paradisa | FIFTH SHOT

[She and Joel have been at each others' throats all day, but things have settled down in the evening –– not because things are resolved, but just because one needs to take a break to maintain one's sanity.

After a nausea-inducing round of vodka and cake, Tess' new poison of choice is a hot shower.

Tess steps out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, hair clipped up to keep it off her shoulders, clad in a loose tank top and pajama pants. Her wound is freshly poked at but healing, the striations of her musculature disappearing under tissue regrowth. She still feels like some sort of freak science experiment and she still steps away when anyone comes too close, but she's alive, and she's lucky to have even that. If the Infection really is gone, then it's nothing short of a miracle.

If only everything else about Paradisa could be that great.

To cross the living room to her bedroom, she needs to pass by Joel, and passing by Joel is risking another argument. Tess, however, is not going to do any sneaking around: that just isn't her style, especially not with Joel, and if he wants another round, so be it.

So when she walks out, she gives him that look. The got anything new to say? look.]

Learn anything else new about this place that you care to share?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[And even that, at this juncture? Makes him a bit nervous. It's a gift horse and he's not looking at it in the mouth, but adjusting is strange.]

Ain't no Quarantine Zone or the type of people we're used to dealing with. [He pauses, rubs his thumb over the top of her hand. He's sorry.] We'll be alright, I guess.

We've been through worse, haven't we?

[Maybe, maybe not. It's not exactly fair, given that there's nothing to feel and no aftermath to deal with when you die, and Joel's had to go on without her, but together this isn't the worst by far. Not when it's so full of happy circumstances, anyhow.]

We got so little to be afraid of here.

[Hell of a lot worse.]

It's too quiet. [Joel muses, like it's both a blessing and a curse. He shifts up against Tess like her presence is gonna fix it somehow, threads his fingers through hers without thinking about it and stares down at their hands, squinting as if it's a trick of the light that hers can be this close again. Whiskey's kicking at him hard.] Too damn quiet.

[She lets him get closer, and though her heart skips a beat, whiskey crushes her instinct to shy away. She looks down at their hands, too, but only briefly. Her eyes go back up to his face.]

We'll get used to that... or we'll make more noise of our own. I dunno, Texas.

It's good. [Joel decides, immediately after complaining about it. Can't make up his mind, apparently. He can't stop staring at their hands either, this dull ringing sound in the back of his head distracting him too. It's unreal.] Right?

[He almost never does that, ask her to confirm something or comfort him about something. For a second Joel doesn't sound like the older one, the too experienced, too bitter, too pessimistic one. For just a second he's floating with that tone and reaches out to his rock for some little word.]

Right. It's good.

[Tess shifts so her body's angled towards him, her hand still in his, and she searches his face. Her voice drops a bit to be softer, reassuring.]

Don't shut down on me, okay? This is the best chance we'll ever have. Things'll be good here, even if it's strange at first. We can be good people here, we can take more time for us, for Ellie. You have to believe this is good and we have to make the best of this place.

[She's so sure. Joel watches her and looks away towards the end, torn between wanting to grab onto her words like they're water in the desert and wanting to run away from them. It's a trap they're setting up for themselves. It always is.]

How do you undo all the years, Tess? [He's asking genuinely. He has no clue and she's eager to start over, so he asks. Despite doing all that for Ellie, he more or less gave up on himself completely to do it. Joel knows that.] How do you even start?

[When he withdraws, she presses forward, her fingers curling tighter around his. She isn't sure if she believes it, herself, but she at least believes more than he does. Tess never cared about traps, not when she's confident enough that she'll sail right over them.]

I don't know, but what's stopping us from finding out? Make something out of nothing, like... like how we built up our empire. We can do that again.

[Joel gives a squeeze at her hand, not meeting her eyes yet.]

We had somethin' to work with there. A system to work in and around. This... [He mumbles and trails off, jumps from one point to the next. He's had too much, because for some reason he finds himself saying:] I lied to her. To Ellie.

[Tess shakes her head.]

We can figure out this system. And what does it matter that you lied to her? You did it for the right reasons, right?

[Maybe, maybe not.]

[Can they? It's so unpredictable.]

I dunno. [As for that, his voice gets quiet.] Just don't want her feelin' all that guilt. Don't want her to have to feel that, the rest of her damn life.

[The weight of the world on her small shoulders.] But she knows somethin' ain't right.

So let her come to you, and tell her the truth if she asks. Besides, she doesn't need to be guilty –– it was Marlene and me and you, adults who should have known better, tellin' her that she could save us all. Hell, Marlene and I still thought something could change, and we were totally wrong.

[Joel shakes his head, but he's not sure at which part. He doesn't know what he'll do if or when Ellie comes to him with that question and he's not sure he wants to think about it.]

Maybe not.

[Saying nothing except those two vague words, he just drums his fingers against the side of the glass. What they mean to him is unclear.]

[She frowns.]

How weren't we leading her on? Marlene basically set her up to be a martyr. She knew from the beginning, right? She put all of our lives on the line for this kid, no way she didn't know that Ellie would be part of the price of pulling it all off.

She had to have fed Ellie that to the start.

I meant maybe you weren't totally wrong.

[He mumbles. Marlene had known Ellie's mother and knew the kid before Joel ever met her. She'd claimed feeling just as rough about the sacrifice she intended to make, but Tess' line of thinking is making him pissed off all over again. What sort of conversations did she have with Ellie about that bite before handing her off to Joel and Tess?]

Maybe things coulda changed.

[Tess finds herself sighing.]

If things could have changed, why did you kill them all, again...?

[No simple answer to that question. He's not entirely sure what the complete answer is, because while caring about Ellie is huge there's a part of him that knows he didn't want to give her up for himself and himself alone. Joel stalls by refilling his glass and hers.]

It didn't matter as much as her.

[For a bunch of different reasons. He thinks that answer might bother Tess, the words mumbled under his breath for it.]

[She watches him pour another set out in silence. They're both going to be wrecked tomorrow, especially at this pace.]

Once a dad, always a dad, huh?

[Wrecked is sounding good right about now. Taking her down with him is maybe not the most noble way to go about it, though. Joel passes a hand over his face and takes a big breath.]

After you left, there was no going back. [He picks at the couch's arm, reminded of the confrontation he had with Ellie at the ranch house.] It was just Ellie. And you know me, I don't fight for the Fireflies.

I know you don't.

[She shifts in her seat, slightly, holding her drink right under her nose but not drinking again. Not yet, anyway. She sighs and then lets him go with it.]

Well, you fight for what you've got.

FIFTH SHOT

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