CatherineA
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it's so good to see your face (welcome home) by CatherineA
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
14 Aug 2025
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“Marlene was going to tell me about my mom.”
The silence that stretches between them is long, but for once, Ellie doesn’t feel the need to break it. Tommy can fill it or not.
The couch creaks as Tommy sinks back into it, but Ellie’s gaze remains anywhere but on him. The sun sets so early in the winter—it’s so dark—but she can still make out a stain in the rug, only half-hidden under the coffee table.
“Marlene knew your mom?”
“Best friends, apparently.”
“Ellie,” says Tommy, and the seriousness in his voice has Ellie’s head snapping up. The intense curiosity in his eyes is unnerving. “Who—what was your mom’s name?”
It clicks for Ellie, then. Her mom knew Marlene. Marlene knew Tommy…
***
Or, the one where Tommy's and Anna's paths crossed in Boston.
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this is me trying by CatherineA
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
03 Aug 2025
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"I don't think I can ever forgive you for that. But I would like to try."
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“Where is Joel?” asks Ellie. He’s dead. He’s dead because of her, and they don’t want to tell her.
“Joel just got out of surgery,” Maria answers calmly, taking both of Ellie’s hands in hers. Ellie’s eyes snap back open. “Tommy is with him. You’ll be able to see him soon.” Ellie starts to sit again, to stand, to go to him, but Maria squeezes her hands in warning. “First, we need to make sure you’re okay. Next, we need to understand what happened out there, what Tommy and Dina can’t tell us. Then, I’ll take you to Joel.”
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Or: Joel survives, Ellie is still bent on revenge, and their family just wants to help.
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saying goodbye doesn't feel like the end by CatherineA
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
01 Oct 2024
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Ellie grapples with that event from TLOU2.
Ellie wanted to be an astronaut, so Joel made sure she got to go to space.
Now, Ellie just wants Joel.
So she stares at the stars and listens—for an apology, for an absolution. Words she will never hear.
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some version of you (that I might not have but I did not lose) by CatherineA, manushroom
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
30 Sep 2024
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Jonathan likes New York, mostly because it couldn’t be less like Hawkins. But living across the country does mean that when he finds himself alone and injured, he’ll finally have to learn to accept help—from the most unexpected source.
“Jonathan?” the woman asks, stepping towards him like he’s a frightened animal. “Jonathan Byers?”
He nods, wary, and she must believe him because she quickly closes the distance between them and kneels close, holding out a rag and examining his cut.
“I’m Diane. Your dad—Hopper called me.”
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the weight of the world ain’t that bad by CatherineA
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
31 Aug 2024
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“Ellie,” he begins, staring at the ground, his voice low. Not little shit, not kiddo, not baby girl. The use of her given name has the desired effect, because she takes a step back and looks down at him with an expression almost like fear. He levels her in his gaze. “Listen to me very closely. No matter what happens? What you’ve done will not be for nothing. It can never mean nothing. It has already meant everything.”
Ellie stares at him, open-mouthed. There’s a joke here, somewhere—Ellie, silent?—but the punchline doesn’t quite form.
“Joel, you’re freaking me the fuck out,” she says, finally. And yeah, it’s not her fault he hasn’t made it abundantly clear exactly what she has come to mean to him.
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Or: Joel opens up to Ellie just a little bit earlier. It changes everything.
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icarus, spread your wings by marchflower for lkay09
Fandoms: The Last of Us (Video Games), The Last of Us (TV)
06 Jul 2026
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“This,” he interrupts firmly, “is what I want to do.”
His hand settles over hers, tugs it free from his shirt. He threads his fingers through hers, fixing their palms flush against each other. All the rough parts of him scrape all the wounded parts of her, and it rubs her raw, but she finds that that flaying - the slow and painful shedding of her shell- feels more like a rebirth than a burial. He doesn’t expect her to be anyone other than who she is, flaws and all. He doesn’t need to be anyone other than who he is. She’s seen him in some of his worst moments and in most of his best, and she’s found herself in both sides of him. Two and half years since he kicked her knife away from her in that leaking hallway in the Boston QZ and she’s harder pressed than ever to find the murky line where he ends and she begins. She stopped looking for it a long time ago.
“Okay,” she whispers. She rests her head against his shoulder, turns her face sideways into the collar of his shirt. He hums, low and throaty, and rubs his free hand up and down her arm.
*
Seven times that Ellie held Joel's hand, and one time she let go.
Bookmarked by CatherineA
07 Jul 2026
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Nancy opens the door before considering to check through the peephole, and she’s startled when the man in front of her is so far above her eye level. She takes a couple steps back and immediately regrets it when he takes it as an invitation to step over the threshold.
She recognizes him, of course. She wasn’t that young when Lonnie Byers finally left Hawkins. She never saw him much—she didn’t spend her tween years frequenting the bars where he must’ve spent most of his time—but she knows what he looks like. She thinks about him often enough, when she’s contemplating Jonathan’s tense shoulders and perpetual skittishness. (Mostly, she thinks about punching him in the face. Now that he’s here, that seems less doable).
~~~
Nancy has an incredibly tense conversation with one Lonnie Byers. (Jonathan is also there, eventually).
Bookmarked by CatherineA
27 May 2026
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You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.jancy fic week 2026 DAY 1 — post-final battle
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Bookmarked by CatherineA
27 May 2026
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and live at peace with our hearts by stoprobbers for lunar_years
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
02 Apr 2026
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“Up or down?” Dustin asks.
“I say both,” Nancy says with a firm nod. “Search in teams of two. Cover more ground.”
“Yeah, that’s cool with me, but can we just switch the teams up?” Jonathan watches Steve turn a plaintive gaze on Nancy, tipping his chin down to make his eyes bigger. “Nance, you and me to go up?”
His spine goes cold.
“Sure,” he says before anyone else can chime in. “New teams. New eyes, new thoughts; maybe we’ll find something different. Maybe we’ll finally break through.”
jancy fic week DAY 3 — canon divergent or fix it
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Bookmarked by CatherineA
27 May 2026
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Jonathan doesn’t think much of it when he grabs the video off the Blockbuster shelf. It’s A.A. Milne and Disney; surely, there’s nothing to worry about. Right?
(Monster hunting: Winnie-the-Pooh edition.)
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Bookmarked by CatherineA
27 May 2026