( gif by ; -tzarrion )

━ CHAPTER SEVEN ...

'  long long time '

TEN MILES WEST OF BOSTON

Ambient nature sounds were heard all around, as the rushing water of a river was also seen. Joel was kneeling down, washing his hands in the same river, and collecting some rocks while stacking them up.

Once he was finished at the cold rivers water, he stood back up slowly and made his way back to camp, as the sun had came up and shined down on the sisters, who were leaning against a tree on the ground.

No one really spoke after what happened, expect for the siblings as Ellie needed someone to talk with. (Y/N)'s heart was still heavy from the recent accident, as her eye stay on Joel who was now packing his bag up.

She looks down at the brown jacket around her knees, gripping it more in her grasp as it belonged to him, "You want your jacket back?"

Joel didn't answer, nor look at her hearing her talking, but instead just kept digging around his bag for food. Once he found some, he took a piece and went to wrap it up, but paused for a second and without turning, he threw the food towards the sisters.

Ellie eagerly took the material wrapped in the food, holding it in between her and (Y/N), as they both took some pieces and ate it silently.

Until Ellie spoke up, "We've never been in the woods. More bugs than I thought." She comments out loud, looking around at the new environment.

(Y/N) sigh's to herself as Joel still didn't respond, the girl shuffles up the tree more and stares at him with a frown, "Look, I've been thinking about-"

"I don't want your sorries." Joel finally talks, grumbling as he stands up with his backpack swinged over his shoulders.

"I wasn't gonna say I'm sorry." She objected with a small huff, fiddling with his brown coat in between her fingers, "I was gonna say that I've been thinking about what happened. Nobody made you or Tess take us. Nobody made you go along with this plan." She reminds him firmly, motioning a finger between her and Ellie, "You needed a truck battery, and you made a choice. So don't blame us for something that isn't our fault."

Joel just simply stares intensely at the girl with his dark eyes, making her slightly squirm nervously as he finally nods his head tightly and she understood he got the message.

(Y/N) stands up from the ground with a stretch, and holds out a hand for Ellie to take as she helps her up. The oldest carries Joel's brown coat over to him, handing it to him as he takes it and they both avoid eye contact.

Ellie saw this happen, and it made her intrigued as she's never seen her sister like this, well not since the accident in the mall, "How much longer?" She asked Joel, breaking out of her thoughts.

"Five-hour hike." Joel told the younger girl, lopping his jacket through his bag strap as he picks up his gun.

(Y/N) clicked her tongue at his information, tilting her head side to side as she nods, "We can manage that."

Joel then goes to walk forward towards the pathway, as the sisters follow right behind him, placing their belonging over their shoulders.

...

After walking for a little while, the trio had made it to an open pathway in between the woods and open land with grass. Joel was leading now, every so often making sure the siblings were following behind.

(Y/N) swings hers and Ellie's intertwined hands back and forth, causing the younger Williams to giggle happily as they start to catch up to Joel.

"You've gone this way a lot?" The (H/C) haired girl questioned curiously to the male, finally catching up and walking beside him, "No infected?"

"Not often, no." Joel answered her shortly, scanning around the area for any signs of trouble.

"What are you looking out for?" Ellie now speaks up her question, still swinging her and (Y/N)'s intertwined hands.

"People."

(Y/N) hums at this, understanding why he did this as the infected wasn't the only danger in this new world, "Are Bill and Frank nice?"

"Frank is." Joel grumbles to her.

She looks over at his handsome face, stomach flipping slightly as the sun's light was making his features stand out more to her, and she noticed a scar on him, "How'd you get that on your head?" She motions to the mark, and hears him sigh deeply, making her become nervous as he probably didn't want to tell her, "You don't have to tell-"

"Someone shot at me and missed." He interrupted her, lips twitching up a little bit as her nervous state as he briefly looks down at her.

"You shoot back?" (Y/N) asked with a raised eyebrow, interested to see where his story was going.

"Yeah."

"You get him?"

Joel's shoulders tense a little bit as he looks away from her curious stare, shaking his head tightly, "No, I missed too." He confessed in smaller voice, "It happens more often than you think."

