CROUCHED BEHIND THE CAR IN NAUSEATING ANTICIPATION, the group awaited a response from Joel up in the house- A signal, a yell, a wave, whatever. Just anything to let them know that the gunshot they had heard wasn't a fatal one.

'What if he's dead?' Henry gasped suddenly, sweating and shaking and grabbing onto the edge of Ralph's sleeve. He shook his head as if he was trying to shake the thought out of his mind and think about something more or less pleasant.

'He's not dead, alright? He's Joel, that guy's a fucking miracle.' Ralph assured him, placing his hand on top of Henry's to reassure him for no longer than a second before gently prying his fingers off of his jacket. 'Besides, if he was dead, we'd still be getting shot at.'

'Yeah... Yeah, alright, yeah, fair point.' Henry nodded, his nerves calmed a little bit. They waited in the silence for a little longer, until they heard Joel's voice screaming at them from the house. They all rose to their feet, craning their necks to try and hear him better, and Ellie took the moment of safety to flock to Lou, tugging her into a hug and taking her revolver back. Ralph would've ran to Lou too, if he could run with his hip in such a state.

A hand tugged on the back of Ralph's belt, and he could tell from the fact that they had to reach up to do so that it was Sam. Ralph turned on his heel, looking over to where the younger boy was pointing, and his heart immediately dropped.

'Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, oh, shit, oh fuck!' Henry whispered frantically, looking at the squad of cars that were headed straight for them. Despite being on the verge of pissing his pants, his brain was working well enough for him to wrap Ralph's arm around his shoulder, stepping in for Joel as The Human Crutch, and help him as the five of them ran for their lives.

Henry and Ralph were noticeably slower than the rest of the group, and Ellie hung back with them to fire useless shots at the huge truck speeding right towards them, crushing cars in its wake like bugs under a boot.

Thanks be to whatever God may or may not exist, Joel fired a shot right at the driver of the truck, breaking through the windshield and killing them in one fell swoop. The truck swerved off the road, crashing into an old, abandoned house and making a wreck of it.

Running to take cover behind another spare truck or rusty car, Ralph and Henry were on the bad side of things when the house burst up into flames alarmingly close to them, causing Henry to stumble back in surprise and both of them fall to the ground.

Instantly, there were hands tugging at them, desperately trying to get them to their feet while they still had time. For the most part, it worked. Even though it took the manpower of two teenage girls, Ralph was ushered behind a van and was with the rest of the group in no time.

His ear was ringing, and the light had almost blinded him, and his hip hurt, and so did his ankle, and he was tired- But, he was mostly alright.

'Dead end, Henry.' A voice called out cheerfully, most likely that of Kathleen. The sound of guns reloading and car doors slamming were heard in the background as she continued to shout at him, making Ralph's heart pound ten times faster inside of his chest. 'Gonna step on out? Save us some time? ...No? That's alright, doesn't matter.'

Henry looked over his shoulder, staring at Sam as he held hands with Lou and huddled himself towards Ellie, clearly terrified. He stared at Ralph as he kept his hand resting on his daughter's shoulder, the most comfort he could provide her with right now.

'...I'll come out!' Henry yelled back at her, regretting it instantly. 'Just let the kids go!'

'No, sorry.' Kathleen said, even though she didn't sound sorry about it at all. 'The girls are with the men who killed Bryan, Sam's with you, and your friend back there isn't helping your case all that much. I want both of you, or else.'

'You don't understand!' Henry insisted, turning around and nodding at Ralph to try and coarse him into surrendering alongside him. Ralph shook his head furiously like Henry was insane for suggesting it.

'But I do. I know why you did what you did.' She continued. 'But did you ever stop to think that maybe he was supposed to die?'

'He's just a fucking kid!' Henry said, meanwhile Ralph was crouched next to him with his jaw dropped to the floor. He didn't know much about this Kathleen lady, but, she didn't seem very fun.

'Well, kids die, Henry. They die all the time. You think the whole world revolves around him? That he's worth... Everything? Well, this is what happens when you fuck with fate.' He understood that people grieved in different ways, but did Kathleen really have to grieve by being one of the evilest people Ralph had ever met?

Henry turned around, facing Lou and Ellie. 'Get ready to take him and run. Me and your dad will be back in a bit, okay?'

'Fuck you, man. I'm not surrendering shit.' Ralph shook his head, scoffing and rolling his eyes like this was a casual topic.

'Yes, you are.' Henry grumbled at him, hissing at him through clenched teeth. Ralph opened his mouth, murmuring protests and shaking his head until Henry shut him up. 'You want me to tell them that Lou killed him?'

Ralph went silent.

His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched and he looked like he was about to kill Henry himself if Kathleen didn't do it for him. His eyes fell to the floor, and he let out a deep sigh before turning and whispering to Ellie. 'Go.'

'But-'

'Shut up. Just go.'

'Time's up, you two. Enough.' Kathleen demanded, her voice growing thin with frustration. Henry braced himself against the car and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself down before he took such a big sacrifice. Sure, it was one that he needed to take, one that he wanted to take, but that didn't mean it wasn't scary as shit.

