JOEL SHOT AT IT, as anyone with a gun in this situation would do, but the thing managed to grab his rifle and throw his aim off. He maybe got one good shot in the flurry of them.

'Run!' He screamed, kicking at the creature and trying to get it to back off. From the doorway, the other one came running at Tess and Ralph. Tess raised her pistol with shaky hands, and missed a very close headshot. That was when they took Joel's advice to heart.

'What the fuck was that thing!?' Ralph whisper-screamed at Tess as they sprinted down a corridor. 'I mean, I've heard about them, but, are they meant to look like that!?'

'I got no clue, man!' She said back to him, turning around and raising her gun again and missing another shot. 'Damn it! Alright, run! The three of you, spread out and stay quiet!'

Ellie seemed like she had been waiting for that order all her life and immediately shimmied through the gap between a display and the wall, disappearing into the darkness. Lou crawled underneath a table and headed in the same direction. Ralph turned the corner at the closest opportunity and tried to find someplace to hide.

He found a corner connected to the main corridor that didn't look like it had any monsters living in it, so he decided to take a chill pill and calm himself down from the inevitable heart attack that was about to spring on him. It was difficult to be quiet when you were scared for your life. Between your heart pounding in your chest and your out of breath-ness, you're really put in a little bit of a pickle.

A flashlight waved at him from behind the dining table in the main part of the second floor, and Ralph craned his neck to find Ellie and Joel crouched down behind it with Clicker Number One just a few steps away. Despite the fact that he was practically shitting himself, on his own accord and also on their behalf, he couldn't pull his eyes away from them, praying to God that nothing would happen.

Just their fucking luck that Joel stepped on a shard of glass and the monster dove at them, screaming and clicking and baring its teeth at them.

'Ralph!' Ellie yelled, shoving at the creature while it snarled and inched closer to her. Luckily, Ralph was already on it, and he gave the Clicker a rough kick in the head to teach it a lesson.

It fell on its side, sliding away from Joel and Ellie as the duo scrambled to their feet and backed away. Joel turned to reach for his gun but discovered it was gone, and he turned back around to find that Ralph was holding it like an expert and aiming it straight at the monster's head.

It was, surprisingly, still on the ground, albeit not for long. It clambered back to its feet slowly, clicking in a low tone and looking for where everyone had gone. The trio had fallen completely silent, holding their breaths and dragging their feet instead of lifting them.

Panting silently, Ralph looked over to Joel, then looked at Ellie and made a twirling motion with his finger. She looked at him like she didn't understand, but Joel took her by the shoulder and spun her around so that her back was facing Ralph.

The gunfire was far louder than she expected it to be. Maybe because it was completely silent leading up to that point, maybe because it was right behind her. When it stopped, she kind of wished she had turned around and watched it happen. That ugly zombie-thingy deserved it big time.

Because her back was turned, Ellie had the honor of reuniting with Lou and Tess as the girls approached her hurriedly, fingers to their lips and shaking their heads when Ellie was on the verge of making a sound to welcome them and congratulate them on being alive.

Confused, they all looked at the duo, wondering what they were doing. Tess raised her pistol so they could all see it, and pulled the trigger once so the sound of the empty mag clicking could be heard, explaining why the other clicker hadn't been killed with one swift, movement.

Wordlessly, Joel, Tess, and Ralph covered all of the entrances to the main sector of the room with Lou and Ellie standing in the middle of it. They waited for a minute or two, maybe three, until someone thwacked Ralph on the shoulder.

Joel pointed at his gun, the one raised in front of Ralph, and made a grabbing motion.

Ralph shook his head.

Joel narrowed his eyes and nodded.

Ralph lowered the gun and shook his head again.

Joel nodded and grabbed the barrel of the rifle, giving it a tug. Ralph tugged it back towards him.

The two started fighting for it like fucking toddlers, trying to shove and kick at each other while keeping themselves quiet. Lou noticed it and tip-toed across the room to smack and silently scold both of them, shaking her head. They drew back for a moment, considering what she had done, before they continued to fight.

