Whoops, I didn't realise there was another fic with the concept 'Joel and Ellie meet young Nate and Sully' until after I'd written this! Sorry about that. I hope this isn't too similar. (And I hope you enjoy it!)

Eden Ablaze

"Joel," Ellie whispers, ducking behind a car.

Joel ducks down beside her, hand going for his revolver. He takes a quick look to see what she's spotted. It's a man, standing on the other side of the street, looking up at one of the ruined apartment blocks. Should be easy enough to sneak up and break his neck.

Might not have to, actually. They're not in hunter country, as far as he knows, and anyway hunters usually move in packs. This guy's on his own, looks like. Probably just a traveller. But it's still safest not to be seen.

"Joel," Ellie hisses.

Joel frowns, looks again, and this time he sees what he missed. The man's not alone. There's a kid, a boy maybe Ellie's age, climbing down the outside of the building like he thinks he's some kind of monkey.

The kid drops to the ground and throws something over to his dad or escort or whatever the guy is. Joel looks over at Ellie and sees her expression.

She's thinking about Sam and Henry. They buried them a few weeks back. Not long enough, but then it never is.

"Should we go over there?" she asks.

Just two more people to get killed or get them killed. "We keep moving," Joel says. "We don't get involved."

"You remember what Henry said, right?" He can hear how hard she's fighting to keep her voice steady. "Those assholes don't keep kids around. These guys might be okay."

"Don't matter," Joel mutters. "Stay close."

But there's a couple yards of open ground to cross before they reach the next car, and turns out the kid's got good eyes. He spots them the second they break cover.

"Whoa!" he exclaims. "Sully, behind you!"

Joel hisses between his teeth. Ellie's smart enough to dodge back, take shelter behind the same car rather than going for the next, and he sticks with her.

"Two," the kid's saying. "I mean, I only saw two."

The man replies too low for Joel to hear, and then there's a muttered exchange. Joel checks his shotgun is loaded.

"Look," the man calls, "whoever you are, I'm pretty sure we've both got bigger problems we could be using our bullets on. So why don't we just agree not to kill each other and move on?"

It's an offer with a certain appeal, if it's a real one. They're running low on rounds, and he wasn't exactly looking forward to taking down a teenager.

"Suits me," Joel calls.

"Glad we have a deal. You gonna come out from there?"

"How 'bout we stay here and you move on first?"

"I'd love to," the man says. "Thing is, though, there are people around here who'd be happy to shoot us in the back, and I don't know you're not one of them. So I don't really want to walk away while you and your friend are behind cover."

"What, so you want us all to walk away with our guns trained on each other?"

"If you have any better ideas, I'd love to hear 'em. I don't want to shoot you, but I'm not planning on getting shot here either. This way, at least we all know we have something to lose if we fire."

Joel stays where he is, thinking.

"C'mon, get out from there," the man says. "You can come up with your gun in your hand if you want. Just take it easy on the trigger."

"Ellie, stay down," Joel whispers, before raising his voice. "All right, I'm coming out. You don't shoot, I don't shoot."

He eases himself up slowly, holding his revolver. The man and the boy are standing next to each other; they have guns, but they're not aiming them at him, so he doesn't aim his either.

"Your friend?" the man asks, nodding toward the car.

"Think it's safe," Joel murmurs. "Hands on your gun, but don't point it unless someone points theirs at you."

Ellie nods and stands up.

For a moment, there's silence on both sides.

"Well, that's not what I was expecting," the man says. He looks over at his companion. "You didn't say there was a kid."

The boy shrugs helplessly. "I didn't really see her. She was pretty fast."

Joel's almost certain now that these two aren't planning on double-crossing them; you don't take your eyes off someone you're going to shoot.

"Not so sure about my plan now," the man says. "Don't really want to aim at a kid. And a girl, too. It's got to be traumatic enough growing up in this world without me adding to it."

"I can handle it," Ellie says, tightly.

The man bursts out laughing. "Oh, I like her. Look, the sun'll be going down soon; how about we forget the whole gun thing and set up a campfire?"

Fires are always a risk; they help keep infected away, but they also tell humans that someone's around. The offer was a gesture of goodwill, though, in a situation where turning it down would have been a lot like saying 'actually we'd rather kill you and take your stuff.' Besides, the only food Joel has on him is a pigeon, and they can't exactly eat that raw. It's a risk they're going to have to take.

The strangers build a fire out of splintered floorboards in someone's concrete back yard – high fences, easy to defend – while Joel and Ellie break into the house and drag out some moth-eaten blankets to sit on. Joel offers some of the letters and other scraps he's found to use as tinder; the man lights them up with an ancient lighter and a muttered, "God, I miss cigars."