(Y/N)'s eyes go wide with a teasing smile taking over her features, as she realised that the Joel Miller was getting embarrassed in front of her, "Cause you suck at shooting or, like, in general Miller?"

He does a double take at her statement, giving her an incredulously look as the siblings share a low high five, "In general."

The sisters stifle a laugh as they share a teasing look, and follow after Joel when he steps over a fallen tree, and leads them into a old building.

"Cumberland Farms." Ellie announces in a playful voice, reading what it said on the sign as they walk into the carpark of the shop.

"Hang back a moment. I gotta grab some stuff I stashed." Joel tells the siblings behind him, as they don't listen but continued to follow him towards the shop.

Joel opens the door to the shop, as he was explaining to them why there was supplies inside, "We hide supplies on routes in case we find ourselves short on gear, which I currently am 'cause-"

"No way!" Ellie interrupts the male's rant, beaming excited as she pulls her sister along with her towards the broken game machine, "You ever play this one? We had friends who knew everything about this game. There's this one character called Mileena, who takes off her mask and she as monster teeth, and then she swallows you whole, and barfs out your bones!"

(Y/N) chuckles to herself at Ellie's excited talking, as she ruffles the girls hair who was playing with the games joysticks and complains how she wanted to play it.

Behind them, Joel was looking around through the draws and cupboards for his stuff, but couldn't find nothing making (Y/N) raise her eyebrow, "You forget where you put your stuff?"

"No." Joel denies with a head shake, brows furrowed as he looks at her and shuffles in his spot, "I'm just zeroing in on it. It's been a couple of years."

She lopsided smiled at him, not noticing how he stopped when he spotted it as she turns to walk with Ellie down the path, "Well, we're gonna take a look around, see if there's anything good here."

"Trust me, it's all been picked over already." Joel grunts back his reply, as he moves a table out of the way to search, and tries to pull on the cupboard next to it.

"You never know." (Y/N) shrugged to herself, gazing around the empty shelves as they comes up to a room where the door was open, and she shares a look with Ellie who nodded at her.

The two of them walked into the door, shoving open the next door that was definitely rusted and walked inside as they spot a mess of old scraps, nothing useful to them.

(Y/N) kicks some of the scraps of paper with her boot, freezing her movements as she spots a hatch towards another room down into the ground. She calls to her sister, who turned around and saw it also, and now the two of them were removing the stuff around it.

The (H/C) haired girl grunts as she curls her fingers around the handle, pulling it up slowly with Ellie holding a flashlight ready as it was pitch black inside.

"Hand me something." The older sisters tells the younger one, as Ellie hands her a piece of debri and she drops it down into the hole, hearing it hit the ground fast which meant it wasn't that big inside.

Ellie shines the flashlight down into the hole, seeing a garbage bin flipped upside down, and nothing else. She turns back to (Y/N) unsure, not knowing if they should go or not.

(Y/N) sees her sisters heistent look, making her grip her upper arm and smile reassuringly, "Just stick close to me."

The girl then drops her backpack with her bow and arrows beside the entrance, getting Ellie to do the same as (Y/N) kept her smaller knife in her belt, and lowers herself into the hole, hands gripping the entrance as her muscles strained and she drops down onto the floor with a grunt.

Ellie was quick to follow after her, as she lowers herself down into the hole, and (Y/N) catches her in her arms, placing her safely down as Ellie shines the flashlight around the dark place.

"Come on." (Y/N) whispered to her sibling, pulling her along as she grabs the flashlight and shines it around the shelves placed in the smaller room.

Her eyes lit up when she spots a package of tampons, reaching up to grab the object as she shines the flashlight on it, sharing a small grin with Ellie as this would become very useful to them.

All of a sudden the sound of an infected snarling is heard, causing the sisters happy mood to vanish and be replaced with alarm, as their bodies stiffen.

(Y/N) pushes Ellie into her side, keeping her shielded away as the oldest slowly shines the light down the hallway, seeing an infected trapped under the rubble from the building.

The oldest Williams relaxes a little bit, knowing it was trapped badly and couldn't get up to hurt them. (Y/N) hears the wheezing breaths coming from it, as she goes to walk carefully forward, motioning for Ellie to stay back as she tried to grab her jacket, not wanting her to go towards it.

