Chapter Text
Ellie returned being both less and much more than when she had left. She was missing two fingers and had a bite mark in her left hand. Curiously that infected bite mark was almost completely cured by the time she reached Jackson so she did not even try to hide it. Unlike the first bite mark that she was forced to hide, this one seemed fine. She was glad she did not need to cover this one with acid or something. She might be missing fingers and of course she missed Dina and JJ but she had left behind the biggest burden of her life, the intense desire to kill Abby had evaporated and she had decided to forgive herself for the way she had been with Joel. She could now let those things go. For a while she had known that Joel would have preferred her not to become a cold-blooded murderer, he would have wanted her to have a good life and she was intent on trying to do that. The bad side of all that was that now she had to face her biggest fear: being alone.
It hadn't been easy going back to Jackson. She knew her way for sure but it took several months of work for Ellie to regain Maria's trust. Ellie had to make some sacrifices, swallow her pride and accept what Maria proposed. Initially one of the proposals didn't seem too much, it actually seemed like a nice idea. Maria, as the leader, seemed to know everyone, and so she was kind enough to introduce her to Raquel, another woman who missed two fingers and who taught Ellie again how to play guitar with this new condition. It was hard but she was thankful to be able to learn again how to play a guitar. It meant so much to her. But later she found out these sessions were more than guitar lessons and that Raquel was a psychiatrist and was actually intent on treating her. They discussed it and Ellie was shocked at the beginning and rejected the plan but later decided to give it a try regardless because she had to do this for Dina and Potato.
Dina…
The treatment was far from the hardest part.
The hardest was Dina. She missed her so much and she missed Potato but she couldn't force anything with Dina and for years she thought she wouldn't get her back. It took Ellie 3 years to recover Dina's trust and another extra year for them to make amends and start a relationship again. Dina had some particular requirements too, one of them being that there had to be complete honesty from now on, no escaping in the night or some shit. It took time, effort, and a lot of patience on both of them to get back together but they loved each other and believed they deserved another chance. Curiously, the same thing that caused Dina to consider forgiving her was what made Ellie have a harder time making amends with Tommy: the fact that she hadn't killed Abby.
Abby was taking care of a young boy, Ellie believed that she did the right thing. Regardless of what she thought of Abby, that boy had a better chance of surviving if Abby was by his side. Killing her would not have made the pain stop or bring Joel back. She would have just been more broken. And Ellie was tired of all of that fight, she had managed to move on and was happy to be back with Dina and JJ.
JJ was growing healthy and was the sweetest kid, as clever as Dina, as kind as Jesse and as in love with comics as Ellie.
Apart from having to clean the area of infected from time to time, life seemed peaceful.
That was until that day.