The hardest thing for Ellie had always been the silence.

Silence was the perfect storm of fear and doubt. It echoed in her head and every echo returned louder, telling her she was going to end up alone, that this man Marlene hired was going to dump her in the woods and go home which was what any normal person would do.

So she tried to fill the space between them with stupid chatter, miles and miles of it, getting shot down by Joel at every turn. Eventually they got back to where they'd started, a weird, tense quiet that left Ellie to pick herself apart with doubt.

Man, did she ever hate silence.

She thought about that as they picked their way on foot through the underbrush of what probably used to be a suburb. Ellie had heard of suburbs: they were filled with families that all knew each other, where the grownups were friendly and their kids hung out together. Weird little blocks of houses where people lived so they could drive to work somewhere else and then back again. She didn't really get it, but it still sounded better than the quarantine zone, which was all she'd ever known.

Ellie found herself wondering, as she watched the wary shift of his shoulders, whether Joel had lived in a suburb, if he'd talked to his neighbors and gone to the movies with his family and had a job that didn't involve smuggling kids past military checkpoints. It occurred to her that she'd probably never know anything about his family, or if he'd even had one.

Smacking a branch out of her way, she imagined a wife and two kids for him. Joel's wife must have been pretty but kind of dumb, she reasoned, to be able to put up with his bossy, grouchy self. The kids had to be pretty young, she decided. It'd be weird if they were her age.

Eventually, Ellie lost patience with making up an imaginary life for Joel and jogged up beside him. Here we go, she thought wryly, attempt number one hundred and thirty-five.

"Hey," she began, clambering over a piece of upturned pavement, "where'd you say we're going?"

Joel didn't break stride. "Acquaintance of mine, could help us with transportation."

"We're going to find your brother first, right?" Ellie prodded. "And he's gonna help us find the Fireflies? And what do you mean transportation – you got a plan for how we're gonna get to your brother's place or are we just kind of shitting in the dark?"

"The plan is to find my acquaintance, and see what he can do to help us get to Tommy's," replied Joel. "And the expression's 'shootin' in the dark'."

"What! Seriously?"

He grunted. "Yeah."

Taking her embarrassment at being corrected in stride, Ellie quickened her pace to keep up with Joel, who'd already moved on from the exchange to examine their surroundings.

"Did you live in a place like this?" she asked as he scanned the street and rows of houses on either side. "I can totally see you in one of these houses with a dumb short fence and a pool in the backyard and a big ol' pickup truck!"

Joel's reply was quiet. "It was a little different in my day, but yeah, I lived in the suburbs."

"What, that's it? That's all you got for me? No cats or dogs or barbecues? Wife? Kids?"

"Look, I'm trying to concentrate on gettin' us through to Bill's in one piece, and playing twenty questions ain't gonna help that."

Ellie changed tack.

"…So, your friend's name is Bill?"

Joel sighed. "Yeah."

After that she tried a couple more times to get conversation out of him, but Joel's one-word responses and need-to-know basis didn't give much to go on. It wasn't until she cracked out the bad puns she'd learned from one of the soldiers back at the school that Ellie heard a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. Maybe it was more of a sound of disgust, but she decided to chalk it up as a success regardless. Joel couldn't hold out in cranky silence forever. The guy was kind of a tough nut with a thick shell, but somewhere between now and getting wherever they were going, Ellie was determined to crack him.

o

Bill's place turned out to be a lot farther than the 'few miles' Joel had promised. By the time they'd made their way across five hours of fields and abandoned country roads, Ellie's feet were killing her. Between that and the swarm of infected they got for a welcome party, she was ready to be done with their road trip.

The news they'd really be getting a car perked her spirits up, though. As the two of them followed Bill to his second safehouse, she practically hung on Joel's arm with excitement.

"So we're gonna have it all to ourselves?"

"Yeah."

"And you're gonna drive?"

Joel grunted affirmation, his eyes watching the alleyways around them and Bill's wide-ass back.