'Stop it!' Lou whispered so quietly that she was barely heard above the shuffling and grumbling.

'It's my—!' Joel defended otherwise loudly, completely forgetting about the silence rule and earning Ralph's palm shoved over his mouth the second he opened it.

Lou heard clicking, screeching, and footsteps. Nowhere near her, however.

'Duck!' Ralph screamed at Joel. Just in time, he had snatched the gun away from the stubborn Texan and began to fire at the Clicker as it ran at them from the hallway they were meant to be guarding. Unfortunately, due to the creature's unbalanced nature, he missed about a fourth of them and ended up having to smack the monster in the head with the heel of the firearm.

He got in three hard hits before the gun was pried from his arms and tossed onto the tile, skidding across it. It grabbed him and shoved him backwards until he was pressed up against the table that Joel and Ellie had been hiding behind earlier.

He thought it was kind of stupid-looking when Ellie and Joel started screaming after being cornered by this thing, but, now, he totally understood it. He hoisted his arm up, pressing his wrist against the Infected's neck to make sure it was keeping a safe distance and he raised his knee so it was pushing back against that gross, scaly stomach. The thing screamed at him, right in his face, and speckles of spit landed all across his face. That was hardly the most disgusting thing happening right now.

From behind yellow, rotting teeth emerged these little white things, like worms but somehow uglier. They wriggled and kept going until they were no more than an inch in front of Ralph's face.

He made a weak, disgusted sound in the back of his throat and began pushing even further and harder to try and scare this thing off, but bodyweight against bodyweight was usually a fight Ralph would never win. Being skinnier than a pencil certainly had its downsides.

He didn't bother to yell for help. Tess was out of ammo, Joel was reaching underneath a display cabinet for his gun, and Lou and Ellie were just kids. Besides, it wasn't like he was a newbie to this field of work. He was pretty skilled, even if he was terrified beyond belief.

The Infected pressed even nearer to him with a sudden lurch, the worms in its mouth getting closer and closer. Ralph put more pressure on his knee, then evened it out to his arm, gave one good shove, and slipped underneath the zombie's arm.

He side-stepped it when it launched for him again and slipped behind it, grabbing it between the shoulder blades and shoving it face-down into the old, wooden desk. Ralph reached for his belt, pulled out the pistol that Ellie had met the previous night, and shot the Clicker in the head— Once, twice, thrice.

He backed away from it the second he could, understandably so, and let his gun clatter to the floor. Panting, gasping for breath, Ralph brought the heels of his palms to rest above his eyebrows and tilted his head back, his fast breaths echoing in the empty, finally silent space.

'Holy shit.' Ellie was the first to speak, sauntering over to the desk and looking at the thing. Blood dripped over the edges and onto the ground.

'...You mauled that bitch, dad!' Lou shouted... Happily? Yeah, she was definitely happy right now. That was the same smile Ralph had seen at her last birthday party when he brought out her cake and started singing.

How on God's green Earth did a relatively sane guy raise his daughter to be such a lunatic?

'You had that gun the entire time!?' Joel started yelling next, a combination of shocked, impressed, and a little bit angry plastered across his face.

'Yeah, yeah, I did. And, for the record, it was ten times more helpful than your shitty rifle!' He yelled back. He wasn't angry because Ralph was never angry.

'Let's just get the fuck out of here!' Tess demanded, a sudden determination in her voice. The most reasonable explanation was that she had gotten sick of the constant bickering and was finally losing her shit, but Ralph noticed that she was looking a little paler than usual, walking with a limp.

...

'ALRIGHT, DOCTOR GUN-HIDER. Fix her up.' Joel gestured down to Tess as they left the museum through a window that led out onto an open roof. He took a moment to breathe in the fresh air, gasping it in like it was his last breath of air, and then sighed it back out before sitting down next to her and opening his backpack. Joel looked at Ellie. 'What about you, you hurt?'