"Name's Sully," the man says, while they're waiting for the kindling to catch. He looks to be somewhere in his forties, now that Joel's seeing him up close. Dark hair. Pretty carefully kept moustache, considering how tough razors are to come by. "The small one's Nate."

They don't venture more than that, and Joel doesn't ask. Full names are for a world with some kind of order to it. He doesn't think he'll be writing these people a letter any time soon. "Joel."

Ellie half-raises a hand. "Ellie. Where are you guys from?"

Nate and Sully exchange a glance.

"A quarantine zone," Nate says, with a small smile.

"Uh," Ellie says, "anything... more specific?"

Sully shifts uncomfortably. "Gonna gloss over some of the details here, if that's not a problem. Some of our friends back there might not take too kindly to finding out I'm still alive."

Joel nods. They all have their secrets.

"Anyway, I don't think there's a quarantine zone in the country that could hold this one," Sully says, jerking his head toward Nate. "I kept finding him outside the walls on patrol and having to bring him back in."

"You were a soldier?" Joel asks.

Sully shrugs. "It was a job. Up until they tried to put me on execution duty, anyway. Never had the stomach for that shit."

"A survivor who can't kill?" Joel asks, sceptical. "How's that working out for you?"

"That's not what I meant," Sully says. "You kill people who are trying to kill you, sure. Just... doesn't seem right to do it before. So I left."

"You quit?" Ellie asks.

"You don't quit, kid," Sully says. "You leave. Safe zone, supplies running low, they're looking for any chance they can get to reduce headcount. So I figured I'd take my head away myself before they put a bullet in it. And for some reason the kid decides to follow me."

Nate makes an incredulous noise at the back of his throat. "Don't make it sound like some weird hero-worship thing. I was gonna take your stuff. Payback for all the times you threw me back in the zone."

"And yet here we both are," Sully says. "If the plan's still to rob me, you're taking your time about it. So where'd you two come from? What's your story?"

Joel stares into the fire, tries to picture himself heading back to Boston once all this is over. Going straight back into the business. Without Tess.

On some level, he's known for a while this is a one-way trip. "It don't matter anymore."

"How 'bout you, kid?" Sully asks, and then, "Wait, can't call you both 'kid'. Other kid? Ellie? You any better with answers?"

Ellie hesitates, glances at Joel.

"Boston QZ," she says. "Other than that, guess not."

Sully laughs. "Okay, point taken. I won't ask. All I'm trying to say is, if you're heading west – and I've got bad news for you if you thought you were going east – maybe we can travel together for a while. Guessing you're pretty good in a fight if you got here from Boston, and more human shields are always a help. The boy's way too small for me to hide behind."

"Joel?" Ellie asks.

Joel shakes his head. "Thanks for the offer, but it's tough enough finding food for two."

"Oh, is that all?" Nate asks, with a grin. He dumps the pack he's carrying at his feet and pulls it open.

It's filled to the top with cans.

"Oh, man," Ellie whispers.

"When the infection broke out, people blocked off their lower windows, right?" Nate says. "But most of them never bothered with the higher-up ones. I mean, it's not like the infected are big climbers. So I go in and find the stuff they left behind."

"You guys don't know how hungry I am," Ellie says. "Joel? Joel, they have to come with us."

Joel stares at the pack full of food.

"Hard to argue with that," he says, eventually.

They've barely been travelling together three days when Joel starts to regret his decision.

"Joel! Hey, Joel, look!"

He looks up, and his gut twists sharply to see Ellie balancing on the narrow ledge outside a shuttered window, too high up. She'll break her leg if she falls, and a broken leg is a death sentence. "Ellie, get down from there."

"This is awesome!" she exclaims. "You know I climbed up here all by myself?"

Joel can feel a headache coming on. "And who taught you how to do that?" he asks, flatly.

"C'mon, this is useful. I could find stuff up here."

"You could find infected," he says. "And I can't exactly climb up there to bail you out. I don't want you going through any windows, okay?"

Ellie makes a frustrated noise, but she starts to climb down. Joel watches her tensely until she's back on the ground.

When they're short on supplies and they come across a building that can't be accessed from ground level, Nate'll usually see if he can climb up and break in somehow. Ellie's started begging to be allowed to go with him, but Joel's already learning to tune it out. If Sully's comfortable letting Nate go off on his own, that's their business. Joel wants Ellie where he can keep an eye on her.