That seemed too good to be true to Ellie – the only cars she'd ever ridden in were military transport, and they'd never let you stop to piss when you needed to. Not that there was any guarantee Joel would, either, but she liked her chances better in a car of their very own. She'd driven a couple of times, for a few minutes while one of the soldiers' C.O. wasn't around, but Ellie liked riding shotgun better. Riding along with Joel seemed like the first part of this whole shitty trek that could actually be kind of fun. A minor kink in the plan stood out to her, though.

"When was the last time you drove, anyway?"

"Ellie, would you be quiet? In case you didn't notice, we're tryin' to sneak through here incognito."

The girl lowered her voice to a stage-whisper. "Yeah, but I mean, it's a serious problem! What if you get us in a wreck, or you can't even remember how to start it, or – "

She could practically hear Joel's teeth grinding, but it was Bill who put a stop to the conversation.

"The both of you, shut the fuck up!" he growled, waving his machete at them. "Keep it to yourselves until we get to the goddamn safehouse, alright? Knew I shouldn't've agreed to this in the first place, Joel and Joel's tresspassin', loud-mouthed brat…"

Bill's grumbling trailed off, but the fierce look of reproval Joel cast back at Ellie, combined with the sounds of clickers not far away, kept her from giving more of a retort than a muttered "fuck you too, buddy" under her breath.

Tense, careful quiet prevailed – breached only by occasional sharp bursts of gunfire – until they reached the safehouse.

"It's really more of an armory," Bill clarified as they began to sweep the rooms.

It didn't look like a safehouse or an armory to Ellie. Converted from an old church, the high stained-glass windows of the main room weren't even boarded up, and the whole place was littered with so much stuff around the edges it could have passed for one of the street markets back in Boston.

None of the stuff was looked like it was for fighting, though, except for a few cases of ammo here and there. Joel collected those almost immediately, picking up a low but intense-sounding conversation with Bill about their plan to get to the other side of town and their truck, while Ellie poked around in the miscellany of junk. Most of it was pretty boring: dust-crusted furniture and spare parts and boxes. People's personal items, too, the owners long gone. But nothing that really interested Ellie.

The room that looked like it must be Bill's, though – a ratty mattress in one corner, bottles and evidence of food scattered around – was a better find. Lying on the dresser, underneath a pair of hole-riddled socks, was a stack of books.

Reading had always been a favorite hobby of Ellie's, although at first glance it didn't look like Bill had anything she'd like. But closer inspection revealed a comic book, tattered but still readable, and nestled carefully underneath it, a magazine with a shirtless guy on the cover.

Jackpot, thought Ellie with a snort.

Quickly, she stuffed the comic book into her backpack for later. The porn was probably good for a laugh, though, so she flipped through it quickly.

Ellie whistled at the size of one of the guys' junk and scrunched her nose up at the page. "That can't be comfortable," she commented to his companion in the picture, who was on the receiving end. He looked pretty happy about it, but Ellie couldn't imagine how. Something that big seemed like it'd split her in half. Maybe that was the appeal.

She flipped quickly through a few more pages, skimming the images. Most of the guys were muscular, and hairy, and kind of old. They looked nothing like the guys in the magazines the girls at the school had smuggled in.

"Ellie?"

Joel's voice broke her from the mesmerizing spread of naked dudes with a start. Ellie scrambled to get rid of the evidence of what she'd been looking at, and in her panic she shoved the magazine into her bag with the rest of her stuff. It was just in the nick of time, too. Joel appeared in the doorway, looking disapproving.

"You're not touching anything in here, are you?"

"Nope."

She adjusted the backpack, avoiding eye contact.

Joel hesitated a moment, still looking suspicious, before giving a tired nod and a jerk of his head. "Good. C'mon, then, we're ready to go."

Ellie blew out a breath and followed.

o

In the ensuing chaos, she forgot all about the magazine until later, going over her haul in the truck.