'Yeah, uh... About that.' Meekly, Ellie pulled up her sleeve to reveal a zombie bite on top of her already healed zombie bite, red blood sharp against white skin. Joel sighed and leaned forward, looking in his bag for something and then handing her a white rag. 'Put that around it.'

'What about you, honey? You alright?' Ralph squinted up at Lou, his eyes had still not adjusted to the sunlight yet. He pulled a roll of KT tape from his bag and shuffled towards Tess, instructing her to hold her ankle up a bit higher.

'I'm fine. That thing didn't even come close to us, we were too good. Right, Tess?' Lou smiled smugly.

'Yeah, right.' Tess whispered, watching as Ralph secured the bright green tape around the sole of her foot and then wrapped it around a few extra times, just to be safe. '...Hey, why don't you show them where to go, Joel? Al's got me.'

'Yeah, I got her.' Ralph agreed quietly, pursing his lips and bringing the tape up to wrap around the top of her ankle a handful of times. Reluctantly, Joel got to his feet and nodded his head at the girls, leading them over to the ladder that connected two rooftops and urging them across it, one after another.

'That was really badass of you.' Tess told him quietly, looking out over the city as he went over the tape he had applied one last time, just to be sure. He looked up at her and smiled awkwardly because that was the first nice thing Tess ever had to say about him. 'You showed that thing who's boss.'

'...You're a badass too, if it means anything. Way more badass-er than me.' He laughed quietly, ripping the last of the tape and placing the roll back into his bag. 'Joel would be a pretty big badass too if he weren't an asshole.'

'Joel's been through things.' Tess said softly. 'So have I. He's not an asshole, or a badass. He's just... Joel.'

Ralph shrugged and zipped up his bag.

'...He likes you.' She continued. He looked at her. 'I can tell. I have a sixth sense when it comes to him. He thinks you're one of the coolest people on the planet. The prick just doesn't have the balls to say it.'

Ralph looked to the ground and stood up, offering her his hand. She took it.

'Can you promise me something?'

'...Yeah. Anything, Tess.'

'No matter what happens, promise me you'll keep him safe. Him and the girls.'

It was a weird request. He wanted to question it, but Tess still had that look of determination on her face, the one that spooked him a little bit. He could tell that she wanted this. Wanted it very badly. He had no idea why Tess would think that she wouldn't be around to help them. If anything, she was the most fearless out of all of them. Tess was the glue of the group, really. With her witty nicknames and mean jokes and fight-to-kill mentality—

'Oh.' Ralph whispered when he saw the blood on her collar.

'Oh.' Tess repeated when she knew he had figured it out.

...

FINALLY, THEY MADE IT TO THEIR FINAL DESTINATION.

Only to discover that everyone inside the building was dead.

'Give me a goddamn break.' Ralph whispered to himself, rubbing his forehead and walking after Joel into the center of the room as Ellie and Lou wandered around and looked at all the bodies like they were on a Safari cruise on something.

'...I mean, there's gotta be a fuckin' radio or something, right?' Tess said randomly, walking over to the mountains of boxed-up supplies and beginning to rummage through them desperately.

'Who killed them?' Lou asked quietly, looking down at one guy who had his brains leaking out of his skull. All of Ralph's efforts to keep her and Ellie away from violence and fighting and corpses had really paid off, especially with Joel kicking them about right in front of them. 'Was it FEDRA?'

'No.' Joel tilted the guy's head to the left with the tip of his boot, peering down at him. 'One of them got bit. The healthy ones fought the sick ones, everyone lost— Tess! What're you doing?'

'Where did Marlene say that she was taking you?' Tess stepped over a few crates to walk up and question the tiny girl. 'Ellie!'

'Uh, I don't know. Just west.' Ellie offered that limited amount of information like it would save their asses and stop Tess from acting like a complete psycho.

'Just west, fuck, okay. Well, I mean, one of them's gotta have a map on them, right?' She ducked down and started patting down the men on the floor, the one who had been shot in the leg. 'Al, Joel, can you help me?'

