'DAD!' Ralph was woken up by the quiet sound of Lou whisper-screaming at him from across the room, and he rolled over on his side to ignore her. Being the genius that he was, Ralph had completely forgotten that he had been shot on that side, and promptly began to start groaning and reaching for his side.

And there was also a gun pointing right at his face.

What a wonderful start to his morning.

The boy behind the gun was tiny. He was a kid, a pretty young kid. Ralph couldn't see much in the darkness, but he was able to define the barrel of the pistol that was pointed straight at him and the glistening of another one from the other side of the room.

'Eyes on me!' The man on the far side of the room demanded, holding a gun to Lou and Ellie. The girls had their hands up in the air in surrender and kept their mouths shut, but it was obvious that they were praying for Ralph to do something about this. The man noticed Ralph's discomfort and let his act slip for a moment. 'What's the matter with you, are you hurt?'

'If you touch them, I'll kill you.' Ralph said, his right hand moving to clutch his side, feeling a fresh wave of blood seep through the bandage, and his left still holding Joel's. The man next to him was still snoring, and Ralph didn't intend to do anything about it.

They stared at each other. The man tightened his grip around the gun, but wasn't going to do anything, Ralph could tell. It was to bluff. He'd seen it plenty of times before. Tighten your grip, say something super emotional or badass, and then put the gun down. That was how it worked in all the movies, and that was how it was going to work right now.

'Hey, relax.' The stranger said finally, lowering his gun slightly and looking at the kid at the foot of Ralph and Joel's mattress to do the same. 'We don't wanna hurt you. We wanna help you... Can you wake him up?'

Ralph thumped Joel on the side once or twice, and he rubbed his eyes for a moment before he realized what was going on and immediately began to freak out. He shoved himself up onto his elbows in a heartbeat and looked around the room with wide and confused eyes, clearly out of the loop.

'They said they don't wanna hurt us.' Ralph added grumpily, still cradling his side. Joel looked back at him and frowned when he noticed that Ralph's pain was back again, but didn't make any sudden movement to try and mend the hurting.

'Alright, uh... I don't know what the next step is with something like this, but if I lower my gun, we didn't hurt you, so you don't hurt us, right?' The stranger said, looking at Ralph and Joel as he spoke, assuming that these girls were no real threat. And they weren't, not at the moment, because they were scared shitless and just wanted Joel and Ralph to be there.

'Right.' Joel repeated with a very clear hatred in his voice.

'...That's a weird fuckin' tone, man!' He said frantically, raising his weapon again.

'No, no, no! That's just the way he sounds, he has an asshole voice!' Ellie insisted, hands still raised high by her shoulders.

'You tell him, dad.' Lou nodded at him, an anxious expression plastered all across her face, making Ralph feel sick. 'Tell him.'

'...Alright.' He said finally, looking away from Lou to face the random guy that had almost killed them all. 'We won't hurt you, dude. But, if you're gonna preach peace and everything, you should really consider putting that fucking gun away.'

'Yeah. Yeah, fair point.' He nodded, lowering it and reaching for the pocket the had drawn it from in the first place. He turned to the younger boy and began to make motions with his hands- Sign language. Ralph knew a few pieces, but not in American, so he couldn't make sense of any of it. The little boy began to put his gun away too, and even though Ralph was still shocked that he had it in the first place, he turned to face the man when he spoke again. 'But, if any of you try anything...!'

'Yeah, we get it.' Joel said gruffly, waiting until all weapons were out of sight before sitting upright and looking at Ralph. 'You okay?'

Ralph nodded, not wanting to share the fact that he was actively bleeding with the people that had tried to shoot him, but that didn't prevent Joel from reaching for the side of his shirt and lifting it. He discovered that the once-white bandage was now a ruddy pink in color, and another pool of dark red was beginning to start.

He didn't say anything, knowing that Ralph wanted to keep it on the down low, but he shared a look with him for a moment before turning around to look at the man once again. 'Who are you?'

'...My name's Henry.' He said softly, attitude completely changing now that there weren't any guns being used or threats being spewed. 'That's Sam. I'm the most wanted man in Kansas City. Although right now, my guess is, you guys are running a close second.'

...

GATHERED AROUND A LANTERN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DARK ROOM, the group of four just as quickly became a group of six and were currently sharing out the blueberries that Ralph and Lou had spent an hour or two picking out a few days back.

'Where'd you get these?' Henry asked after a while of silence, looking across at them. The seating plan for their semi-circle was very uneven, with four on one side and two on the other. Maybe it was an intimidation plan, but Henry wanted to believe that the man in front of him was, at the very least, a man of his word.

'We found 'em in a forest.' Lou told him, chewing on another berry and looking at Ralph to question him. 'What'd you say? That the trees were like... Atomic?'

'Acidic.' The nerd within Ralph couldn't help himself, even if he was trying to scare away these potential enemies. 'And the soil was acidic, not the trees. The trees were too thin which is what caused the soil to collect all the rainwater, and then it became acidic.'