"What else did you get?" Joel sighed when she showed him the purloined issue of Savage Starlight. Ellie couldn't tell whether he was amused or pissed. The guy had been in a weird mood, quiet and even sourer than when they first met, since they met up with Bill. Maybe Bill had said something to get him all grouchy, or maybe it was something Ellie had done. She had no idea. What she did know was that she had a hilarious opportunity to mess with him and maybe lighten the mood a little.

With a sly smile, she pulled out the cassette tape first, handing it across the seat.

"This make you nostalgic?" she grinned.

"Y'know, that is actually before my time," retorted Joel, but he took the tape and popped it in.

It was time for the coup de grace. Ellie waited a second before pulling out the porno mag and making a big production of flipping through it. "Wow!" she exclaimed, feigning shock. "How would he even walk around with that thing?"

Predictably, Joel immediately tried to make her give it up.

Ellie stalled him off, retreating with her plunder. A seed of genuine curiosity was beginning to form as she thumbed through page after page of beefcake. Who found this attractive? Some of the guys looked almost as old as Joel. It had never even occurred to her that people that age thought about sex, let alone did it.

Bill, apparently, had thought it was hot enough to bust a load all over one of the spreads, which made the last few pages of the magazine not only disgusting but completely unreadable. It was good fodder for teasing Joel, though. The idea of him trying to explain that was just too good to resist.

"…Why are these all stuck together?"

In the front seat, Joel mad a choking noise. He seemed to be struggling for words, and Ellie abruptly realized they were both acutely aware of the fact that he had almost definitely caused some sticky pages of his own at some point.

The joke had taken them into awkward territory fast, and Ellie backpedaled as hard as she could to head off any excruciating talk about the birds and the bees.

"Haha, just fucking with you!" she blurted, hoping the laugh sounded natural. It must have; Joel's breath of relief was hard to miss.

Ellie tossed the magazine, not even a little disappointed that she wouldn't get to take a closer look at it later. It had caused more than enough weirdness already. Joel was just the guy getting her to the Fireflies, and he was a grownup, and kind of a dick – even though she liked him better than most of the adults she'd tangled with. The less reason she had to think about him naked or jerking off, the better. He was old, Ellie reminded herself sternly. Old and a fucking hardass.

With that thought firmly in her mind, she climbed into the front seat. It still felt too weird to say anything, so she blew air through her lips instead, making stupid motor noises. At least that seemed to ease some of the awkwardness off.

The music helped, too. There was something soothing about the rise and fall of the singer's thick Southern accent, the twang of his guitar. Cheesy as all hell, and not the world's best recording, but it did the trick. Ellie sighed a little and started to relax.

Whatever the magic was, Joel didn't seem to be feeling it. He cleared his throat loudly. Ellie, determined not to be set back, turned the music up and gave him a small, crooked smile.

"You know what?" she announced, "This isn't that bad."

And it really wasn't. The inside of the truck was warm and dry, Bill's tape had its own sort of dumb, kitschy charm, and out of all the people she could be on the road with, her life in their hands? Joel didn't seem like such an unlucky draw.

"Why don't you try to get some sleep?"

Ellie scoffed. "I'm not even tired."

"Why don't you pretend to try to get some sleep then, and let me focus on the drivin'?" Joel clarified, shooting a look over at her that said end of conversation.

A slow smile spread across Ellie's face. "I've got a better idea. You ever played 'I spy'?"

"Yeah, reckon so," he replied, "but I ain't playin' it with you."

"How long is the drive to your brother's?"

"Couple of days."

She snorted. "Are you telling me you seriously want to be stuck in the car for two days doing nothing but looking at the boring fucking road?"

"Trust me, the road'll give me plenty to pay attention to."

"Come on, Joel. One round. What could it hurt?" Ellie could tell she almost had him won over. Almost. Almost…

He capitulated.

"Alright, fine – but after this you leave me alone."

