IN NO TIME, they were back on the road again, walking out into far-too-bright sunlight that made Ralph cover his eyes as they left their base to go and explore. Lou ducked behind him, hiding her face behind his arm, but quickly forgot all about light sensitivity at the sight of the city in the daylight.

It had been absolutely destroyed, but in a somehow beautiful way.

Buildings that rose to the top of the sky had been shattered and broken all the way down their sides, overgrown by vines and greenery and grime. A nearby building had been uprooted entirely and forced to lean on a nearby one for support. The sight of it made Lou feel uneasy. Another one had its roof caved in entirely.

'Woah.' Ellie gasped quietly, looking up at the buildings and surrounding structures in awe.

'Yeah, looks different in the daylight, huh?' Tess murmured, taking a moment to herself to admire the scenery, or what was left of it. Ralph didn't seem all too interested, just sort of looked around and followed whatever it was that Joel was doing.

'We should get moving.' He instructed, jumping down from the ledge he had stepped up on for no apparent reason.

They did get moving. They moved all through the empty, depressing streets, through bug-infested alleyways, and passed by raided stores until they came to a big, fat, juicy dead end, right in the middle of the street. In front of the five of them was a caved-in building, mountains of dirt and bodies in front of it.

'So, the State House is across there. It's about a ten-minute walk if you could go straight.' Tess explained briefly.

'So?' Ellie prompted.

'Long way or short way?' Joel butted in, looking back at the two girls before shifting his gaze to Ralph and Tess, the only other rational decision-makers in the group.

'Well, it's the long way or the "we're fucking dead" way.' Tess sighed.

'Well, I vote long way, just based on that limited information.' Ellie raised her eyebrows.

'Where's your sense of adventure, Elliegator?' Lou mocked, shoving her a little bit before holding her chin up and raising her hand. 'I vote for the short way.'

'The hell you do!' Ralph laughed at her, a grin of disbelief on his face. Joel looked over at him. 'We're going the long way.'

'Either way, we'll have to check it from the hotel first. Nobody get their hopes up.' Joel commanded, looking at the group. Sighing, Tess nodded her head and started walking, Ellie and Lou trailing not far behind her. As they walked, Ralph began to speak.

'How's your hand?' He said, stepping over some old, scraggly barbed wire that was laying on the concrete in front of him.

'It's fine.' Joel replied, copying his move and hopping a little bit to cross over it. He hoped that, after their small talk last night, Ralph didn't see them as friends or something like that. They weren't. Ralph was simply an accomplice, an addition. Not someone to buddy around with.

'Really? 'Cause, it looks a little bit broken.' Joel didn't know where Ralph had learned sarcasm, but he didn't like it. He much preferred five seconds ago when they were walking in silence. Subconsciously, Joel tightened his respective hand on his gun, wincing when a flood of pain came after the tiny movement. 'See, that's what I mean. When we get bandaids, I'll patch you up.'

'Hey, where the fuck are these things?' Ellie turned around and yelled at Joel, making the duo realize how far behind they were from the others. They shared a look, wondering who would be the first to answer the question, and Joel took the lead.

'You'll know it when they're close!' Joel shouted back at her, his voice echoing in the completely abandoned city.

'I mean, personally, don't really wanna be close to them!' Lou butted in, spinning on her heel and stumbling a little over an empty Fanta can. Tess caught her by the arm and tugged her by the sleeve to urge her on, continuing to talk to Ellie.

It was nice how the girls all came together, even if they were different. Tess spoke to them about the things that Joel and Ralph didn't, like boys and dating and other traditional, girly stuff. Also, it was rare for Tess to talk to anyone that wasn't Joel in a positive way, so it was nice to see her come out of her shell a little bit.

'She's good with them.' Ralph nodded his head towards the trio ahead of them.

He didn't know why he was still talking. He hated talking, and it was clear that Joel did too, and his partner seemed even less interested now that it had started up again.