'Nerd alert.' Ellie murmured to herself, in a funny voice and a light-hearted way. Ralph scoffed and tossed a berry at her. It bounced off her head and landed somewhere on the floor.

'Damn, you know your stuff.' Henry smiled at him. Joel believed that the only reason Ralph smiled back was because he was trying to keep the peace. Henry's smile faded a little bit, and he nodded his head to the big, obvious blood stain on the side of Ralph's once-clean pink shirt. 'You alright?'

'Yeah, I'm good. Don't worry about it.' Ralph shook his head dismissively. Then, Joel shuffled forward and handed his remaining berries to Sam, who accepted them eagerly and signed something to his brother.

'He says "thank you."' Henry told them. 'I'm guessing you don't have much, so, this means a lot.'

'How old is he?' Lou asked, looking at Henry for a moment and then turning to smile at Sam. He grinned back at her. The duo turned to each other with another bunch of gestures, and Henry presented her with an answer.

'He's eight.'

'Sweet.' She nodded, eating another berry. 'I'm Lou. It's short for Louise, but, everyone calls me Lou anyway.'

'Oh, and I'm Ellie.' Ellie joined in, looking down the line for the final two to introduce themselves.

'Ralph.' Ralph smiled.

Joel just glared at Henry.

'That's Joel.' Ralph said, his smile fading at the corners as he not-so-subtly nudged Joel. Joel gave him a pointed look out of the corner of his eye and then looked at Henry.

'Look, you ate, we didn't kill each other, let's call this a win-win and move on.' He suggested negatively, not even wanting to try and get to know the guys across from them.

'Well, I'm betting, that y'all came up here to get a view of the city and plan a way out.' Henry looked up from the floor, looking at the group. 'And when the sun's up, I'll show you one.'

Hesitantly, Joel and Ralph shared a look, staring at one another without saying anything, just thinking. Eventually, Ralph tilted his head forward, letting Joel know that it was all up to him. He sighed.

'Fine.'

...

'WELCOME TO KILLA CITY.' It looked far less intimidating from up there. Maybe it was the daylight, or maybe it was the fact that fearing for their lives and being shot at was no longer their number one day-to-day activity - At least not yet.

'No FEDRA?' Joel asked Henry, looking down on the empty streets that would've typically been swarmed with officers and guards willing to beat the shit out of anyone who questioned them.

'Not as of ten days ago, no.' Henry shook his head, standing next to Ralph and taking occasional glances at the big blood patch on the bottom of his shirt. Henry wasn't sure why it intrigued him so much. It was probably just the concern that he would be left with a body on his hands once again.

'I always heard that KC FEDRA was-'

'Monsters? Savages? Yeah, you heard right.' He said grimly, staring at Joel for a second or two before looking back to the streets. 'Raped and tortured and murdered people for twenty years. You know what happens when you do that to people? The moment they get a chance, they do it right back to you... Besides, I've heard a few horror stories about Boston.'

'Boston was nothing compared to here, by the sounds of it.' Ralph shrugged, crossing his arms. 'Sure, police brutality, and murder, and shit, but they spent most of their time on the Fireflies, lookin' for Marlene and shit.'

Joel narrowed his eyes at Ralph for a moment. He wasn't wrong, but the mention of Marlene threw him off a little bit. He thought that Ralph didn't know about her, seeing as he had asked who she was on many occasions. But, for all Joel knew, that could've just been a lucky assumption. He cleared his throat. 'But, you're not FEDRA.'

'No, worse.' Henry said softly, lowering his voice and refusing to look Joel in the eyes. Instead, he looked at Ralph, hoping he'd take this impending info a little bit better. 'I'm a collaborator.'

Ralph didn't say anything, just raised his eyebrows and looked back at Henry blankly. Then, Joel seized him by the wrist, taking a few steps back and dragging Ralph after him. 'We don't work with rats.'

'Yeah, you fucking do.' Henry argued, raising his voice a little bit. 'Today you do, 'cause I live here, and you don't. That's how I followed you here. I know this city, and that's how I'm gonna help you get out.'

Joel turned to Ralph for a split second, dropping his hand after a moment of hesitation and then crossing his arms. 'Why help us?'

'I saw what you two did, the way you killed those men.' Henry gestured to Ralph. 'Obviously, you're hurt. You were a badass, but, you're hurt. That means that I'm gonna give you a choice. I won't put you in harm's way, not unless you want to be-'

'I'm doing it.' Ralph said, cutting off Henry at the end of his sentence. It was clear their new friend appreciated the dedication. Joel did not.

'Al, you can barely stand.' He protested.

'I don't care, I'm doing it.' Ralph shook his head. Henry took a pause to look at him, head to toe, and then back up again. He thought, and then he nodded.

'Now, I know where to go, but I don't know how to make it through alive. Not if it's just me and Sam.'

'You seem capable enough.' Joel said.

'You're armed.' Ralph added.