When Henry opened his eyes, Ralph was already standing at the hood of the car with his hands raised in surrender, little to no time to think about it. Henry supposed that would've been a good idea. To rush into it without overthinking everything and just pray for the best possible outcome.

Unfortunately, Henry was far too anxious for that way of life and just copied Ralph. He shuffled to stand next to his friend, hands raised as well, and they made eye contact. Ralph still looked like he was about to bite Henry's fingers off, which wasn't the most comforting sight in a time like this.

Ralph looked forward shortly after they met eyes, looking at Kathleen as she looked at him. Her eyes went to all the obvious places- Messy hair, big bloodstain, ripped-up jeans, muddy shoes. Aside from that, she didn't really care. She didn't want to seem to get to know Ralph before she was going to kill him, and he found that rather insensitive.

'It ends the way it ends.' She said, acting sad when Ralph could tell she was rejoicing inside. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pistol, cocking it back slowly and then raising it in front of her.

The burning house behind her began to creak. The truck rolled forward on its wheels, driving further into the building, and then sinking into the ground like it was caught in quicksand. All of Kathleen's people braced themselves when the screams and wails of those godforsaken began to get louder and louder, no longer focusing on Ralph and Henry.

A stampede of them came sprinting. Guns fired, but most of them were useless. They were outnumbered.

There were fast ones, and there were the blind ones. There were young ones, there were old ones. There were ones that ripped heads apart and ones that preferred to eat them until they turned into goop.

'What the fuck do we do!?' Henry screamed, reaching to grab onto Ralph's arm again. He shook the man off before he could even latch on, hurrying behind the car and dragging Henry with him to take cover with the rest of the group.

'We run for it!' Ralph yelled back at him, pointing over to their original exit and waving at them to follow him. He wasn't running this time around, that would've taken two people, and he didn't want to drag someone down with him.

He reached for his belt, dragging out his pistol and holding it out in front of him. None of the attention was particularly on their group, seeing as the loud firearms and screaming behind them were the most noticeable, but there were still a few monsters that were cutting it close. All of them were met with a timely shot to the brain or the chest. A sneaky one that Ralph didn't see coming got its leg blown off, left it crawling on the ground like a real monster from a horror movie.

Ralph was far more focused on protecting Ellie and Lou, though. It was an obvious bias, but it was alright because Sam and Henry had already run off to take shelter someplace, so they were also following the 'every man for themselves' idea.

It was when an Infected dropped dead right in front of them that their first and worst mishap happened. Ellie tripped and fell flat on her face, a shoo-in for any nearby monsters.

Ralph ducked back instantly, turning around and firing at everything that came close to her. He reached down and stuck his arm out, attempting to pull her up while he was still shooting at everything that moved. That didn't end up very well, because even though Ralph had helped Ellie up, a creature with fungus growing out of its face was snatching his gun from him and reaching for him.

'Fuck you!' Ellie screamed, shoving at the monster to try and get in between them, but the damage was already being done.

Its cold, scaly hands were braced on either side of Ralph's jaw, attempting to wrestle him closer as those ugly mouth tentacles from the museum made their grand reappearance. He raised his hands and tried to fight it, shoving at its stomach and scratching at its face, but nothing seemed to work. During a swing of Ralph's arm, the monster ducked its head down and started to aim for that plain of skin instead.

It came dangerously close until a bullet landed in its stomach and it made a wheezing sound, spluttering and coughing all directly into Ralph's face. It came from high up, from Joel in the house, and Ralph had never been more grateful for anything in his life. The thing was still living though, still trying its best, and Ralph quickly put an end to that by digging his thumbs into the Stalker's eyes and waiting until the familiar feeling of blood began to run down his forearms and under his fingernails.

He shoved it to the ground, accepted his pistol as Ellie offered it to him, and began to speed walk towards the exit again, shooting and firing and firing and shooting.

Nearby, they heard screaming, and Ellie grabbed him by the hand to stop his rampage and point out Sam and Henry as they shook off an abundance of monsters. They were quite a far distance away, but it was nothing that Ralph couldn't clear within a second.

Ellie ran towards them first, with Ralph following closely behind her. She wrapped her arm around the neck of the Clicker that was after Henry and stabbed it in the side of the neck, a headshot from Joel helping a great amount. As for Ralph, he didn't even have to get his hands dirty. Joel had already killed the Stalker for him and now all he was tasked with was helping Sam out.

'Do you know where Lou is!?' Ralph's face immediately turned worried sick when he realized that she wasn't with the two brothers. Henry could barely hear him over the chaos surrounding them.

'Uh, I saw her near the house! She could be with Joel!' Henry assured him, even though he wasn't sure if that was Lou or someone else. He was thrown off by the expression of complete horror on Ralph's face. He hadn't seen anyone so worried or terrified in his entire life, and he instantly wanted to resolve it so he wouldn't have to see it for much longer.

'What!? No, I saw her by the pickup, the red one!' Ellie countered, shaking her head and not helping to calm down Ralph at all. Ralph looked between the two of them anxiously and then, without another word, headed straight back into the madness in front of him in search of his daughter.