"It's okay, just stay there." (Y/N) reassures her younger sister in a whisper, hand signaling to calm down and breath. Ellie does this, fiddling with the bracelet on her wrist as she watches the woman get closer to the infected.

The infected snarls at (Y/N), making her gasp a little bit with wide eyes but doesn't stop her walking. She sees the person snarling, and gasping, reminding her suddenly that this once was a living person.

She breath's shakily, kneeling down in front of the person as she points the flashlight at the male, and reaches for her knife, flipping it open steadily.

(Y/N) frowns at the infected male, seeing how his eyes followed where her knife went in the air as she closes her eyes momentarily and reopens them when she shoves her knife into its head, killing him for real this time.

She slowly stands up from her kneeling position, wiping off the blood on her knife as she faces away from the corpse, and walked up to Ellie who gave her a sympathetic look, knowing how her sister got with killing.

"I'm okay, let's go back up before he as a hissy fit." (Y/N) assures the younger girl, and then teases the male they were with causing Ellie to laugh quietly.

They both pull themselves out of the hole with grunts, and (Y/N) takes the outstretched hand Ellie gave, getting pulled up by her. They grab their bags, and weapons, just hearing Joel call out to them as they round the corner where he was.

"Picked over, my ass." Ellie shows off the package they picked up with a smug look, as she places it into her bag and walks back up to (Y/N).

Joel was placing back to metal box containing his supplies, as he puts in his gun also which surprised the siblings who watched him.

"What are you doing?" (Y/N) questioned him curiously, leaning against the long cupboard with her arms crossed over her chest.

"There's not much ammo out there for this thing." He's deep voice answers her, placing the top of the opening that held his stuff over, "Makes it mostly useless."

She makes a sound of agreement, as she share a look with Ellie and Joel stood back up, grabbing his backpack as he leads them outside again.

...

The trio were back on the trail again, as it was getting hotter so they all had their jackets off and hanging off them.

(Y/N) had her jacket wrapped around her waist, her flannel was still on her as she didn't want to expose her arms and scars, even if it was just them right now.

Ellie's eyes move away from her sister, and to beside her as she gaps in awe at what she saw, "Holy shit."

Joel and (Y/N) both came to a stop at her voice, seeing what she saw as they all stopped and saw a broken airplane on top of the hill, seemingly like it had crashed.

"You fly in one of those?" Ellie questioned interested towards Joel, as (Y/N) came to stand in between them, hands on her hips with a small knowing how much Ellie adored space.

"A few time, sure." Joel's voice rumbles his answer, squinting his eyes to look up at the old airplane.

"So lucky." Ellie quietly comments in awe still, grinning at (Y/N) who squeezed her to her side with a shoulder hug.

"Didn't feel like it at the time." Joel admitted honsetly, "Get shoved into a middle seat, pay 12 bucks for a sandwich."

"Dude, you got to go up in the sky." Ellie turns to him with raised eyebrows, as she objected his complaining.

"Yeah, well, so did they." Joel motions up to the hill, where the broken plane was and the sisters share a quiet wincing look, just as he walks away back to the track.

...

"So, everything came crashing down in one day?" Ellie questioned Joel, as they were all walking more into the open environment now.

"Pretty much." His answer was short, as (Y/N) looks at him for it, the girl currently in between the two as they stroll down the path.

"How?" Ellie starts off her rant, "I mean...no one was infected with Cordyceps, everybody's fine, eating in restaurants, and flying in planes. And then, all at once? How did it even start?" She speaks her thoughts out loud, sometimes looking at the two adults, "If you have to get bit to be infected, then who bit the first person? Was it a monkey?! I bet it was a monkey."

(Y/N) stares at her younger sister incredulously, having no idea she was that into finding out the reason as Joel shakes his head at Ellie, "It wasn't a monkey. I thought you went to school."

"FEDRA school," Ellie corrects him with a grumble,"they don't teach us how their shitty government failed to prevent a pandemic."

