pistol an inch.

"But I will..."

Bang!

Marlene fell to the ground with a bullet in her abdomen, blood pooling out of her and onto the ground. He lowered the pistol, and looked to Joel, he saw the older man staring right back at him, something in his eyes. He blinked, and finally saw it, he knew he'd do anything for Ellie.

And he'd do the same.

Joel carried Ellie to the parked SUV in the garage, and opened the back door. He placed her in there gently, as Marlene struggled, gasping for air, and her grunts of pain filling the air. Y/N stood by, his gun in hand, looking down at the woman.

This was someone Ellie had cared for, did care for, if it was to be believed, and here he was staring down at her with Death in reach. All he needed to do was pull the trigger...

"Y/N..." He turned at Joel's voice, and his eyes lowered slightly, before narrowing, as he turned back to Marlene. "Get in the truck."

He felt the need to say something, to do something, that he was holding him back, but he felt the words die on his tongue. He nodded and headed to the SUV and climbed on into the front passenger side, just as a gunshot filled the air.

Joel climbed into the front seat of the vehicle not a moment later, and closed the door. He looked to Y/N, who was staring ahead, his eyes unfocused, hands covered in blood. He sighed, and grabbed the keys from the overhead compartment and started the ignition.

They drove out of there, out of the hospital, out of Salt Lake City, and by the time they got to the highway Y/N finally broke the ice.

"...Are we going to talk about what happened?"

Joel gripped the steering wheel harder, and slowly turned to Y/N, the boy's attention was on Ellie, laid on her back and out cold.

"No..."

His eyes narrowed in on Ellie, searching each inch of her to make sure she was unharmed, he didn't bother looking at Joel, too worked up as his hands finally stopped shaking.

"We're not going to tell her..."

It wasn't a question, it was a realisation. They couldn't tell her now, not even a year from now, what could they say? What they did, they killed the Fireflies, they doomed a cure.

They destroyed Ellie's purpose...

Joel turned back to the road, and sighed through his nose, "It'll be okay, Y/N." He reached a hand out, and squeezed his shoulder.

Y/N accepted the comfort, but his mind still fought against what they had done, what he had done, even if he knew it was the right thing.

"I know..."

Silence overtook the ride, the two males settling into a comfortable silence as Y/N's mind began to zone out, an arm resting on the window as he stared along the road.

Until a groan sounded from behind him causing him to jump, and turn around in his seat, his eyes settling on Ellie who yawned, her own gaze staring up at the car's ceiling, before resting on her body.

"The hell am I wearing?"

Y/N's heart leaped in his chest, his eyes bright and a small smile propped up on his face. "Hey, you're awake." He reached over further in his seat to get a better look at her.

"Just take it easy, drugs are still wearing off."

Ellie stayed laid on the seat, eyes slacking as she rubbed a hand at her forehead, her memory hazy, "What happened?"

Turning away from her, Y/N tried to hide the frown that worked its way to his face, silence creeping out of him, as Joel spoke up for the both of them.

"We found the Fireflies..." Joel saw Marlene in his mind, as he killed her, a bullet to her head. "Turns out, there's a whole lot more like you, Ellie."

The lie made Y/N's stomach churn uncomfortably.

"People that are immune. It's dozens actually. Ain't done a damn bit of good neither." Joel gripped the wheel harder, trying to stop his hands from shaking. "They've actually st—" He looked to Y/N in the rearview mirror, "They've actually stopped looking for a cure."

And Y/N wondered how the hell he was ever gonna hide this from her...

"I'm taking us home."

He watched through the rear view mirror as Ellie rolled over, turning away from the two of them, her entire world shattered in an instant.

While Y/N and Joel's world remained intact and alive, hers was gone forever.

"I'm sorry..."

A/N: So, uh... yeah, he left her behind. I hope that doesn't come back to bite them in the ass. If so, more guilt, am I right? :(