"Deal."

"Go ahead and start."

"You sure?" Ellie snickered. "I'm pretty good at this game! Don't wanna take any unfair advantages over a feeble old guy."

Joel shrugged, his palms flattening across the wheel as he took them through a broad turn. "I don't think that matters much if it's just the one round. And I ain't that old."

"You're pretty old."

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him giving her a skeptical look.

"How old do you think I am?"

She'd done it! He was talking to her willingly. Score. "Oh, I dunno… You're probably, like, sixty, right?" Ellie grinned.

He snorted. "Yeah, that's real funny."

"Ok, so how old are you?"

"I'm fifty-two."

"Whoa! Seriously? I was just fucking with you, I thought you were like forty-five." Ellie squinted over at Joel, trying to see it. He did have a lot of wrinkles, but she'd figured that was because he scowled all the time. "I guess you do have a lot of gray in your hair. And you're the one who thought I was twelve."

"Might as well be."

She pulled a face. "No way! Twelve-year-olds are babies. I'm all grown up, dude. I have seen some shit."

The expression on Joel's face was inscrutable. "Yeah, I'm sure that's true."

"So…" prompted Ellie, when he didn't offer anything else, "How about that game of 'I spy'?"

"I changed my mind. We ain't playing."

"Joel! You promised!"

"Ellie, I'm serious, you let me concentrate on the road now."

"Come on. Just throw me a little, tiny bone here?"

Joel exhaled loudly through his nose. "What'd I say? One round?"

"Fuck yes!" Ellie grinned and punched the air. "I spy, with my little eye…something gray!"

"Is it the road?"

"Yep."

He grimaced. "This ranks right up there as one of the stupidest games I have ever played."

"That was just the practice round!" Ellie insisted, and settled down into her seat. "Next time I'll pick something harder. It's your turn, by the way."

"Yeah, alright. I spy…some dirt."

"Joel!" She slapped his arm. "C'mon, that's not how you play."

"And I said 'one round'," he pointed out.

"If you're going to be a douche about it, then forget it. I can just read my comic or something. Over and over again. Out loud."

"Ellie…" It had to be her imagination, but Joel sounded almost sorry. "Look, there just ain't that much out there to play your game with, alright? You come up with somethin' else to pass the time, you let me know."

Ellie smiled.

"You know 'twenty questions'?"

o

Somewhere between their fourth round of twenty questions and the Pennsylvania state line, tiredness finally caught up with Ellie. She was curled up in the passenger seat, hands tucked under her head, and snoring softly.

Sarah never snored.

Joel remembered that clearly, the way her breath had flowed in and out, a quiet whistle on the nights she'd tried to stay up and fallen asleep with him on the couch. This girl was about as unlike his daughter as anyone could be, with her standoffishness and her constant cussing and the angry set of her mouth.

If anything, Joel thought with a wry snort, she was more like Tess. A firecracker, and older than the world meant her to be. But she was good, too, like Sarah. Innocent, as much as anybody could be anymore. She could still look at the world with hope.

But she ain't either of them. He shook himself free of the thought violently, of the ghosts of everyone he'd lost. Ellie reminded him of them all. The sooner he dropped her off with Tommy, the better – as long as he wanted to get rid of the kid, he couldn't lose her. She couldn't become another one of those ghosts.

"God dammit," Joel growled under his breath.

Over in the passenger seat, Ellie shivered and stirred, but she didn't lift her head. Joel turned up the heat a little, even though he was already plenty warm.

The little sigh of contentment that came from the girl put a part of him at ease that he hadn't even realized was anxious. Joel glanced over at her, eyes sweeping the hunched-up outline of her shoulders and back. She looked so small. For a second, he almost reached over to tuck a chunk of hair that had pulled loose from her ponytail behind her ear.

Bill had been right, Joel realized.