Joel remains quiet for a few seconds, before pursing his lips and starts to explain the theory, "No one knows for sure, but, best guess..." He trails off with his raspy voice, "Cordyceps mutated. And some of it got into the food supply. Probably a basic ingredient like flour or sugar. There were certain brands of food that were sold everywhere, all across the country, the world. Bread, cereal, pancake mix. You eat enough of it, it'll get you infected. So the tainted food all hits store shelves around the same time, Thursday. People brought it, ate some Thursday night or Friday morning. Days goes on, they started to get sick. Afternoon, evening, they got worse. Then they started bitin'."

(Y/N) took in his words as she listed closely, trying her hardest not to let their hands brushed as they were that close, and glanced back at Ellie, thankful that she hasn't gotten infected throughout this apocalyptic mess.

"Friday night, September 26, 2003." Joel speaks up again, voice a bit off as he said that date which spiked up (Y/N)'s curiosity, "And by Monday, everything was gone."

Ellie nods to herself at his explanation, thankful that he actually told them as she looks down at her sisters scar poking out from under her sleeve, then back up to in front, "It makes more sense than monkeys. Thanks."

(Y/N) snorts under her breath, grinning at Ellie as she bumps her shoulder with hers and comes to a sudden stop when Joel placed an arm out front, motioning to not go forward.

"We'll cut across the woods here." He tells them as he points to the direction he meant.

"Isn't the road easier?" Ellie states the obvious with furrowed brows, reaching for her sisters hand as she interwined their fingers.

"Yeah, it's just-" Joel pauses his speech, shuffling in his spot as his dark gaze flickers down to (Y/N) subconsciously, "There's stuff up there you two shouldn't see."

"Well, now we have to see." Ellie trails her voice out, grinning like a idiot as she pulls (Y/N), who didn't think this was a good idea as she grimaces.

"I don't want you to." Joel strickle grumbles, looking between the two as (Y/N) gets pulled along by a eager Ellie, "Seriously. Girls!"

"Can it hurt us?" Ellie asked the male who was quickly trailing after them.

"No." Joel shakes his head, answering her straight away.

Ellie laughs to herself, as she spins around to face him while (Y/N) sends him a nervous smile, and a head scratch, "You're too honest, man." Ellie complains, "Should've said axe murderer."

The sisters continued to walk down the road path, even with the oldest speaking her protest about doing this, but Ellie wasn't having it and just dragged her along with Joel automatically following.

"Uh...whatever it was...think its gone." Ellie claims as they got closer to where whatever this thing was, and the sisters walk a few more steps, until (Y/N)'s eyes go wide with horror spotting was down in the lower grass.

Many, many dead corpses of bones, clothing, and supplies filed the area as it was graveyard filed with the unlucky ones who didn't survive. The ones who tried to help those in need, and this is what they got in return.

(Y/N) pulls her sister back away, hiding her eyes from the upsetting view as Ellie buries her head into her sisters side, arms wrapping around her waist.

Joel slowly comes up beside the pair, spotting (Y/N)'s sorrowful expression as he presses a hand against her lower back, making her turn to him with a sad frown.

"About a week after Outbreak Day, soldiers..." Joel heaves a heavy inhale, telling her who this graveyard was filled with, "went through the countryside, evacuated the small towns. Told you you were goin' to a QZ, and you were..if there was room. If there wasn't..."

He didn't need to talk further, as the siblings both understand what he meant. It crushed (Y/N)'s heart seeing so many skeletons of people who once had lives in this world.

"These people weren't sick?" She questions softly to the male, who had removed the hand but instead had half of his chest touching her back, while she rubs her hands up and down Ellie's arms.

"No, probably not." His voice was just as soft as hers, as they both continued to look at the sight in front of them.

(Y/N) sallows the lump in her throat, holding on tightly to Ellie as this could of happened to them, "Why kill them? Why not just leave 'em be?"

"Dead people can't be infected." Joel told her simply with a sigh, as she shakes her head sadly and lets the male guide her away with Ellie from the sight.

...

Sometime later after much walking, and a little talking  the trio had arrived in the town of Lincoln, where the beachwood estates disaster area was. However, it looked very abandoned and haven't been taken care of for a while.

Joel walks up to the gate at the entrance, the sisters right behind him as they look around wearily, "Stay there." He orders them, as they had arrived at the gate.