Nate comes back from one of his excursions with canned tuna, two rifle rounds and a folded piece of paper. He dumps the cans on the street, then pulls himself up to sit on a wall, unfolds the paper and reads it intently while Sully and Joel decide what to do with the supplies.

"What're you looking at, son?" Joel asks, once they've sorted the carrying arrangements out.

Nate waves the piece of paper at him, which doesn't really answer the question. It looks to be some kind of letter, but it's in some language Joel's never seen before.

"It's Malay," Nate says, when Joel just looks at him blankly. "Someone writing a letter to her family back in Indonesia, just after the infection broke out. I guess she never got to send it."

Not what Joel was expecting. "Didn't think that was the kind of thing they taught in schools anymore. Pretty sure they didn't teach Malay before all this either, come to think of it."

"The kid's smarter than he looks," Sully says, leaning back against the wall Nate's sitting on. "Spent most of his time in the zone reading, when he wasn't being a pain in my ass. Only problem was he was reading up on history and geography and languages. You know, all those things that stopped mattering twenty years ago."

"I got us bullets," Nate protests. "Those guys we traded with on the bridge, remember? They only spoke Spanish."

"Fine," Sully says. "I retract a third of what I just said. I'll admit you weren't wasting the time with the rest when you get some guns out of your buddy Francis Drake." He flicks the ring Nate's wearing as a necklace, for some reason.

"Francis Drake?" Ellie asks.

"See?" Sully asks, gesturing toward her. "She gets it. I bet she spent all her time reading up on Clickers."

"Uh, novels, mostly," Ellie says.

"And joke books," Joel mutters under his breath.

"But I think it's cool, reading about stuff you're interested in," Ellie says. "I mean, I'd have gone crazy if I'd just sat in the QZ thinking about infected all day."

Nate smirks down at Sully. "You're right; she does get it."

They've been with Sully and Nate a good while when they come across a house with a busted-open front door, in a small Wyoming town. Probably been picked clean by now, but they decide to take a look around anyway. Joel doesn't mention it, but they're getting close to Tommy's, and that means he and Ellie are going to need enough supplies of their own to sustain themselves; they can't rely on these two for much longer.

There's a wide, high-ceilinged room just to the left of the entrance, and they all pile into it. Nothing too promising on a first glance, but it might be worth a closer look.

Joel's crouching to examine a pile of trash in the corner of the room when he hears a k-chk and an "oh, shit" and turns to see Sully with his hand on the handle of the door.

The only door.

The closed door.

Joel has a bad feeling about this.

"Sully," he says, quietly.

Sully tests the handle. The door doesn't budge. "Well, then."

"Sully," Joel says, quieter still, "did you just lock us in?"

"I was trying to keep us all alive! You close the door so the infected can't follow you in; this is basic survival! I've been doing it with every door we've been through, probably saved a few asses, but the one time—"

"We don't have time for this," Joel growls. "We need a way out of here."

Kicking the door achieves nothing but a pain in his leg and an increasing certainty that they're not leaving the way they came in. The windows are densely boarded up, both inside and out, from the look of things through the few tiny gaps in the mess of wood. There's no sign of a key anywhere in here.

Joel presses his hands over his face and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, takes a deep breath. When he opens his eyes again, he sees Nate looking up. Follows his gaze to a ragged hole in the ceiling, too high for a boost.

"I could probably get up there," Nate says.

"Well, looks like one of us won't be stuck here, at least," Joel mutters. He looks sidelong at Sully. "How 'bout you? You as good on a wall as your boy?"

"Used to be," Sully says. "Back before the infection."

"Back when I hadn't been born," Nate points out. "Wasn't exactly hard to be as good as me."

Sully rolls his eyes. "But age and not eating enough for a couple decades... well, you know how it is. You've got to be young."

It's a kind of relief. If Sully could climb up there with Nate, there's a fair chance they'd take off on their own; a few weeks' alliance can only count for so much in this world. Maybe the boy'll find a way to break them out, if his partner's trapped down here.

"All right, kid, see what you can find," Sully says.

Nate hesitates, looking at Ellie, and Joel can guess what he's thinking. Normally, when they send him places alone, it's into buildings with the ground level blocked off. No way for infected to get in; the only way he's going to run into them is if someone barricaded themselves inside before they turned. But the front door here was broken down. They don't know what he might find up there.

"I could help," Ellie says to Joel.

"No," Joel says, firmly. "You stay down here."

"Actually, that might not be a bad idea," Sully says. "I know your kid's got a good head on her shoulders, and mine's got to have better odds if there's someone watching out for him."

Joel's expecting Nate to protest at that, but the kid says nothing; just meets Joel's eyes.