He was fucked.

o

Ellie woke to the sound of gravel grinding under the truck's tires. Everything else was silent; Joel must have turned the music off. Outside, the sky was pitch black, headlights giving way to darkness a few feet ahead. Yawning, she rubbed her eyes with the heel of her palm. The dashboard clock read 2 AM. Beside her, Joel was shifting around.

"Joel?"

He glanced over at her in the middle of tucking his handgun back into the waistband of his pants. "We're just stoppin' for a minute. Go on back to sleep."

Instead, she sat up. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, we're good. Just stay in the car. I'll be right nearby."

True to his word, Joel didn't go more than fifteen feet from the truck – just far enough for the darkness to swallow his back. Ellie squinted to see what he was getting up to.

After a few moments, the familiar sound of liquid trickling carried back to her. Oh. Her cheeks burned. And then, for some utterly fucked reason, she remembered that stupid magazine. It was the worst timing ever. Ellie tried really hard not to think about whether Joel was hung like the guys on the pages she'd seen. The more she tried not to, though, the more the idea pushed itself into her thoughts.

What the fuck, Ellie! she chided herself. Guiltily, she turned away to give him some privacy.

Joel climbed back into the truck, and Ellie cleared her throat.

"You still awake?"

"Yeah," she admitted. "I have a hard time sleeping in cars."

"Well, how 'bout you try countin' sheep."

Ellie made an indignant noise. "Do I look like I'm five or something? I'll stay up and keep you awake so you don't pass out at the wheel and run us off the road."

Joel didn't respond, except to put the truck back into gear. They rumbled along in silence for a few miles before she spoke up again.

"Um…can we talk or something? I know that's not exactly your thing, but I really don't wanna go back to sleep just yet."

He grunted, but it sounded like an agreeable sort of grunt, so she pressed on.

"You don't even have to talk, actually. I can do all the talking for both of us! It's just so fucking quiet, it's freaking me out." She blew air up into her bangs and watched the road knit itself out of the darkness at the edge of their headlights. "…This is so weird. Being out in the open, I mean. Back in the QZ, I kind of…didn't ever think about how all this stuff was still out here, you know? Like, we knew about it, but it might as well have been Mars or something."

"Used to be a whole world out there," Joel muttered. "Now it's just more of this."

Ellie wasn't sure if he meant the empty, occasionally junked-up road or the darkness.

"…What'd it use to be like?"

Joel shrugged. "It was busy. Hardly any abandoned buildings. Cars and people everywhere, lots of noise, lights. Things looked new." In the dim of the cab, Ellie had a hard time making out his expression. "It's hard to describe."

"Try."

"What's it matter? It ain't comin' back."

Ellie sighed, running a hand across the dashboard. "I'm just curious. It's something I'll never get to see, y'know? You were there. Hearing you talk about it is probably the closest I'll ever get."

Joel's voice got hard. "Well, I don't know what to tell you. Wasn't that different from the way it is now, Ellie. No infected, and things worked for the most part, but people…they were basically the same. People ain't changed that much."

"I heard people used to be good."

The silence lasted longer this time. Ellie glanced over at Joel. His hands were tight on the steering wheel.

"Whoever told you that, they told you wrong."

Something in the air felt like when she had tried to tell him she was sorry about Tess. Joel's tone was completely final. I'm just a package, Ellie reminded herself. And he's just a delivery guy getting me where I need to go. I don't need to know about his past. But no matter how many times she told herself that, a part of her still wanted to know what was in Joel's past that he hated talking about it so much.

People had obviously fucked him over. But so what? People fucked everybody over. If that was the same between now and before, then Ellie didn't see what the big fucking deal was. She was fourteen and she was used to that by now.

She thought about Winston, the soldier back at her school who had big, square hands like Joel's that he would clap on her shoulder and laugh at some dumb joke. How he'd scared off the kids that used to try to take her shit, shown her how to get a guy in a chokehold and how to throw a better punch.

She thought about how, predictably, looking out for her had stopped being convenient for him one day, and that was that.