'You're wrong, and you're wrong.' Henry shook his head, looking at them in turn as he shot down their reminders. 'Never killed anyone. And pointing an unloaded gun at you and your kids was the closest I've ever come to being violent... So, that's the deal. I show the way. You two clear it.'

From the far end of the room came a shriek of laughter, and the three men turned to find their younger counterparts all keeled over in laughter at the end of the table. They were laughing at something one of them had drawn on Sam's notepad, and Henry smiled.

'How are we gettin' out?' Joel ruined the moment a little bit.

Sighing at the grumpy man in front of him, Henry walked over to Sam and the girls and began to sign to the boy. Ralph and Joel stood at the top of the room together, standing side by side and staring down and the others, and that was when Joel took the opportunity to share his thoughts.

'I think you're a maniac for saying yes to him.' Joel huffed, waiting impatiently as Henry took a piece of paper from the younger boy and now began to talk to Lou and Ellie.

'Then, it's a good thing I don't care what you think.' Ralph sighed right back at him, this awkward conversation making everyone around them look like they were moving in slow motion. 'We wanna get Ellie to Wyoming in good shape, we need as much protection as we can.'

'You can't protect Ellie if you can barely protect yourself. Look at yourself, Al, you're shot.' Joel looked over at him.

'I can protect myself. And I can protect Ellie, and Lou, and don't act like I didn't beat those monsters up and kill those guys to protect you as well.' Ralph looked back at him.

They scowled at each other like they were right back where they began, back to square one. Joel was praying that they weren't, that nothing bad would happen, and that this suicide mission would go A-Okay and they could laugh about it in the morning and hold hands again and do all of the corny stuff that made his heart do cartwheels. Next to him, Ralph was praying for the exact same thing.

Henry returned a second later, placing the sheet of paper down onto the table and beginning to draw a rectangle. He labelled each of the sides with a number of different values and started to gesture around the poorly drawn diagram.

'Highways. Downtown. Us.' He swept his hand across the box on the page. 'This whole area belongs to Kathleen.'

'She's in charge?' Ellie asked.

'Leader of the resistance.' During Ellie's question, Henry scribbled a little X to mark where they were on his map. 'You can see the way we're bounded by highways. They got people posted all around the inside perimeter. If we get close, we get caught. No question. So, how do we get across?'

He looked across the table at Lou and Ellie, then at Joel and Ralph. When nobody answered the question, he beat his fist against the table and caught Sam's attention. He repeated the question in sign language, and then Sam got to work with writing a reply.

"Tunnels."

'This city has a subway?' Ralph questioned.

'No, but they do have maintenance. There's a bunch of buildings all put up by the same developers. And they share these tunnels, including, a bank building here.' He leaned down and drew another box, representing a building. 'So we enter the tunnels here, travel underground, and pop up here. Westside North. Residential. There's an embankment on the other side of the houses. We head down, pedestrian bridge over the river, and then, boom. Free as a bird.'

'Yeah, great plan, what do you need us for?' Joel's stubbornness would find him in trouble someday. It was lucky for him that Henry was cool.

'You noticed anything strange about this city? I mean, other than the strange shit you've already seen?'

'No Infected?' Lou proposed.

'Oh, there's Infected. Just not on the surface. FEDRA drove them underground fifteen years ago and never let them come back up. It's the only good thing those fascist motherfuckers ever did.'

'So you want us goin' into a tunnel?' Joel scoffed.

'Everyone thinks that it's full of Infected, including Kathleen, which means that we're not gonna be running into any of her people. But you see, what I know is, it's empty.'

'You've been down there?' Ralph asked.

'...No-But! The FEDRA guy that I worked with told me that it's clean, completely clean. They cleared it out, all of it, like three years ago.'

Joel scoffed and shook his head, mainly at Ralph to try and get him to change his mind. Ralph looked at him but didn't pay him any more attention.

'Okay, maybe, there's one or two, but you handle it.'

'What if there's more?' Joel sighed.

'Or one of those blind ones that see like a bat?' Ellie leaned forward.

'Or a speedy one? These guys are, like, old.' Lou pointed to Ralph and Joel.

'Wait, wait, you ran into a Clicker?' Henry raised his eyebrows.

'Two of 'em.' Ellie corrected.

'And you're still alive?'

'Yeah, 'course we are. Ralph shot the shit out of them.'

Henry looked at Ralph, smiling and nodding his head.

'You see? You're the right people.'

...

A THANK YOU NOTE!

filler chapter fow weal 🤣

okay ANYWAY hi hello howdy
i want to try and keep this short because i always hate writing cheesy things like these BUT it needs to be said and i love u guys so idgaf

TODAY'S THE ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY OF BORDERLINE!!! WOOHOO!!!!! and today is also convenitently the day that we hit 10k, which is INSANE

i just wanted to stop in and say thank you for all the support and votes and comments and edits (because ppl EDIT my fanfic!?!?!? CRAZY!!!), it actually means the whole entire world to me and i am so grateful for every single one of u crazy hoes. i'm so lucky to have amazing followers and readers and i love you all so much :')

okay no more cringe BYE