( gif by ; -tzarrion )

━ CHAPTER SIXTEEN ...

' when we are in need '

Inside the basement it was somewhat dark as the only light source was the barely open windows inside, as the trio hiding and waiting needed cover from the harsh climate in the freezing cold snow.

(Y/N) was sat next to Joel's sleeping self, as she gently lifts up his shirts and saw how his wound wasn't any better, and it was only getting worse as time past. Thanks to her, and Ellie closing the injury up, it wasn't bleeding anymore which was good.

She looks up to his content sleeping face, frowning sadly as she wished she could do more for him, and places his shirts back down, pulling up the blanket over him that they found.

"You thirsty?" She whispered to him, as she grabs the bottle of water from Ellie's hand beside her, and wets her fingers a little. (Y/N) dabs her fingers over his lips gently, slight rubbing her thumb over them as she hears Joel cough.

She sighs as she pulls back her fingers, keeping one hand by the top of his head as she soothingly plays with a few strains of his hair.

Next to her, Ellie had pulled out the last of their food rations, gobbling some of it up, and made sure to pass some to her sister, while placing one atop of Joel's chest.

(Y/N) stops her movements with Joel's hair, and glances at her bow sitting next to his gun, furrowing her brows in thought knowing they needed more food.

She leans forward close to Joel's face, brushing some of his messy hair off his forehead with a smile as she felt his light breathing hitting her, "I'm gonna be right back, okay? Ellie will watch over you for a moment." She whispered her promise, before glancing back at her sister.

Ellie gives her older sister a understanding nod, taking her spot beside Joel as (Y/N) stands up, and went to grab her bow, and arrows. She gave one last look at the two in the basement, before heading outside into the cold.

...

She opened the door to the house, her warmer clothes back on with the familiar beanie covering her tied up hair, as she holds her bow, and arrows over her shoulder.

She closed the door gently behind her, walking out onto the snow with a shiver as she takes a look around the area, seeing nothing but trees and snow with many more houses.

"Guess the forest might have better luck." She mumbles to herself with a head tilt, aiming her bow down as she starts to head towards the snowy forest near the town.

Ambient nature sounds had hit her ears when (Y/N) made it into the forest, and the sun was just coming up also behind the houses. She looks around at the ground, trying to find any trails or prints to help her.

She walks through the low lying bushes, sometimes rubbing her arms from the cold as she didn't really like it, and pauses when her eyes spot a rabbit a few meters in front, eating the greenery there.

(Y/N) gulped seeing this, making small movements to not scare it away and went to aim her bow back, but it must of heard her and scurried away quickly into the forest more.

"Damn it," She curses under her breath, somewhat relieved she didn't have to kill a cute rabbit, but was also frustrated as she needed to find food for the other two.

She picks up her walking through the woods after this, searching everywhere for any more noises or animals, as the eventually sound of distant clicking made her pause in her tracks.

The (H/C) haired girl quickly grabbed one of her arrows, placing it on the string of her bow, and carefully took a few stops around some trees, and saw a deer not far from her, eating.

She presses her back against the tree beside her, breathing deeply as she lifts up her bow, pulling back the metal string and turns a little to peek out. She exhales heavily, steading her aim as she lets the string go, and the arrow ends up wedged deep into its side.

The deer wails at the sudden pain, while birds caw up above hearing the loud noise and the deer tries to scurry away with a bleeding, wounded side.

"No way I hit that." (Y/N) breathes out in shock, watching the animal run away with her arrow inside it's side, and she quickly went to chase after it.

She follows the trails of blood from the deer, as she runs through the forest as best she could, and eventually ends up near where she firs started. However, she wasn't alone as she saw two male's bigger then her near the deer she killed.

The one who seemed older than the other male, went to pick up the dead deer, but she quickly exclaimed in a authority voice, with her bow aimed, "Don't! Drop your rifles!"

The two males in front both paused at her voice, the one with no beaning trying to turn around and see who the voice belonged to, but (Y/N) yelled more forcefully again, "Now!"

The two male's slowly dropped their guns to the ground, hands up a little in surrender as they place their weapons away from them.

"Turn and face me...slow." (Y/N) orders firmly, bow still aimed between them as they did what she said, "Any sudden moves, I put one right between your eyes. Ditto for buddy boy."

The male with blonde hair nods his head, scanning the girls weapon and look, "You're quite the hunter. We didn't even hear you coming."

