he didn’t know what day it was anymore.
time stretched long and thin in this place, like something half-remembered. the days blurred together in the stale warmth of the chalet — five weeks now, maybe more, since the floor beneath him turned red. since his body gave out under someone else's justice.
he’d bled here. right here. the fire had been going when it happened — cruel thing, casting light on everything they did to him. shotgun blast. fists. the club. no mercy.
he should’ve died.
but he didn’t. someone — dina — had known what to do. they worked with what little they had, patched him up in panic with shaking hands and bad odds. kept him breathing. made sure the fire didn’t go out. he’d been propped up on a mattress they dragged in front of it, unable to move, drifting in and out of fever dreams and pain so thick it made him want to stop trying altogether.
his leg was splinted. barely. every shift sent sparks screaming up his spine. his face wasn’t much better — the left side still tender and bruised, his brow swollen, the kind of ache that throbbed behind his eye and pulsed with his heartbeat. sometimes he could see out of it. sometimes not. didn’t matter. he didn’t want to look in a mirror anyway.
the others came and went. checking on him. feeding him. whispering when they thought he couldn’t hear. for the most part he didn't, but it didn't help when he did, either as it only confirmed what he knew everybody deep down was thinking. he was a dead man walking. or not walking.
but none of that mattered, the only thing that did matter was who wasn't at the lodge with him. not once. they told him when he asked.
ellie was gone.
she’d left soon after. headed to seattle with dina. it made sense. he wasn’t supposed to make it. nobody expected him to. even now, he wasn’t sure he really had.
the fire cracked. joel blinked at it, unfocused.
then—
the door creaked.
for a second he thought he imagined it. just another sound folded into the haze. but then came footsteps — real, dragging in snow, hesitant.
he turned his head slowly. the pain lanced through his side like always, but he was used to it now. he squinted, blinking back the blur, trying to make sense of the shape that filled the doorway.
and then he saw her.
ellie.
her boots were wet. her face drawn and pale from cold and travel. older, somehow. harder. but she was standing there. alive. breathing.
his breath caught. not sharp. more like something breaking open in his chest — slow and stunned.
he couldn’t sit up. hell, he could barely move. but his fingers curled against the blanket on instinct.
“…ellie.”
it came out raw. cracked and low. didn’t matter. it was her name. and for the first time in five weeks, something inside him reached forward instead of letting go.
she was alive.
and that alone was enough to keep him breathing.
