But, something inside of Ralph told him to keep pushing it, and so he did.

'...Have you and her ever thought about-?'

'Me and Tess aren't like that.'

'Oh.' Ralph smiled. He had no idea why he was smiling about that.

They continued to stomp alongside each other in silence, climbing over a plethora of wrecked cars when they needed to, and doing their best at catching up to the three girls in front of them.

'Everyone said the open city was crazy.' Ellie sulked, obviously disappointed. Ralph didn't understand why she was bummed about not dying. 'Like, swarms of infected running around everywhere.'

'Not exactly like that.' Joel stated the obvious, assault rifle still in hand.

'People like to tell stories.' Tess agreed with him, hands on the straps of her backpack.

'...What about you?' Ellie looked up at Ralph, and he was pretty sure that was the first time that had ever happened before. At least without her wanting to murder him. 'Have you guys ever been, like, out here before?'

Lou shook her head silently, balancing on the raised part of the bridge they were crossing and sticking her arms out to further balance herself. Her dad had left Joel's side to now keep his arms out around her in a kind of barrier, making sure she didn't slip.

'Nah. We're not smugglers or anything cool.' Ralph copied his daughter in shaking his head. 'Haven't seen the city ever since the outbreak. Even then, we lived out in the country.'

'Lou was born before the outbreak? Jesus, dude, you've got a serious baby face.' Ellie looked at the girl on the railing in disbelief, trying to do the math of it all in her head, beginning to count with her fingers.

'No, not me and Lou. Me and...' Ralph trailed off a little bit, pursing his lips and looking at the floor. Nobody apart from Ellie seemed to notice it, with Lou trying not to fall and Tess and Joel invested in their own little mumbling conversation, she was really only speaking to him.

'Nevermind.' He said suddenly, grabbing Lou by the underarms and hauling her down onto the concrete again. She threw her head back and laughed as she was lifted because she had strangely always loved heights.

Ellie wanted to ask again, but she was smarter than that.

'...So, there aren't super-infected that explode fungus spores on you?'

'Shit, I hope not.'

...

THEY MADE IT TO THE HOTEL, which was less of a hotel and more of a waterpark. Minus the fun slides and double the sickness and creatures in the water.

'You gotta be kidding me! You guys ever stay in a place like this?' Ellie looked around, racing right towards the top of the steps and looking up at the gigantic, flooded building.

'Dad used to travel all the time.' Lou said smartly, holding her head up as if the fact made her a bit better than everyone else. Ralph sighed, not wanting to think about Lanzarote when he was meant to be focusing. 'He went to Venice, and Scotland, and Korea, and-!'

'Really!?' Ellie looked at him in disbelief, holding her arms out in front of her. 'Scotland is, like, soooo far away! You ever been to Scotland, Tess?'

'Can't say that I have been.' Tess said blandly, giving Ralph a phoney smile before stepping forward and walking down the first few steps. Ralph winced as she descended more and more into the murky green water.

'Hey, wait, are we going in there?' Ellie asked abruptly, looking from one adult to the other like she was a cat watching a laser pointer zoom from wall to wall.

'Yeah, we gotta get to the stairwell on the other side.' Tess made a vague gesture far out in front of them, pointing to a corner of the room that was hidden by shadows.

'Well, I don't know how to swim.' She said softly.

'Seriously?' Joel grumbled.

'Do you think we have pools in the QZ?' She replied sassily.

'No, smart ass. I mean...' Joel hopped off the final two steps and hopped into the water completely, the odd-looking water stopped at the bottom of his thigh and left Ellie with an embarrassed look on her face.

'...I don't know how I was supposed to know that.' She said defensively, following Lou into the weird-smelling liquid. Sure enough, it stopped just below Ellie's waist, but it stopped a bit above Lou's belt, dampening her shirt and completely submerging her jeans.