She just narrowed her eyes down on him, "Turn around and walk away, no one needs to get hurt!" She demanded, as she motions with her bow to behind them.

"Okay, all I ask is 10 seconds of your time." He tries to speak up with his hands raised, "I just wanna talk."

"I won't say it twice." She snapped angrily, pulling back her bow's string more as it grazed her cheek.

"Please. Just 10 seconds." He insisted to her, and pointed his gloved hands to himself, "My name is David," He then motioned to the male next to him, "This is my friend, James. We're from a larger group: woman, children, and we're all...very, very hungry."

(Y/N) sniffles from the cold air, the only thing on her mind was getting food for Joel, and Ellie, as she goes to lie straight through her teeth, "I'm from a large group, too. Also hungry."

"Well, even so...." David trails off knowingly, and gestured to the deer behind him, "ya can't drag this back on your own. We're not asking for charity. We-we can trade you for some of the deer. We have-" He looks to his friend beside him, "What do you need? We have...boots."

"Medicine?" She automatically questioned quickly, thoughts drifting back to Joel with his injury, "Like, for infections."

"We do." David confirms with a head nod, "Back in our village. You're welcome to follow us."

She scoffs incredulously at his idea, and glares at him with disgust, "I'm not following you anywhere." She tips her head at James, "Buddy boy can go get it. He comes back, you get half the deer. Anyone else shows up, I put one-"

"Put one right between my eyes." David finished off her threat, and pointed to his head with a chuckle.

"That's right." She declares to him, bow a bit less aimed now but had it at a height to still do damage to the males standing in front.

He turns to his friend, hands still raised up showing no harm, "All right, go talk to Howard. He's got a case with some penicillin. Bring back two bottles and a syringe." He sees the male giving him a unsure look, "It's not code, James. Do as I said."

James looked hesitant to do so, but (Y/N)'s aim moved to him with a warning look, and he took that as a sign to go as he quickly does way from the two.

Once he was out of sight, the girl's bow directed back at David's figure, "Ten steps back." He listened to her stern voice, and takes steps back as she slowly follows, "Keep going."

When David was a few feet behind the deer, she went to squat down next to his sniper, and unclipped the ammo, making sure it was empty before standing up, and aiming her bow at him again.

"Well, look, uh..it's a four-mile round trip back to our settlement." He starts to talk to her, as she empties the ammo in James' gun, "It's gonna be a while before James gets back. I have some oil and matches in my pack. We could....take shelter," He points to the empty buildings behind him, "start a fire."

(Y/N) stands up from the ground with a grunt, pondering on his words as she didn't trust him, but knew it would be warmer with a fire, "Bring him with us." She nods at the deer.

David takes the deer by the antlers, grunting as he pulls it along the snowy path, and she follows behind him carefully.

...

Sat in one of the abandoned buildings, a fire was was going and crackling. The dead deer lays beside it, while the pair sat on either side of it, and David warms up his hands, silence taking over until he speaks.

"You know, you really shouldn't be out here all on your own."

(Y/N) looks up from cleaning her arrow, scoffing with a small scowl thrown at his stupid words, "From where I'm sitting, you shouldn't be out here on your own."

David shrugs with a small smirk, and continues to warm up his gloveless hands, "Fair enough." He swallows before going to question the quiet girl, "So what's your name?"

She just stares at him with boredness, and shakes her head with a tongue click, not giving him anything.

"It's hard to trust strangers. I know." David states seeing her response to his personal question, "But I honestly mean you no harm. And for what it's worth, there's room for you in our group, if you want."

"You're inviting me to your hunger club?" She asked rhetorically and finishes cleaning her arrow as she places it back onto the bows string, aiming it at him, "Thanks."

He chuckles a little bit, "It's true, we're hungry, but...we're still here." He motions with his hands to himself, "I'm a decent man just tryna take care of the people who rely on me."

(Y/N) raised her eyebrows at him, "You're their leader?"

"Wasn't my choice. It was theirs." He answered her honestly, and trails off, "But...yes."

"They 'chose to follow you'." She repeats with a unbelieving tone, and makes a cringing face, "Is this some weird cult thing?"

"Uhh, well," He chuckles bashfully, smiling a bit embarrassed as he looks at her,  "you sorta kinda got me there. I am a preacher, but just pretty standard Bible stuff."

She gives him a hard look, baffled to how he could still be something like that during this new world, "No offence, but the whole world ended and you still believe that."