'No!' Joel yelled back at her, watching her frantic efforts as Ralph stopped walking towards her and looked back at him. 'Tess, it's over. We are all going home—'

'That's not my fucking home!'

Joel flinched a little bit, which was something that had never happened before. He took a step back from Tess like he was truly startled by her in that moment, bumping arms with Ralph and not even offering him a glance. Tess looked away from Joel, back to the body she was kneeling in front of, sniffed, and stood up.

'I'm staying.' She said softly, looking at Ralph for a moment because he was the only one who understood her, at least right now. Though he had a frown on his face and his eyes were wide like he was going to cry, he nodded at her. '...I mean, our luck had to run out sooner or later.'

'Fuck.' Ellie gasped from behind them, causing Joel and Ralph to look at her. 'She's infected.'

'Show me.' Joel demanded, his head darting back to face Tess as she watched him with an upset face. She took a step towards him, but he stepped back— Placing a hand on Ralph's stomach and pushing him back too.

Tess tugged her shirt to the side and revealed a bright red bite on the crook of her neck, all veiny and gross. She tugged her shirt back into place and looked at the two of them like she was staring at complete and utter strangers. 'Oops. Right?'

She looked past them to face Ellie. 'Take your bandage off.'

Ellie looked to Lou for no apparent reason, and then tugged off the white rag that had been tied over her bite mark, holding it out. Tess walked over to her.

'Look, Joel, this is real. Joel, she's fucking real!' Tess tugged Ellie's arm forward a little bit, before realizing that her hand was beginning to shake. She snatched it away, planted it behind her back, and kept talking. 'You two need to take her to Bill and Frank's. They'll take her off your hands, they'll handle it from here!'

'No, no, no— I can't, they won't take her!' Joel began to protest, shaking his head rapidly.

'They will, 'cause you'll convince them— Yes, you will, the both of you will. I never ask you for anything, not to feel the way I felt, not to— Shut the fuck up, 'cause I don't have time! This is your chance. You get her there, you keep her alive, and you set everything right, all the shit we did... I don't care if you say no because Al promised me. He'll do it if you're too scared to!'

'Oh, shit!' Lou squealed, running away from one of the bodies on the ground when it lifted its head and began to hiss at her. Joel walked up to it and put a bullet in its brain. She collided into Ralph's side, and he held her there without another word, an arm wrapped around her shoulders.

Suddenly, Joel hurried to the door they had entered from and peered out of it, only to turn back around and walk back towards the group.

'How many?' Tess questioned.

'All of them. Maybe a minute.' He grumbled, voice gruff with the sadness that was resting in the back of his throat. Hesitantly, Joel began to gather his belongings, waving at Ralph to do the same. He plucked Lou's bag off the floor and handed it to her, still keeping her close to him, while Tess began to tip over barrels and bust open crates.

The smell of gasoline filled the open room and the substance swashed over Ralph's shoes and then the rattling of grenades falling onto the submerged tile beneath them came next. Ralph knew what was about to happen, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

'Joel. Al.' She looked at them as she said their names, breathing heavily and letting her eyes dart around the room, and then finally settling on staring Joel right in the eyes.

'Save who you can save.'

Lou launched at Tess with her arms out wide, gifting the woman her first and only hug from the little one. Tess had seen it coming and, although it was an odd thing to see, hugged back almost instantly. She lowered her head and whispered something to her, her hands shaking as she held Lou close to her, before patting her back and ushering her away.

Ralph took her by the hand, fought the urge to give Tess a second hug, and led Lou to the exit.

...

NOTES!

THE HUG why do i do this to myself
tess servopolous come back to me

TESS MAKING RALPH PROMISE AND CALLING HIM AL I AM GOING TO SCREAM VERY LOUDLY.

i miss tess so much she was like actually my fav character and im gonna miss her and lou so much :'(

okay shutting up abt tess for a moment (rip mamacita)

RALPHS MAIN CHARACTER ERA I LOVE
him and joel fighting over the gun felt so out of character but still somehow so in character, idk!! i love it tho they so cute

tess i miss u

ok bye bye