'This is so gross.' Ellie said, even though she had a really big smile on her face. She did a one-eighty, spinning around to admire the architecture of this grand, old building, and then she realized that Tess and Ralph were still standing on the steps.

'Hey, what are you guys doing?' Lou asked, looking between the two with confusion. Water swashed behind them as a sign of Joel turning around to check it out.

'Waiting for princess over there to put his boots back on.' Tess nodded her head at Ralph.

'Screw you, man. You're crazy if you think I'm walking around in wet socks all day.' He said, mostly to himself, because the moment everyone turned to look at him, he got embarrassed about it and tried to hurry up. He was even in the water before Tess.

'You realize your feet are gonna get wet either way.' Joel asked him. It wasn't even a question when he said it, just a statement. Ralph shrugged at him and continued to shuffle to the far side of the hotel where the staircase was. Joel rolled his eyes.

'Lou, come check it out!' Ellie gasped, rushing over to the check-in counter with a look of awe on her face. Lou followed after her with excitement plastered all over her face.

'Ding ding!' Ellie screeched as she smacked the dusty old bell on the desk, speaking to nobody at all as Lou shuffled away from her to touch the old piano next to it.

Lou raised her hand dramatically and brought it down onto a plethora of keys, unleashing a sound that made them all cover their ears. However, her and Ellie found it absolutely delightful and continued to smash and bash the keys until Tess ordered them to cut it out.

'You guys are weird kids.' Joel told them both, looking from one maniac to the other as they continued to laugh at nothing.

'You guys are weird kids.' Ellie bit back. She began shuffling around in the water again and reached for the luggage cart beside the piano, beginning to move it out of the way so she could gain access to the higher keys. She wheeled it forward using all her might, and then promptly screamed and fell backwards when something leaned forward and touched her leg.

She toppled onto Lou and caused a domino effect, making the tinier girl flail around and grab onto whatever she could, which just so happened to be the sleeve of Joel's jacket

The second Ellie squealed, he ran over to them at the speed of light to see what had happened, Ralph not too far behind him. Gun tight in his grip, Joel kicked the head of the skeleton that had spooked them just to check that it was dead, and then glared at Ellie for scaring them all shitless.

'Uh, sorry.' She said awkwardly, pushing herself out of Lou's embrace and standing up straight.

'You're fine, kid.' Ralph assured her, even though Joel was just about to let her know that she was not fine and that any more messing around would result in her being sent right back to Marlene.

Ralph held out his hand, bumping into Joel a little, and helped Lou step over the skeleton that had cornered both the girls. Joel was left with helping Ellie, who he was still wary about. The second Ellie was steady on her feet, he drew his hand back and looked down at it to make sure he wasn't turning into a fungus monster right before his very eyes.

'I wouldn't worry about it.' Ralph said to him quietly, leaning a little too close for comfort with his chest pressed against the back of Joel's bicep. Joel knew that Ralph didn't want Ellie to overhear, didn't want to give this kid another reason to hate his guts, but their closeness still made his cheeks turn a little pink.

With anger, of course. Joel definitely hated this stupidly obnoxious and cool and kind and caring and open-minded guy.

'That wound was totally healed over.' Ralph continued.

'You worry about everything, Ralph.' Joel said randomly because his brain had totally escaped him in the moment that they had spent huddled together. Ralph looked at him with furrowed eyebrows, trying to figure out what the hell that meant, and Joel took the opportunity to subtly run away.

'You two okay?' Tess asked the girls, having kept her distance throughout the whole event.

'Tip top shape, Tess.' Lou grinned. 'Tip top shape.'

...

NOTES!

babe wake up new apocalypse dads content just dropped!!!
I LVO THSE GOOBERS SO MUCH IM GONA EXPLODE
i cry they r the best

ELLIE AND LOU R LITTLE GREMLINS I LOVE THEM TOO
tess is their babysitter bc i said so. (not 4 long tho #rip#aesthetic#shedeadfr)

okaaaaaayyyyy raaaaaahhhhhh bye