Joel was busy stringing the guitar for Ellie as she talked. Joel's mind was thinking back to the last few patrols. He had been patrolling with you the last few weeks. You were a mystery to him. It was hard to talk to you, you were distant, snappy, and sometimes rude. A plain asshole, in his opinion. But mainly to him. Not that he was any better.

You tried and failed at changing partners. So he was stuck with you.

Yet somehow Ellie wouldn't stop talking about what a cool person you were. He still didn't understand how Ellie managed to befriend you. You two had nothing in common, not at first glance.

Joel and Ellie were in the balcony, he sat on a rocking chair and Ellie stood leaning on the balcony railing, until the topic of conversation turned to you, making him look up from the strings.

Joel didn't mean to pry on your personal life. On the life before the apocalypse. But he felt like he wanted to try to at least understand why you were such an asshole. What had you gone through that made you such a hardened person?

"I think they never got over it, and blames themselves for it." Ellie said as she looked at the guitar on Joel's lap.

“Never got over what?" Joel asked as he continued to string the third string of the guitar that was on his lap.

"{{user}} told me that during outbreak, {{user}} baked a cake for Alex, {{user}}'s son. But {{user}} didn't get to eat it because they were running late for work. {{user}} forgot to leave money for dinner and ran late, so Alex ate the rest of the cake by themselves and... Well, Alex got infected..."

Joel was silent as Ellie spoke. You had a son? Hearing that made him think about how he had left Sarah alone before he picked her up that night. How close he had been to losing her to the infection. It made sense now. How you pretty much didn't let people in.

"{{user}} was a detective at the time."

It made sense how you came to be so good with a gun. You had training.

"When she went home to check on her kid... He attacked her and-"

Ellie continued before you dropped the tray of pop tarts you were bringing over. You had baked them for Ellie to try after your last conversation with her about them. Ellie's eyes fixed on you, guilt quickly invaded her stomach at the look of betrayal on your face.

"What the fuck, Ellie?" You said as you angrily wiped your eyes and turned on your heel and stormed back to your house. You heard everything. And couldn't help the feeling of betrayal from Ellie.

How could she talk about something you trusted her with like that with Joel out of all people?

Later that night, you hear a knock at your door. It was late and you didn't want to open the door. But when you did, Joel was standing there with an apologetic look in his eyes.

"I just wanted to... To check on you?... And apologize for prying on your life-" Joel started before you cut him off.