If Nate dies, Joel is prepared to help bury him. He's not prepared to bury Ellie. "She stays."

"You're the boss," Ellie mutters.

Nate hauls himself through the hole in the ceiling and disappears, but not for long. In a minute or so he's back at the edge, looking down at them.

"I can't get anywhere from here," he calls. It's barely loud enough for them to hear. Kid's well-trained. "All the doors are blocked." He glances back over his shoulder. "There's another hole in the ceiling. I, uh, don't think the ceilings in this place are all that sturdy. I could get up to the next floor if I could get on top of this big closet thing, but I can't make it on my own."

"On your own," Joel repeats.

He gives an awkward shrug. "Can't climb if there aren't any handholds. I'm pretty sure I could boost someone up there, though."

"And by 'someone', you mean Ellie."

Ellie tugs on his sleeve. "Let me go up there."

"Ellie, no, it could be dangerous—"

"So we're just gonna let Nate face it on his own?" she asks, fiercely. "I'm not helpless, Joel. And we can't exactly stay here for the rest of our lives."

Technically, of course, they probably can. There's a good chance they'll end up doing exactly that. It's not an appealing prospect.

"Be careful," Joel says.

She nods. "I will."

When Ellie's climbed up through the hole to the third floor and hauled Nate after her, they find themselves in a smallish bathroom. When they step out through the door – or through the doorframe, at least; most of the door itself is lying in the bath – they find themselves in a corridor.

When they've taken a few steps along the corridor, they find they're not alone.

"Oh, my God," Ellie whispers, as a lumbering figure emerges from the room at the end.

"That's not a Clicker," Nate says, a little squeakily. "What is that thing?"

Ellie grabs his wrist. "We have to run."

The Bloater roars, flings out one of its... weird exploding spore cloud things, and Ellie barely manages to drag Nate out of its range in time. They dodge into the room right next to them and crouch down behind the double bed in the centre.

"I don't think those things can see," Ellie whispers. Her voice probably isn't loud enough for Nate to make out, even though she's right by his ear, but she can't bring herself to raise it any higher. "I mean, it might not know we came in here."

She glances around quickly, trying to push down the terror and take in what they're working with here. The door to the corridor is a little in front of them, on the right-hand side; if the Bloater follows them in, it'll come through there. There's an open door behind them, and she almost goes for it, but then she realises... she can hear sobbing. She can hear Runners. Not actually in the next room, maybe, but definitely in that direction.

Oh, God, there are Runners here as well, and if they see them they'll bring the Bloater in. She glances up at the ceiling in a last desperate plea for an escape route. It's sagging badly, but there are no holes to climb through.

It takes her a moment to realise she's positioned herself to shield Nate, just like Joel always positions himself to shield her.

It takes her a further moment to realise that Nate is fucking talking to himself at the worst moment in the history of the universe.

"Okay," he's muttering, "okay, everything's fine, just the world's biggest infected right outside that door, nothing" – a tiny, choked laugh – "nothing to worry about, keep it together—"

"Stop talking!" Ellie hisses.

"I can't!" Nate hisses back.

Ellie clamps her hand over Nate's mouth and tries to figure out what they can do before they both get their faces torn off.

The door. The door into the corridor.

Sully had the right idea. Maybe it got them into this mess, but closing doors makes a lot of sense. The infected can't use a door handle, right? The Bloater's the biggest danger here; shut it out, and maybe they'll be able to get past the Runners safely. Maybe.

Ellie starts edging, very carefully, very quietly, toward the door.

She reaches it and very carefully, very quietly starts to push it closed.

The hinges start screaming like they're being tortured for information.

Okay, change of plan. Ellie shuts the door as fast as she can and retreats behind the bed as fast as she can and really, really hopes that the Bloater somehow miraculously didn't hear any of that.

There's snarling and shuffling on the other side of the door.

"Get ready to run," Ellie whispers.

For an instant there's silence, and then the Bloater comes crashing through the door like it's made of fucking matchsticks.

Ellie bolts for the next room with Nate on her tail and man, if they meet any Runners they'll just have to try to push past them, find a way out, they can't stop now, and there's a hell of a lot more crashing from behind them and—

—and there's a hell of a lot more crashing from behind them, what the—

—and Nate cries out in pain or surprise, and Ellie wheels around.

"What the fuck?"

The ceiling's fallen in. The whole ceiling of that bedroom, just gone. Or, okay, still there, but a lot lower down. A whole lot of old furniture's come down from the loft with it, looks like; what used to be the room is now a bizarre mess of plaster and tile and bits of coffee table.

The Bloater must have been buried under it. It can't have survived that, right?