It hurt, but she got over it. Maybe Joel was just sensitive. Or maybe whatever happened to him was worse. Either way, it was obvious the subject was closed.

Slowly, Ellie leaned back into the headrest and slipped into sleep. She dreamed she was surrounded by a mob of runners, clawing at her on all sides. Across the room, from somewhere hidden, Joel shot them down one by one before they could ever touch her.

Even though she couldn't see, Ellie knew it was him, because she felt untouchable. Safe.

o

The next time she woke, the tape was playing again. Joel was cussing to himself, and it didn't take long to figure out why: there was a fork in the road ahead, and it looked like the road they meant to take was all jammed up.

A sign off to the side informed them that they were in Pittsburgh. Ellie stretched, wondering if Joel was in a better or worse mood than last night. From the bags under his eyes, it seemed like he'd driven straight on without a break. He was probably tired and cranky. With a yawn, Ellie decided it didn't matter.

"Now what?" she asked.

It didn't surprise her when, instead of answering, Joel just checked the rearview mirror and frowned. The lines in his forehead got deeper when he did that. It suits you, thought Ellie peevishly.

Joel's scowl deepened. For a split second, he looked so incredibly exhausted that Ellie felt a pang of guilt and wanted to tell him to forget the whole thing and turn back before he lost any more sleep on her account.

The look passed in a flash and Joel shook his head.

"Screw it," he muttered, and turned them toward the clear section of road.

The ambush, in hindsight, shouldn't have come as a surprise. The whole scenario was way too fucking suspicious. But Ellie still protested for a second when Joel told her to put her seatbelt on, and she still felt a moment of furious betrayal when the guy in the road pulled a gun on them. And I wanted to help you, you fucker!

They careened down the street, Joel's driving amazingly steady - until something huge slammed into them, and Ellie blacked out.

o

"Get out," Joel ordered as soon as she came to and realized they were still in one piece. "Quick."

Yeah, no shit, thought Ellie, but she didn't have a chance to even get her bag before a pair of rough arms grabbed her by the waist and dragged her out of the truck.

"Let go of me, you chickenshit!" she shouted.

To her surprise, Joel didn't even think to reach for his weapon. He reached for her first, as she kicked and screamed at the asshole pulling her away, and even when a second guy came around the other side and started pummeling him, Joel's hands wrapped around her ankle and tried to hold on. Amid the flail of limbs, Ellie saw his head slammed into the gearbox once, twice, and she felt the grip on her foot slacken.

The tenuous connection broke, and they were dragged in opposite directions.

"Joel!" shouted Ellie, her voice cracking with terror. For herself, for him – in that moment, they were the same thing.

Feeling herself manhandled and lifted clean off the ground made Ellie struggle even harder, throwing elbows and biting and clawing, her heart in her throat. The sound of breaking glass from another part of the garage barely registered. All she could make sense of were the hands grabbing at her, the rage at being tossed around like a bag of supplies. Even her terror for Joel slid beneath the immediacy of survival as the man backhanded her to the ground and loomed over her.

Winded, she couldn't make her arms cooperate to fight the guy off. Hands wrapped around her throat and squeezed. This wasn't how Ellie wanted to die. She'd given it some thought, lately, and helpless on the ground under some filthy scavenger wouldn't even make the bottom of the list.

If she died fighting beside Joel, at least it would mean something.

The thought was unexpected, but it sent a jolt of energy through her body that brought her stunned limbs back to life. She fought back hard, trying to break free of the grip on her neck. Everything felt like it was going far away. Get to Joel, her mind shouted. Get to Joel. Get the fuck up, Ellie, and get to Joel!

And then, like she'd wished him into existence, Joel appeared. He kicked the man on top of her in the head and followed him to the ground with a snarl.

