15 Works in Ellie Has Abandonment Issues (The Last of Us)
Listing Works
-
Tags
Summary
Almost four years after the events at St. Mary’s Hospital, Ellie finally learns the truth. And it cuts deeper than any wound. The lies meant to protect her have shackled her instead—and torn Joel away from her forever.
What follows are months of silence. Cold. Empty. Heavy. Ellie comes of age, finishes her tattoo, loses her relationship—and the last fragments of stability she had. Meanwhile, Joel starts a new life—with another woman, with another chance at happiness.
But that’s the one thing Ellie can’t stand.
She doesn’t want him back. She wants him to suffer. Just like she has. And the only way to truly hurt him… is through herself.
-
Tags
Summary
After the events of 'Lone Wolf,' Joel's managed to get Ellie recovering and keep her safe in Jackson, where he's fighting for them to have a home and a life. However, as much as Ellie loves Joel, she feels responsible for the whole world because of her immunity - and thus, when the Fireflies come, she wants to go.
But Joel? Joel, who only just got his daughter - his still-injured twelve-year-old daughter - and the opportunity to keep her safe? No, of course he doesn't like that.
But he loves her, and when the time comes, he's willing to follow her to the ends of the earth.
Even if it means bad things are going to happen.
Series
- Part 2 of Lone Wolf
-
In Between Days by Capricordinary
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
19 May 2025
Tags
Summary
Turns out there's more like Ellie. People that are immune.
The difference between them and her?
She has Joel and a future with him waiting for her.
***
Ellie turns out not to be the only one the Fireflies are experimenting on. A fellow test subject befriends her. But he's just as indoctrinated as Riley was and willing to give up anything and everything in the name of a cure - his health, his life. And Ellie's.
Slowly, it becomes apparent that no one else at this hospital is expecting her to have an After.
Nobody but Joel. And god help the motherfuckers who are standing in the way of it.
-
Tags
Summary
"Like constellations imploding in the night
Everything is turning, everything is turning
The shapes that you drew may change beneath a different light
And everything you thought you knew
Will fall apart, but you'll be all right"
-Constellations by The Oh HellosEllie's struggle with wanting top surgery but not wanting it to erase her validity as a lesbian.
-
Tags
Summary
“You wanna move out?” Joel asks, and Ellie bites the side of her cheek briefly. Joel’s face conveys more than his tone, sometimes, but she can’t let herself look at him. It’ll make it too hard to say what she knows she needs to.
“Yeah,” she says, studying a chip in the paint on the railing with way more focus than it needs. “Probably a good idea, you and me having our own space.” She isn’t brave enough to bring up what people are saying about them not having their own space. She can’t do it. Either he’s not aware of it yet, or he is, but reminding him about it might mean him wanting her even farther away before her existence even in the backyard has other people making his life harder. If the closest she can get is being in the garage, she doesn’t want to risk fucking up even that.
“Alright,” he says after a long, long moment. She grits her teeth against the toneless quality of his voice. That’s the tone he uses when he doesn’t want someone to know what he’s actually feeling.
Like he would if he didn’t want a pathetic QZ kid to know how relieved he is that he’ll finally be done dealing with her shit.
(after realizing that she's making joel's life harder, ellie decides to move out to the garage)
-
Tags
Summary
Joel is dead, the world is falling apart and Ellie can only think of one way to fix it. Kill Abby Anderson. For over a year, this is all she can think of, the only solution she can find to make it better. But would Joel agree?
Written for Whumptober Day 18 - Revenge | Unreliable Narrator| Loss of Identity
Series
- Part 18 of Sokeyy's Whumptober 2024
-
Secrets by MagicSchoolbusDropout08 for TheSunflowerQueen333
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV)
29 Jul 2024
Tags
Summary
After Ellie goes through Joel's backpack and finds something she shouldn't, she manages to convince Joel to trade with her - a secret for a secret.
As they look up at the stars, they tell each other things that they normally wouldn't talk about or share.
But even though they're spilling secrets they would never feel okay with telling anybody else, it's okay.
Because they're Joel and Ellie, and it's them against the world.
Series
- Part 1 of She Shines Brighter than the Whole Sky
-
butterfly kisses by captainredspade (CodenameArtemis)
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
20 May 2024
Tags
Summary
Ellie runs away from Joel and their life in Jackson, believing herself to be cursed. Afraid she'll lose what matters most, she decides to just leave first to protect the family she doesn't think she deserves.
A brush with death out on the road and a familiar stranger help Ellie find her way home. Back to Joel.
(Or Ellie doesn't believe in spirits and guardian angels, but something saved her and she needs to know why.)
-
"Surviving the Night" by Halfling_MadMax
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
14 Jan 2024
Tags
Summary
"The biting cold of winter seeped through the cracks in the cabin walls, casting a frosty glow over the small, dimly lit room. Ellie lay huddled beneath a pile of threadbare blankets on a makeshift bed, her breath visible in the frigid air. The room felt smaller than it ever had before, suffocating her with an icy grip that matched the chill in her bones.