The thought only crosses her mind for a second before it's pushed out by Nate.

"Are you okay?" she asks, dropping to her knees beside him.

He's lying on his back in the doorway, covered in plaster dust. She thinks for a moment he must have broken his legs or something, which they really can't afford – there's no way the Runners didn't hear that crash, which means they'll be here soon – but then she sees what's wrong. He's trapped by his ring, the one he wears as a necklace. It's stuck underneath the debris; no time to dig it out. The leather cord it's threaded on is pulled tight against his throat.

"Hold still." She pulls out her knife, presses it against the leather.

"No!" Nate gasps out, trying to twist away from her. "I can't lose this ring—"

"Are you fucking kidding me—"

"—just go back to the others, I'll follow you, I'll be fine—"

"—Nate, you'll die!"

The infected are coming. She can hear them. They have seconds at most.

"I'm going to cut it," she says.

"I'll just stay and look for it if you do. You have to go!"

"I'm not leaving you here to die over a stupid ring!"

But they're already out of time. She shoves her knife into Nate's hand, just in case he decides to stop being an idiot any time soon, then wheels and aims her gun at the far door. There's an overturned desk nearby, she registers vaguely, but she can't hide behind it while Nate's exposed.

They come charging through the doorway, four of them, four, how's she supposed to—

She fires. A lucky shot; it catches one in the throat and it goes down hard, but she's already fired again in a panic, and she cannot afford to waste bullets here. Make every shot count, she tells herself in Joel's voice.

How many bullets left? Four? Four, she thinks. Three Runners.

Shit.

She glances back at Nate; he's still struggling to free himself, still not just cutting the fucking thing so they can get the fuck out of here. She grabs up a chunk of ceiling lying by his head, hurls it as hard as she can at the nearest Runner, manages to pull off a headshot while it's reeling, and then one of the others slams into her so hard it leaves her winded.

She crashes into the ground with the Runner on top of her, clawing at her face, straining to get at her neck. She grabs its hair, trying to hold it away from her with one hand while she brings her gun up with the other, and she can feel its breath on her skin as it shrieks frantically and—

—and then there's another scream, Nate's scream, and fuck, the other one—

Ellie twists her head to the right, squeezing her left eye shut to keep the Runner's scrabbling fingers out. With her right she sees the fourth infected bearing down on Nate. He's trying to go for his gun, but it looks like it was trapped underneath him when he fell, and he's having trouble getting it out at his awkward angle.

It takes her no time at all to decide which to shoot first. She's immune. Nate isn't. She won't let him end up like Sam and Tess and...

She drags her arm painfully up and manages to fire off two shots into Nate's attacker, then yanks back her Runner's head as hard as she can and presses the barrel against its throat and pulls the trigger.

Click.

"Fuuuuuck," she breathes.

The Runner throws all its power into trying to break free of her grip, as if it knows what that click means, and she may be immune to the infection but she is not even slightly immune to having her throat torn out. It's impossible to think through the screaming in her head. She tries to reach for her knife, but of course Nate has it and she can't hold on much longer and she's going to die she's going to die she's—

She hears the gunshots a long few seconds before she registers what they mean.

The infected stops struggling.

"Oh, my God." Ellie pushes it off her. "Oh, my God." She tries to sit up, but she can't make herself, so she just stays lying there instead. Looks over in the direction the gunshots came from.

Nate. He's managed to get himself free. The ring's still threaded around his neck, and she seriously hopes that was worth it. He's holding his pistol in both hands, and his legs are shaking so much she doesn't know if he'll be able to stay on them much longer. She doesn't even want to know what would happen if she tried to stand up right now.

"Thanks," she says after a moment. "Uh, good timing."

There's silence for a few seconds.

Nate lets the gun fall to his side and laughs, weird and high-pitched. "We're actually still alive."

"Guess so," Ellie says. She finally manages to push herself up. Sits there for a moment, staring at the infected corpses strewn across the floor.

"You okay?" he asks, holding out his hand to her. "They didn't get you, right?"

She tries to catch her breath while he's guiding her into a chair, putting her knife back in her hand, pulling up her sl—

"Don't!" Ellie shouts, realising too late, trying to push him away too late.

Pulling up her sleeve.

"Oh, shit," Nate breathes.

Ellie kicks him in the shin and rolls off the chair. She dodges behind the desk while he's still trying to get back on his feet and she stays crouched there, clutching her empty gun.

"Don't try to kill me," she manages to say through her heart beating hard in her throat.

"I wouldn't," he says, after a moment. She can't see him. "I won't." There's a pause. "Even though that really hurt," he adds, in a mutter.