Joel goes towards the keypad, pressing in the password on the old machine as the fence clicks, meaning it was opened. He pushes it open for the girls, as they walk in first and he soon follows after.

They walk through the quiet, leaf infested streets as the wind blows their hair around and Joel leads them to the house where his friends were supposed to be. He knew something was up when he spotted the flowers dead, and crumbled away.

Joel hesitates but reaches out and curls his fingers around the front door handle, definitely knowing something was up when it wasn't locked.

He goes in first into the house, motioning for the sisters to follow after as they step through the threshold and gaze around amazed at all the stuff inside.

"Bill?" Joel calls out loudly, gaining no response back as it was just silence, "Frank?" He sighs to himself, knowing the house needed to be searched as he turns back to the siblings, "You two stay there. Ya hear anything, you see anything...yell."

After he told them that, he went to walk away somewhere else but at (Y/N)'s soft question made him pause, "What if they're gone?"

His eyes stay trained on her anxious expression, keeping that up for a few seconds as he furrowed his brows and walks away, the door opening and closing as he does so.

(Y/N) runs a hand down her face as he does this, shaking her head and adverts her attention to Ellie, who was smiling and playing some randoms notes on the piano in the room.

She moves her gaze elsewhere seeing this, walking a few steps away as she spots something on the small table. A note and a key was placed on it, as she picks both up and goes to take a seat in one of the chairs, which has Ellie looking up from the piano to her.

Joel comes around the corner from his searching, and saw (Y/N) in the chair with a note in her hand, expression a bit blue, "It's from Bill."

She reaches over to the opened envelope, holding it up as she reads what it said, "'To whomever..but probably Joel.'" She placed it back down as she shrugs a little, "I figured me and Ellie fell under ''whomever.' Came with this also." She slides over the key across the table, as Joel picks it up in his hand.

He looks down at the key in his hands, not meeting (Y/N)'s waiting gaze, "So they're dead?"

She sighs sadly, chest feeling heavy with sorrow for the two male's she's never even met, "Mm-hmm."

Joel finally meets her gaze, as he nods his head solemnly and quietly as he goes to pace a little bit, "Go ahead. Read it."

She blinks rapidly at this demand, but nevertheless agreed as she clears her throat and shuffles up more in the chair, "'August 29, 2023. If you find this...please do not come into the bedroom. We left a window open so the house wouldn't smell, but it will probably be a sight. I'm guessing you found this, Joel, because anyone else would've been electrocuted or blown up by one of my traps. Heheheheh.'" She trails off the written laugher, and goes back to reading it again, "'Take anything you need. The bunker code is the same as the gate code by in reverse. Anyway, I never liked you, but still, it's like we're friends....almost. And I respect you. So I'm gonna tell you something because you're probably the only person who will understand. I used to hate the world, and I was happy when everyone died. But I was wrong because there was one person worth saving.'"

As she read of the letter, Joel's eyes somewhat softened on her figure at the last few words, a weird feeling building up inside him but pushed it aside as he listens again.

"'That's what I did. I saved him. Then I protected him. That's why men like you and me are here. We have a job to do. And god help any mothefuckers who stand in our way.'" (Y/N) smiled softly to herself at Bill's words, understanding that he had found his purpose in life, and she continues to read, "'I leave you all of my weapons and equipment. Use them to keep-'" Her voice gets a bit choked up, stopping as she didn't want to say the next lines.

Ellie grips her sisters arm, frowning worriedly seeing her upset as Joel takes the letter gently from her hands and takes a look himself. As soon as he saw what was written, he knew why she didn't want to speak as Tess' name was on it.

He closes the letter up tight, clearing his throat as he doesn't look back at the two, "Stay here." He lowly tells them, before exiting the house.

(Y/N) frowns sadly at his leaving figure, knowing this must be hard on him also as her hand squeezes Ellie's, and the sisters share a pitiful look between each other.

After a few more minutes, footsteps were heard coming around the corner, as Joel's figure appeared again and he stopped in front of the girls.

"Come here, (Y/N)." His deep, raspy voice demanded as he pointed a finger in front of him, and the girl stood up with a shiver at the way her name rolled off his tongue.