As Ellie struggled to catch her breath and clamber to her feet, she could hear the sound of Joel slamming the man's head into something hard, over and over. She barely registered horror at the sound of cartilage and bone crunching. Instead, there was a thrill in her veins, mixed headily with terror, at the thought of Joel's rage to protect her.

Plus, the asshole had deserved what he got. He was trying to kill her for no fucking reason!

"Motherfucker," she coughed, staggering to her feet. She could still feel the imprint of hands around her windpipe. "What is wrong with these guys?"

Her companion's hands on her arm, pulling her up, were a relief all their own. Joel was unexpectedly gentle as he steered Ellie back toward the truck. It should have freaked her out, after being thrown around and choked, but somehow the touch grounded her instead, helping her to get her bearings back.

More surprising was the fact that Joel didn't let go even after she was up and moving. He stayed with her, the other hand pressing lightly at her back, until they reached the door of the truck. Then he pulled her pack out and tossed it to her.

"Catch your breath," he said gruffly, his tone at odds with the gentleness of the touch that still tingled between her shoulder blades. "We're leaving."

There was a bruise swelling under Joel's eye and a scrape across the bridge of his nose. His breathing was coming hard. The scrapes across his knuckles stood out to her for the first time as he swung his own pack up onto his shoulders.

Thank you, Ellie wanted to say. For not ditching me to get away. For killing that guy to save my ass. For protecting me.

Before she could get any of it past the tightness in her chest, something caught her eye, a metallic flash of light at the far end of the garage. What the fuck…? she thought, and then it registered.

"Get down!" she shouted, as the window next to Joel's head exploded in a shower of glass.

Both of them scrambled for cover, Joel behind the truck door and Ellie behind an old desk that didn't look like it would provide much protection. "Stay down," Joel ordered.

You don't have to tell me twice, she thought, heart hammering in her chest. A volley of gunshots rang out over their heads. Ellie thought for a minute. She was small; she could flank them without being seen, take a couple of them out with her knife. If Joel tried the same thing, he'd get shot up.

She tried to communicate something to that effect with hand gestures, mouthing I'll go around, but Joel shook his head firmly.

Pointing at the ground with one finger in a stern motion for 'stay here', he crept away to the other side of the truck, handgun out and ready. The second his back disappeared out of sight, Ellie felt a clenching sense of dread, and she reached into her pocket to feel the reassuring, solid shape of her knife. I'm not alone, she told herself, trying to remember to breathe. He's coming back. Everything's cool.

Moments later, she heard the sounds of a struggle from the other side of the garage, followed by gunshots. Silence followed moments later.

Fuck this, Ellie thought, glancing around to make sure nobody was coming up behind her, and then crept across the gap between her hiding spot and the truck. A few feet away, there was a slick smear of blood. A man in a wifebeater lay facedown in it, gurgling. Another two men were sprawled across the entrance to the garage.

"Fuck, Joel," she muttered under her breath.

These guys probably had kids, or girlfriends, or something. She hated thinking about that, because she knew Joel didn't. Joel just killed whoever and whatever got in his way. She wanted to like him, and if it came down to it she'd kill one of these fuckers to save his stupid ass, but that part of him fucking terrified her.

Another round of gunshots echoed somewhere farther away, but she couldn't tell where they were coming from. Quickly, Ellie made her way to the low window behind the truck and vaulted through it.

Now she could see: out in the street, Joel had taken cover behind a rusted-over car. He was taking heavy fire from a couple of the guys who had attacked them. "Shit," mumbled Ellie, looking around desperately for something to distract them from Joel. There was jack shit; even the gun on the nearest dead guy had an empty clip.

"Alright, you motherfuckers," she said, mostly to herself, picking up a length of pipe. "Come and get a piece of this. Sorry, Joel."

Running toward the back of the room, where she'd spotted a door, Ellie knocked the pipe against every surface that looked like it would make a loud noise. The effect was instant. Both men out in the street whipped their heads around toward the garage, and Ellie saw Joel take one of them out in the ensuing confusion. The second guy was still standing when she ducked down again, but she could hear fists hitting a body. She hoped it was Joel hitting the other guy, and not the other way around.