"Okay," she says. "Please don't freak out."

Nate's laugh is slightly hysterical. "Why would I freak out? What's there to freak out about?"

For a moment, they're both silent. Ellie has no idea where to start with this.

"I'm really sorry," Nate says, quietly. "Do you... I don't know, want to say goodbye? Or... do you think maybe Joel's the kind of guy who'd just kill you?" He hesitates. "He's definitely gonna kill me." Another hesitation. "I guess that's not much consolation."

"What? No. Nate, it's gonna be fine. I'm not infected."

There is a long pause.

"That thing didn't bite you?"

"It didn't bite me," Ellie says.

"Your arm looked pretty bitten," Nate says. "Why are you hiding over there if you're not infected?"

Ellie takes a deep breath and lets it out again. "Hoo, boy. This is kind of a long story."

"Whoa," Nate says, when she's finished. "This is big."

Ellie shrugs. "I guess." She's sitting on top of the overturned desk, kicking her heels against the wood; she climbed up there about halfway through her story, around the time she met Joel and Tess, when she felt confident enough that Nate believed her to come out of cover. Nate's on the floor, leaning back on his elbows, legs stretched out in front of him. They're both trying not to look too hard at the bodies they're sharing the room with.

"Seriously, a vaccine? This is huge."

"Well, we have to find the Fireflies first. Turns out they aren't exactly easy to track down. Plus, you know, we kind of need to stay alive until we get there." Ellie's gaze drifts down to the ring around Nate's neck as she speaks, the ring that nearly killed them both, and she notices for the first time that there's something written on it. She drops down from the desk and shuffles a little closer, tilting her head. "Parvis..."

"Sic parvis magna," he says, putting his hand over the ring like he thinks she's going to steal it. "It means 'greatness from small beginnings'. It's Latin."

"So what's so special about that ring?" she asks, and then, when Nate hesitates, "Oh, c'mon. I've just told you my whole life story. You've gotta tell me what I nearly got killed for back there."

"You nearly got killed because you don't listen," Nate says. "I told you to run."

"Not good enough." She hops back up onto the desk, sits there with her arms folded. "Spill."

Nate hesitates a moment longer, his hand at his throat. "Okay. You know the Historical Vaults?"

"Uh, kind of," she says, pulling a face. "That's where they put all the stuff from the museums, right? The stuff they could get out, I mean, back when the infection hit."

Nate shrugs and smiles.

There's a pause.

"Bullshit," Ellie says.

"You sure about that?"

"You're seriously telling me you bothered to break into the vaults? If you're good enough to steal from there, you're good enough to go for something useful instead. Food or weapons or something."

"Yeah," Nate says, with a half-laugh, "Sully was pretty pissed off when I dragged him into it."

"Jesus, I think Joel'd shoot me on the spot if I risked our lives to steal some stupid ring. So why'd you do it?"

Nate takes the ring off his neck, turns it over in his hands. "It belongs in my family."

"And it was in a museum?"

"My ancestor was pretty famous. He was an explorer, about five hundred years ago."

"Wow," Ellie says. Five hundred years. She still feels like the world is twenty years old, sometimes. People don't talk much about the time before the infection; it's really only from books that she has any idea of what things used to be like. "I barely even know anything about my parents. I can't really imagine knowing about who I was related to hundreds of years ago, or whatever. How did you find out about him?"

Nate draws breath as if to answer, then frowns slightly and looks away, at the blood spattered across the floor. "It doesn't really matter."

Ellie stretches. "Well, fine. I guess I'll let you get away with that. Even if you're still kind of an idiot for nearly getting yourself killed. We gonna get going?"

He doesn't speak for a moment, twisting the ring between his fingers.

"Thanks for saving me back there," he says. "And thanks for... you know. Being here. I wouldn't have wanted to run into those things on my own."

She's not sure what to say to that. "Are you... feeling okay?"

"I can't say thanks?"

"Hey, no problem. We're a team, right? We help each other out. Like you and Sully."

Nate laughs. "Well, I'm glad it was you instead of him. His moustache is twice as creepy as the infected."

"I thought you two got on pretty well."

"Yeah, we do. He's a good guy, really. But seriously, have you seen that thing on his face?" He fakes a shudder. "What about you and Joel? I wouldn't've guessed you'd known each other such a short time."

It takes her a while to put her thoughts into words. What about her and Joel?

"I guess we get on well enough," she says. "I don't know if he's really a good guy. He's killed a lot of people. I mean, a lot. But, you know, who hasn't, right?" She hesitates. "I know he's on my side. I guess that's enough."