In the cold grip of the nightmare, Ellie found herself engulfed in a suffocating darkness. The air was thick with an ominous tension, and the world around her morphed into a surreal landscape of fear. The taste of copper lingered on her tongue, a haunting precursor to the horror that awaited.
As she stumbled through the inky shadows, her breath caught in her throat. The atmosphere was heavy with an unrelenting dread, and each step felt like a journey into an abyss. A distant echo of footsteps resonated, the ominous rhythm of impending doom..."
-
this haunted house you're creating by TheLastTheosaurus for Calliopes_Lyre
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
12 Jan 2024
Tags
Summary
Still, even as the blood on her side dries, she cannot swallow the dread in her throat.
They walk. They make camp. They sleep. Ellie pretends she does not hear Joel’s nightmares. Joel pretends he does not see the way Ellie sleeps with a hand cupping her own cheek, an unstable apparition of her mother that’s just strong enough to leave salt drying on her face in the morning. They wake. They walk.
Ellie bleeds.
-
or: wary of being seen as weak, ellie hides her injury from joel for as long as she can -
a heart, a hand to hold onto by becomethesun
Fandoms: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
31 Dec 2023
Tags
Summary
If she’s being honest with herself, the real problem is that every time she looks at those pink stripes, she’s back to that night in December, Joel’s sharp words ringing in her ears, sure as hell ain’t your dad, come dawn we’re going our separate ways, sitting on that window seat with her knees hugged to her chest for hours afterwards, staring at the wallpaper and waiting and waiting and waiting for him to come back and tell her that he changed his mind, that he’s not leaving her.
She knows how the story ends, she knows that even though he never apologized, he did wait for her, he didn’t leave her, but those stupid pink walls keep reminding her that everyone leaves her eventually.
—
When emergency home repairs kick Ellie and Joel out of their house in Jackson, they temporarily move in with Tommy and Maria. One could say it's a full house. (Featuring Miller Family Bonding and Ellie's abandonment issues and a nonzero amount of Lord of the Rings references.)
Series
- Part 1 of kin (a canon-divergent au)
-
circle of fifths by marchflower
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
16 Oct 2023
Tags
Summary
“It’s not that,” Ellie interjects softly. Joel sighs.
“Then what is it?”
She doesn’t know how to tell him this- that it’s not school, its not him or even Cat. It’s not that easy. It’s her. She doesn’t know how to tell her girlfriend that she keeps hurting her feelings. She doesn’t know how to tell Joel how hard she feels like she has to work to make him proud. She doesn’t know how to keep all of them - her family, her friends, her girlfriend - happy and keep herself happy too. She feels like she did the first time Joel taught her how to swim: scared shitless on the edge of that dark pool, furious at herself for agreeing to this, like she was on the very cusp of drowning.
*
Ellie navigates the break down of her first relationship and all the shit that comes with it.
-
Please, Don’t Leave Me! I’m Drowning in the Background of Your Choices. by Dickgraysonsghost
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
28 Jul 2023
Tags
Summary
Ellie watched Joel's face light up more as the woman came crashing into his arms. He has a Daughter. And Joel had told her nothing about this woman that he so clearly loved.
or; Sarah lives, not many things change. But Ellie really doesn't like her smile.
Series
-
a flower bud in concrete by mirananananan
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
18 Jul 2023
Tags
Summary
Joel almost chokes on his dinner when he follows her eyes and realizes what she’s talking about. “What…a baby?” he coughs, clearing his throat. “Think I’m a little old for that,” he says, testing the waters. “Do you?”
“Sometimes I wonder,” she says a bit sheepishly, avoiding his eyes in favor of looking back toward her food. She’s not sure what drove her to start this conversation in the first place; it’s been a topic she’s carefully avoided for months. Joel has never brought up having kids and, up until recently, it had felt like they were juggling Ellie constantly as if she were a newborn herself as she adjusted to life here and started sleeping through the night and not clinging to them every time they left the comfort of their home. She knows it’s a long shot, but it’s the first time in her adult life she feels like she’s really had a chance. It’s the first time she’s felt safe enough to even consider the possibility.
or, the miller family grows within the safe walls of jackson.
Series
-
We love because we can lose by cosmicjelly
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
27 Apr 2023
Tags
Summary
Joel and Ellie return to Jackson closer than ever, but are finding it difficult to settle in to a new way of life. Not just due to new rules, new people, and a new way of living- but because of an overwhelming sense of fear and anger that has been following Ellie since their journey concluded. Joel joining patrol duty only exacerbates her feelings, causing a series of unfortunate issues in Jackson for the two of them.
TLDR: Ellie is suffering with the aftermath of their traumatic journey- the events with David and Joel's near death experience- lashing out and putting herself at risk. Joel is worried sick and has to save her from herself while they both navigate changes in their lives.