Ellie screamed after him, but she wasn't heard. Either that or Ralph didn't care enough to turn around. Henry grabbed her by the crook of the elbow, giving her a tug to motivate her as they closed the short distance it took to get to the gate.

They huddled around the entrance of the house Joel had disappeared into, and he emerged a moment later with a sniper at his side, successful in his mission. He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding when he discovered Ellie was okay but instantly became frightened when the Zhenyas were nowhere to be seen.

Well, at least Ralph was nowhere to be seen.

'Kids die all the time, Henry!' Kathleen yelled from behind them. In front of her, she was holding Lou, her arm secured around the younger girl's shoulders with a hand on her jaw to hold her in place. She was holding a gun to her head.

Lou was kicking and screaming, crying out every name under the sun, and trying her best to fight her way out of Kathleen's arms. Surprisingly, the woman was stronger than she let on and was able to hold her for a solid amount of time before she eventually got fed up and sighed.

'You want proof?' Kathleen threatened, drawing her pistol and pressing it against Lou's temple. The four stood frozen, totally unsure of what to do. Joel considered using his new gun, but she would have pulled the trigger before he even got it onto his shoulder to aim it properly. Ellie had no bullets left, after firing them at the truck and Infected for about fifteen minutes straight. Henry and Sam were horrified, just watching with wide eyes.

'Fuck you, you fucking pig-fucking motherfucker!' Lou screamed, attempting to drive her elbows into the woman's sides, to kick her in the shins, to headbutt her in the nose, to do anything to save herself.

As a last resort, Lou angled her head downwards and bit into the skin between Kathleen's thumb and index finger hard, breaking skin and drawing blood in no time and making the woman scream and drop her and stagger backwards.

She raised her gun and fired, missing Lou narrowly as she ran to hold Ellie, and reached up with a bleeding hand to reload it and shoot again, this time aimed at Henry.

Sadly for her, Ralph had shown up again, and he was even more pissed off at Kathleen than he was at Henry.

So pissed off that he grabbed her by the ponytail, yanked her head back, and shot her in the back of the head. Blood splurted up into his face, drenching his shirt and his hair and Joel swore he saw some get into Ralph's mouth. It didn't phase him, he didn't even flinch. Then, Ralph used his grip on her hair to throw her bloody corpse at an oncoming Clicker, allowing it to go to town on her as he walked back over to his friends like nothing had just happened.

'Let's go.' He said softly. Nobody was about to disagree with him.

...

THEY FOUND THEMSELVES AT AN ABANDONED MOTEL, far away from the city. It wasn't the most ideal place to stay, but it was still a roof over their heads and was also far away from the whole disaster they had left behind.

In the room, there were only two lights that worked. One in the bedroom that the guys had agreed to let the kids share, and one in the bathroom, where Ralph was attempting to clean himself up a little bit. It proved to be a difficult task with no running water, a shattered mirror, and a washcloth that felt like sandpaper, which was why he was taking so long, leaving Henry and Joel in the main room by themselves.

'You think they'll be okay?' Henry asked quietly, eating the last of the berries Joel had handed him. 'After Ralph... After he... You know.'

'Yeah, I think.' Joel said back, shrugging a little bit. 'It's easier when you're a kid anyway, you don't have anybody else relying on you. That's the hard part. Ralph, he did what he had to do. He was... Protecting her- Protecting us.'

'Well, I guess he did a good job, then.' Henry murmured, looking down at the scarce amount of berries in his palm and sighing a little bit. He turned his head in the direction of the bathroom door, the dull light shining out from underneath it, and closed his fist over them to save them for Ralph.

'What's that comic book say?' Joel questioned, looking over at Ellie, Lou, and Sam as they sat on the edge of a bed. Ellie was narrating the story for Sam and Lou, doing all the voices and sound effects, but Lou didn't seem as interested as Sam was. She kept running her tongue over her teeth absent-mindedly with a look of regret on her face. Joel decided that he would say something to her later, in the morning. '"Endure and survive?"'

'"Endure and survive."' Henry repeated with a nod of his head, scoffing. 'That shit's redundant.'

'Yeah, it's not great.' Joel agreed, his bad guy cover slipping a little bit when Henry laughed to himself. With a sigh, he looked back over at Lou and Ellie and Sam through the crack in the door and began to speak. 'Look, I don't know exactly how we're getting to Wyoming, we're probably walking. But, you know, if you want to...'

'Yeah.' Henry said quickly, like he already had the answer prepared in the back of his mind. 'Yeah, I think it'd be nice for Sam to have friends. And, maybe get some friends for me as well. I'll tell him in the morning. New day, new start.'

Henry snuck a glance over at the bathroom again, hesitating. Joel got to his feet and shook his head at Henry, instructing him to stay there with the kids while he handled Ralph. Understandingly, Henry handed him the berries and shuffled into the bedroom while Joel walked to the bathroom.

...

NOTES!
im like 40 minutes late to my promised time but OH WELL

next chapter gonna be saaaad but then the chaptr after that is kinda silly so we good!!!

i have no interesting notes other than FUCK U KATHLEEEEENNN L BOZO U FUCKIN SKETTTTTT
and also vampire lou saves the day!! huuraaaah!!!