They sit there for a minute or so, until there's a creak from elsewhere in the house and they look instantly at each other, look in the direction of the noise.

Nate slips the cord of his ring back over his neck. "We should go."

There are no more infected on that floor, or at least they don't encounter any. They manage to find a reasonably wide broken window facing onto the street; Nate wraps his jacket around his hand and knocks out the remaining few shards of glass at the edges, then climbs through.

"There's a drainpipe," he says. "I'll go down first, then you come after me, okay?"

"In case I fall?" she asks, raising her eyebrows.

Nate widens his eyes, all innocence. "I didn't say that."

She ends up reaching the ground without Nate having to catch her, which is good; that would have been seriously embarrassing. She glances around to make sure they're not about to be ambushed, closes her eyes for a second, takes a deep breath of the fresh air. It feels so good to be out of that place that it takes her a moment to remember why they're here.

"Did you try the door?"

Nate disappears through the main entrance. It's only a few seconds before he comes out again, shaking his head. "There's not even a handle on this side. I guess it was meant to be a kind of safe room. You know, nothing gets in."

Ellie sighs, walks over to the nearest window, starts examining the boards nailed over it. They don't look any easier to take off from the outside. "So how do we get them out? Find a rope or something?"

There's no answer.

"Nate?" she asks, turning around.

Nate is looking up the slope of the road opposite, leading away from the house.

"I have a really terrible idea," he says.

There's a banging on the door, and Joel sits up sharply. Glances over at Sully. Doesn't speak.

"Guys?"

It's Ellie's voice. Joel takes his hand off his pistol. "Ellie?"

"Yeah," she says, a little muffled by the wood. "Yeah, it's me."

"You okay?" Joel asks, at the same time Sully asks, "Is Nate with you?"

"We're both fine," she says.

Sully falls back against the wall and lets out a long sigh of relief. Joel knows how he feels. They'd heard crashes and gunshots from above, feared the worst, but Ellie is here. They're both fine.

"I need you guys to get away from the windows, okay? I've gotta go help push."

"What?" Joel asks.

But there's no answer, just the sound of running feet.

"I'm guessing they haven't found a key, then," Sully says.

"Guess not," Joel says, still staring at the door. "C'mon, let's get back."

They retreat against the wall opposite the windows, stay crouched there. Seconds lengthen into minutes. Joel doesn't really know what he's supposed to expect here, but there's no sign of action at all.

"Ellie?" he calls, and everything explodes inwards.

When the choking dust has cleared, Joel sees the crumpled nose of an SUV poking through the wreckage of the wall.

"Well," Sully says between coughs, "that'll do it."

"We heard gunshots," Joel says, as they walk away from the remains of the house. "You sure you're okay?"

"We ran into a little trouble," Ellie admits. There's an edge of pride there, though. "Runners. And a Bloater."

"A Bloater?" Joel demands.

Ellie gives a little shrug, but Joel's known her long enough by now to know when she's putting on a casual act. "I took care of it."

"Whoa, whoa," Sully says. "You gonna let her take all the credit, Nate?"

Nate gives a slightly embarrassed laugh, rubbing his thumb along the cord of his necklace. "Well, I got one of them. I wasn't really in a great position."

"Nate's the one who got you guys out, though," Ellie says.

"See, we all have different strengths," Sully says, glancing over at Joel. "Your kid's obviously some kind of expert infected hunter; my kid ploughs cars through walls like a moron and nearly gets us killed. You want to swap?"

Joel shakes his head. "You can keep him."

"This is seriously unfair," Nate mutters. Ellie laughs and pats him on the back.

They take shelter for the night in a house on the town outskirts.

The kids end up falling asleep lying next to each other, on a scarred double mattress one of the previous residents dragged into the basement. For Nate's sake, he'd better not brush against Ellie in his sleep; she still has her hand on her knife, and Joel wouldn't want to be the one to test her reflexes.

Sully gives an exaggerated sigh as he looks at them. "Well, I suppose he had to meet a woman someday. Guess he won't need—"

"Stop talking," Joel says, keeping his voice low. "This is not a road we're going down."

It rains most of the next day. Wet weather tends to bring out the infected – the fungus likes the damp, apparently – but they're walking across what used to be farmland now, so at least they don't attack in packs, the way they do in built-up areas. A handful of Runners show up, hours apart. One Clicker. Sully picks them off with his rifle.

"Should be at my brother's in a few days," Joel mutters, as they trudge across damp grass. Sun's finally come out after the rain, although it'll be setting in a couple hours. He's been putting this moment off, more for Ellie's sake than anything else, but it had to come sometime.