She gave Ellie one last hand squeeze, before letting go and walked directly in front of Joel, staring up at him with confusion in her (E/C) doe eyes.

He utterly surprises her when he reaches out, gripping her upper arm and gently pulled up her flannel sleeve, revealing her scar bite marks to him. She holds back a gasp when his fingers brush against it, before the touch was dropped quicker than it started, leaving her stunned.

"I just finished makin' a truck battery. It's charging right now." Joel told her calmly, as Ellie comes up to join (Y/N)'s side, "And I have a brother out in Wyoming. He's in some kind of trouble, and I'm heading out there to find him. He used to be a Firefly. And my guess is he knows where some of them are out there. Maybe they can get you to wherever this lab is."

(Y/N)'s expression drops at his last words, as he was implying they would have go different ways, and that he wouldn't be the one taking them. "All right." She mumbles softly, fiddling with her dog chain out of nervousness, "Uh, listen, about Tess-"

Joel holds out a hand for her to stop talking, shaking his head slowly and speaks gravelly to her, almost threatening, "If I take you two with me there's some rules you gotta follow. Rule one, you don't bring up Tess. Ever. Matter of fact, we can just keep our histories to ourselves. Rule two, you don't tell anyone about your.." He trails off with a shoulder heave, wracking his brain for the right word to not offend her, "condition. They see that bite mark, they won't think it through. They'll just shoot you. Rule three, you do what I say when I say it. We clear?"

"Yes." (Y/N) and Ellie both mumble together, shuffling in their spots as the younger one senses her sisters agitation.

Joel's face hardens up, eyes intensely staring into (Y/N)'s (E/C) ones, "Repeat it." He orders in a gruff tone.

Her back stands up straight at this, pulling her bottom lip in between her teeth as she nods slowly, "What you say goes."

He stares at her face for a few more seconds, shuffling in his spot as he places his weight onto one foot, sighing softly, "Okay."

Ellie watched the entire interaction with raised eyebrows, narrowing her eyes down on Joel slightly before inhaling and exhaling, "So, what now?"

"We grab what we can." He answered her as he goes to lead them towards the bunker, where they supplies were stored.

When they entered down inside, the light turned on as the song planning hit their ears and the sister both gap in awe seeing all the cool stuff.

"Ho-ly shit." Ellie exclaims with a gasp, looking at all the weapons on the wall with (Y/N) right behind her, "This guy was a genius."

(Y/N) explores all the guns hanging up on the wall, gazing amazed at them as she never had to use one since her bow and arrows was enough. She turns around hearing the music being shut off, "Why was the music on?"

"If he didn't reset the countdown every few weeks, this playlist would run over the radio." Joel explains to her, the male at the desk where all the cameras and computers were.

Ellie looks over the computer, grinning at what she saw and gazes back at Joel, "'80s."

Joel, ignoring what she confirmed points to a shelf behind him, "Grab some cans from over there. Nothin' dented or swollen."

(Y/N) playfully salutes the male with one finger, grabbing Ellie's hand who giggled at her act and the two of them went to grab supplies away from the grumbling male.

...

Upstairs the siblings and Joel were collecting all the needed supplies as they pack it into their bags, or boxes they will carry to the truck.

Joel places down some more clothing onto the bed beside them, as (Y/N) stares after his figure and opens the box up with Ellie, sharing smiles as they grab some spare clothes.

"It needs another hour." Joel informs the girls as they were all in the garage, and the male was checking on the battery for the vehicle.

"They have hot water!" (Y/N) exclaimed in a sing song voice, feeling the water under the tap she turned on, "I'm takin' a shower."

"And then you're showering because seriously." Ellie starts off her teasing as she follows (Y/N) out of the garage, and makes a stinky noise with her mouth causing her sister to laugh loudly.

...

Sometime after the showering, (Y/N) had her hair down as it was drying, with her flannel shirt around her waist showing off her bare arms, which was very rare to see.

Ellie was beside her as she plays with the big clock, cursing under her breath when she drops a piece and (Y/N) sends her sister a raised eyebrow smile, as Ellie grumbles and places the piece back.

