Set Me Free ▪︎ Joel Miller ▪︎

▪︎○ Fifty Seven ○▪︎

The silence in the room seemed all consuming as Olivia's eyes peeled open and her fingers curled in the thin white sheet she lay upon. She frowned with eyes squinting beneath the bright lights hung above her. Where the hell am I?

Her brows knitted as her head turned atop the bed, looking to her right in search of clues relating to her whereabouts. It seemed her mind was playing catch up; piecing things together in slow motion while her body moved as normal and her eyes fell on the sleeping figure lay in the hospital bed beside her own.

Her eyes widened with surprise and relief, realising that they had in fact made it to the hospital. "Joel?" She whispered while leaning up on her elbow and reaching over to shake him gently awake. "Baby..." she murmured with hand lightly tapping his cheek until his hazel eyes snapped open and his calloused hand caught hers.

Their eyes met and the second they did, Joel visibly relaxed. His hold on her hand loosened ever so slightly as they turned in sync to the new movement they had both caught in their peripheral across the room.

"Welcome to the fireflies," Marlene said with eyes studying the pair and their unusual closeness - seemingly surprised by it.

Olivia frowned at the greeting as she and Joel sat upright atop his bed with hands rubbing their sore heads. "Yeah, sorry about that... they didn't know who you were." Marlene apologised.

"No shit," Olivia grumbled with a glare shot towards the two armed men stood beside the dark-skinned woman.

"Where's Ellie?" Joel asked with hand wrapped around Olivia's for comfort.

"She's alright. They brought her back."

"Thank god..." Olivia breathed in relief with eyes straying to look at Joel, watching as he rubbed at his face with a heavy sigh and a sudden weight seeming to lift from his shoulders. Clearly, he too was relieved by the news that their girl had been resuscitated.

"You came all this way. How'd you do it?" Marlene asked the pair curiously, her eyes never straying from their interlaced hands.

"It was all her." Joel told the visibly beaten and bruised woman before him. "She fought like hell to get here," he drawled with mind flicking back to all the dangers they had faced, all the enemies they had fought and all the loss they had endured. He thought back to that moment back in the restaurant with Ellie, seconds after she had killed David; the broken look in her eyes, the bruises across her face and the fight still in her small body when she had thought him to be another attacker.

Ellie had truly fought to be here, as had he and Olivia. They had completed their mission... together.

"Maybe it was meant to be..." He breathed with a thoughtful sigh and body sliding off of the bed with Olivia in tow and still holding onto his hand.

Though, their sudden standing position appeared to cause the leader discomfort as she too slid off her chair and moved closer to the door and her armed guards.

It was this sudden movement and the anxious guilt ridden look in Marlene's eyes that caused Olivia to become suspicious. After all, the heavy and tense air of secrecy and caution had only truly reared its ugly head at the mention of the teen. So, naturally, Olivia felt that something bad was afoot.

"I lost most my crew crossing the country. I pretty much lost everything. And then you show up and somehow we find you just in time to save her." Marlene sighed out with head tilting down and eyes softening, "maybe it was meant to be."

Bullshit.

"Take us to her," Olivia ordered sternly with hard eyes studying the suspicious woman before her.