[This is nice. Joel-- he's not really the sort that plays back at her, so Ellie's grin is warm and genuine. It's been a long fucking time since she could just... you know, goof off with somebody.

But the idea of keeping it up is exhausting. Sometimes she thinks that she just doesn't have it in her anymore. To be happy. To stay that way. Like... she left some part of herself behind as that-- fucker burned in that old restaurant. Nothing she used to enjoy holds her attention like it used to. Who the fuck do you become, after shit like that happens? What does it turn you into? Don't you get any say in yourself anymore?

The smile fades a little, and she finds herself wishing she had something to do with her hands so she can stop focusing on how it felt to feel blood and bone and brain dry across her knuckles in the searing cold.]

There's this comic series I like-- Savage Starlight? And it's all about this Doctor like... two hundred years in the future, fighting these evil aliens. I think about that a lot.