While her sister was busy with the clock, (Y/N) walks over to the small wooden desk and brushes her fingertips against the texture, as she opens one of the smaller containers. Her eyes go wide a little bit seeing a gun inside, breath hitching and picks up the object, examining it.

Footsteps approaching has her fumbling also with mutters, and quickly rushes to her backpack, ignoring Ellie's confused gaze and shoved the gun inside, knowing it would come in handy when she doesn't have her bow and to eventually teach Ellie.

Ellie comes up to stand beside the older girl, sending her look but (Y/N) waves her off just as Joel came around the corner, in new clothes and wet hair.

The (H/C) haired girl felt her stomach flip looking at his freshly clean state, gripping her left arm as she takes it all in.

"Well, don't you look pretty." Ellie teases with a smug smirk, elbowing her sister side knowing as (Y/N) sends her a small glare.

Joel, who he swear felt his breath hitch, when he spotted how (Y/N) looked with her hair down. This was the first time he's seen it like that, and he wouldn't lie about wanting to see it more often like that.

"Shut up." He grumbled to Ellie, throwing them some roll on deodorant as he knocked out of his thoughts and lead them towards the truck.

All their bags and supplies were all ready in the truck, as Ellie eargly pulled along her sister who laughed at her excitement and followed her towards the front seat.

Ellie opened the door quickly, as (Y/N) hopped in first and sat down on the middle seat that was connected with the passengers side, and Ellie hopes in next with Joel going into the driver's side.

The younger Williams pulled down the sun visor on her and her sisters side, and looks into the mirror with a big smile. (Y/N) laughs through her nose at Ellie, fixing up the visor as she pushes it back up.

"It's your first time in a car?" Joel questioned them both, as he watched them both look around the vehicle with big eyes.

"It's like a spaceship." Ellie comments with awe, grinning widely at (Y/N) who nodded her head with a smile back.

"No, it's like a piece of shit Chevy S10." Joel corrects with a bit of attitude making (Y/N) raise her brows at him, and he totally ignored her, "But it'll get us there...I think." He goes to reach for the seatbelt beside him, and reminds the sisters to do so also, "Seatbelt."

(Y/N) makes humming noise, showing she was listening as she fumbles trying to find hers and Ellie's around the seat.

Joel watches this happen, shoulders dropping with a sigh as his rough hand stops her, causing her to look up at him and he reaches over her waist with the seatbelt, clipping her in.

(Y/N) held her breath as he did this, trying her hardest not to freak out at their close proximity as she could feel his muscles through his shirt, and smell his freshly washed hair.

"Seatbelt." He told her, pulling back and motions to the thing he clicked in for her. He didn't even notice the way she acted, as he went to start to car up while (Y/N) helped Ellie with her seatbelt.

As the car turned on, Ellie reached her hand out and pressed on the clubox, and saw some music taps inside, and grabbed one. She closed the box, as she shows (Y/N) the tape while Joel drives the car out of the garage.

"Would ya leave it?" Joel said to the younger girl, as she flashes the thing around and goes to place it into the radio, "Put it back."

However, he was not listened to as (Y/N) presses play on the tape and music starts to flood inside of the small truck.

Ellie didn't know the music, nor song as she grimaces and goes to turn it off, but Joel stops her.

"No, wait, leave it. Leave it." He announced quickly, focusing on driving as the sisters stare at him incredulously, "Oh, this is good. This is Linda Ronstadt. Do you two know who Linda Ronstadt is?"

(Y/N) stifles a laugh behind her hand at this, shaking her head with Ellie answering for them both, "You know we don't know who Linda Ronstadt is."

When they had arrived at the gate again, Joel stopped driving for a second as he took in the music, "Oh, man."

"Eh." (Y/N) made a sound of disagreement to tease, but smiled at him nevertheless as she squinted because of the sunlight shining on them, "It's better than nothing."

Joel doesn't say anything to her, as his lips lift up a little bit and he reaches for the remote for the keypad, pressing the password in as the gate opens up.

And with that, the three of them drove off to leave with all the supplies from two kind lovers, who gave each other everything, even in life and death.

"For a long, long time."

( gif by ;
sporadicstarsx )