Three more men had burst into the garage while Ellie rang her makeshift alarm. They had the exits covered, and she swore under her breath. All of them were between her and Joel.

But two of them had their backs to her, and one was heading off, away from the others. Ellie circled around behind him, keeping in the shadows of the overturned furniture that littered the room. The man must have caught a glimpse of her backpack or something, though, because he started to shout "Hey, the other one's over here!"

Only a couple of words made it out before Ellie leapt up, swinging the pipe at his head, and knocked him to the ground. But it was enough. His buddies heard the commotion and headed toward the source of the sound. Between the two of them, with their guns up, there was nowhere for Ellie to run. Shit shit shit, she thought, they're going to fucking find me!

Then one of them gagged, stumbled, and was pulled to the ground, an arm wrapped tight around his neck.

His partner turned on his heel, giving his back to Ellie, who took the opportunity to scramble out of her hiding spot. On the floor, Joel was climbing to his feet from behind the man he'd just choked out.

The second guy shouted "Shit!" and trained his gun on Joel, who was raising his own weapon, but not fast enough, and before she knew what she was doing, Ellie had launched herself onto the hunter's back and knocked him to the ground. The adrenaline rush kept her on top of him for all of three seconds, punching and flailing at him. She was pretty sure she knocked his gun away. Then a big hand took her by the shoulder and pushed her off, and she looked up just as Joel broke a two-by-four over the guy's skull.

"Fuck!" Ellie breathed, scrambling to her feet and brushing herself off. "You okay?"

"Fine," replied Joel gruffly. He had already bent down to rifle through the dead guy's clothing for spare supplies. "You?"

"Uh-huh. These guys are fucking everywhere though."

"Yeah. We need to get out of here. Should be a bridge we can cross, if we can get to it on foot…"

Ellie nodded and glanced at the ground by her feet. She fiddled with the straps on her backpack for a second. "Hey, Joel?"

"What?"

"Don't tell me to stay behind like that, okay? I can help."

Joel hesitated a moment."Look, you did good, getting them off me back there. But you also nearly got me killed. If I tell you to stay put, I want you to stay put. Alright?"

With a frustrated almost-scream, Ellie stomped her foot. "No, it's not 'alright'! What if something happens to you? What am I supposed to – "

"You're not supposed to do anything! You're a goddamn kid, Ellie. You leave this," he waved the gun in his hand, "to me."

She looked up at him with pursed lips and a stubborn set to her chin.

"I want to help you. I owe you for covering my ass all the time, right?"

Joel set a hand on her shoulder, and bent down to look her in the eyes. There was only steel in his expression.

"What'd I say, back in Boston?"

"…What you say, goes."

"Yeah. And what I say is that you hang back and I handle the fighting. So let's just stick to that for now, we clear?"

Ellie scoffed. "Sure, boss."

She might have imagined it, but she thought she saw him clench his jaw at that. The guy was a fucking minefield of sore spots. Mentally, she added "boss" to the list of things that set him off. Maybe if he'd just talk about things with her, Ellie thought bitterly, she'd know what to avoid.

At the door of the garage, Joel turned back.

"Ellie." He beckoned her with a terse motion of his hand. She hesitated a moment, then met his eyes.

"Yeah, Joel?"

He let out a sigh. "C'mere. Let me look you over."

Something warm, a little like relief that he wasn't pissed at her and a little like something else she couldn't place, battled with the resentment burning in Ellie's chest. The warm feeling won out, and she jogged over to his side, holding her arms out with a resigned sigh so he could get a look at her.

"I'm fine. See? No scrapes, bruises, splinters or other life-threatening injuries."

Joel's brow furrowed for a moment. Then he nodded sharply. "Yeah, alright. Let's get this show on the road, then."

This time, Ellie followed right on his heels.