"Really?" Sully asks, looking over at him. "Don't know of any quarantine zones around here; where's he holed up?" And then he must catch Joel's thoughts in his expression, because he says, "Oh."

"Oh?" Nate echoes.

"We're not welcome, kid," Sully says.

Ellie stops walking. "Joel?"

Sully shrugs, coming to a halt with the rest of them. "Can't blame him for it; it's pretty standard. If you're somewhere safe, you don't let outsiders know, because then other people will come sniffing around. More people than you can keep, soon enough. And some won't just be looking for shelter."

"But they're not outsiders," Ellie says, staring at Joel. "They're with us."

"They can't stick with us all the way," Joel says, not meeting her eyes. "They'll have their own places to go."

"That doesn't mean we can't stay together for now, right? I'm pretty sure we can trust them. I mean, how long have we been trusting them already?"

Sully laughs. "You hearing this, Nate? Someone actually thinks I'm trustworthy. You've gotta put this in your journal."

"I can't believe this," Ellie mutters. "This is bullshit."

"Look, kid," Sully says. "Girl kid, I mean. This isn't a decision he's making for himself. He's making it for his brother. And you've gotta be damn sure before you do something that might put someone else in danger." He rolls his shoulders. "I'd probably be kicking you out, too. So don't be too hard on him, all right?"

Ellie looks down at the ground. "Well... you guys can stay until tomorrow, right? You don't have to go right now." She shoots a hard look at Joel.

"Actually," Sully says, scratching the back of his head, "I'm no good with long goodbyes. If we're gonna do this, let's do it now. Clean headshot."

"Kind of a creepy way of putting it, but okay," Nate says. He glances at Ellie. "Now, though? That's... kind of sudden."

"I think that'd probably be best," Joel says. He's glad Sully suggested it first; he doesn't need to look any more like the bad guy in Ellie's eyes. Not like he's dying to get rid of them – it's actually been pretty good, having the extra backup – but he can't take them to Tommy's, and a last night would be dragging things out painfully. He's been the one carrying most of the ammunition they've found, so he pulls off his backpack, digs out a box of bullets, throws it over to Sully. "You've both been a big help. Thank you."

"It's been good," Sully says. He ruffles Ellie's hair. She glares at him for it, so he ruffles it again. "Stay alive, you two."

"We'll try," Ellie says, and then she looks at Nate.

Nate shifts on his feet. "I guess you'll be taking over the food scouting job."

"Yeah, if Joel'll let me," Ellie says. "Who's gonna take over the saving-your-butt job?"

"Consider his butt saved," Sully says.

"Besides," Nate says, folding his arms, "I'm pretty sure I saved you as well."

Ellie pauses, then shrugs. "Yeah. I guess you did."

It's pretty clear that's not the response Nate was expecting. He's still struggling for something to say when Ellie speaks again.

"I'll miss you."

"Yeah," Nate says, after a moment. "Me too."

"We should go, kid," Sully says, quietly.

Nate gives Joel a nod, then turns away. Stays standing there for a moment, although Sully's already started to walk.

"Wait," he says.

Sully pauses, looks back.

Nate turns back to Ellie and takes off the ring he wears around his neck, still on its leather cord. "You should have this."

"Nate?" Sully asks, sounding shocked.

"Sic parvis magna," he says, as he puts the ring into Ellie's hand. He closes her fingers over it. "Greatness from small beginnings. It kind of fits, right? If you're really the key to a vaccine."

It's said low, maybe so Sully can't hear it, but Joel does. He looks sharply at Ellie. She told him about that?

Ellie smirks. "Oh, so you're calling me small?"

Nate laughs. "Well, you are pretty short."

She looks down at her hand, and her smile fades. "Are you really okay with me taking this, though?"

"Seriously, kid," Sully mutters. "Think about what you put me through to get that thing."

"Put me through kind of a lot, too," Ellie says, examining the cord.

"You can give it back later," Nate says. "When we see each other again."

She nods, looks up at him. "Okay."

They won't see each other again, of course. Joel knows the kids know that as well as he does. But at least these ones are still alive when they say goodbye.

Ellie thrusts her hands into her pockets and lets out a long sigh once Nate and Sully are out of sight. Joel glances at her, then away to the west. Shades his eyes against the sinking sun.

They ran into infected when they were on their own, her and Nate. She could easily have been killed. She could easily be killed any moment now, a kid in a world filled with monsters and people who might as well be. Is he going to be there when it happens? Or are they going to go their separate ways while they're both still breathing?

He hefts his pack over his shoulder, not looking at her. "Okay," he says. "Let's get to Tommy's."