"I actually started believing after the world ended." He confessed truthfully, as he rubs his now warmer hands together, "Before that, I was a teacher. Math, taught girls around your age, and younger sometimes."

(Y/N) feels a bad shiver go down her spine hearing his words, as she swallows and grips her bow more, while he continued on like nothing happened.

"I found God after the apocalypse, which is either the best time or the worst time to find Him, hard to say." He say to her as he clicks his tongue, and glances outside, "But when the Pittsburgh QZ fell in '17, Fireflies and FEDRA...I left with a few others and th-that's how I ended up with our flock."

"Long way from Pittsburgh." She comments warily with a cautious posture. 

David chuckles breathily, nodding in agreement with her words, "Yeah, we'd settle somewhere, and then raiders would come, so we'd move again. And as we wandered, we picked up new people along the way until.." His head motioned to around them, "we ended up here."

She hums with a bitter look, and smiles tight lipped at the male in front of her, "Well, your luck had to run out sooner or later."

"Hm? Luck?" He repates with a weird smile, and shakes his head at her claim, "There's no such thing as luck. No, I-I-I believe everything happens for a reason."

(Y/N) released a heavy sigh, arching an eyebrow at him and tips her head to the side, not believing him. Well, she did somewhat believe in everything happens for a reason, but this encounter with David wasn't supposed to happen.

"It does. I can prove it to you." He states strongly seeing her tutting, and places his arms to lean against his knees, "We didn't expect this winter to be so cruel. Nothing'll grow. Game's been hard to find."

He fiddles with the ring on his finger, as he now stares at her more knowingly, "So I sent four of our people to a nearby town to scavenge what they could. And only there of 'em came back. And the one that didn't was a father. Turns out, he was murdered by this crazy man."

She starts to get nervous at his explaining, her fingers brushing against her bow in case she needed to fire, and listened closely to David.

"And get this. That crazy man...was traveling with a young woman and a little girl."

Her shoulders shot up at this, feeling her body tense as he was most definitely talking about her little trio, Joel, and Ellie. She slipped her bow in her hand, becoming agitated knowing David, and most likely his entire group knew about Joel, and her sister.

"You see?" David points a mocking finger at her, slowly moving his lips upwards eerily, "Everything happens for a reason. James, lower the gun."

(Y/N) span around hearing his last words, pulling her bowstring back and aimed it at James in the doorway, who had his gun pointed at her.

"She is the one that killed Alec, isn't she?" James claims through a grumble, not taking down the gun aimed.

"She didn't kill anybody." David assures his buddy, one hand to motion stop, as he orders with a demanding tone, "Lower the gun."

She breathes heavily as she keeps up her ready bow at James, not backing down even when he lowered it reluctantly while giving his friend a look.

"Did you bring the medicine?" David questioned the male, who confirmed he did but went to complain, and was cut off by David's strict order, "Throw it to her."

James rolls his eyes, reaching into his pocket and grabbed the medicine as he throws it to (Y/N)'s boots.

"Back away." She warned with her bow gesturing behind James, who does move back slowly, and the girl goes to squat down and grabs the medicine, placing it into her coats pockets.

"I know you're not with a group." David starts off as he watched her do this, and he offers her easily, "You won't survive for long out there. I can protect you."

She scoffs at his speech, backing out of the building as she throws him a scowl and runs off back the way she came, and all the way to where Joel, and Ellie were.

...

The door slamming upstairs, and incoming loud footsteps have Ellie tensed and ready to attack whoever was coming, but visible relaxed seeing (Y/N) coming down the stairs fast.

She was going to question what happened, and check if she was alright, but stopped watching how quick (Y/N) was acting to place her gear down.

"I got this. It's gonna help him." (Y/N) breathes out of breath, holding the medicine in the cloth up to Ellie, and makes her way down beside the asleep Joel with her sister beside her.

(Y/N) stares at his form as he breathes slowly, before unwrapping the dark material from the medicine, and gently pulls down the blanket on top of him.

Ellie holds up Joel's shirt for her concentrated sister, who grabbed the syringe which she made sure was clean, before sighing to herself with a pained look thrown Joel's way.

"Here goes nothing," She mutters to herself, steading her trembling hand as she sticks the syringe into the wound, wincing guilty as he groans, "I know. It's okay, almost done."

Once the medicine in the syringe was fully into the injury, she pulls it back out slowly as Ellie places his shirt back down, covering the hopefully healing wound.

(Y/N) places the syringe aside near her backpack, grabbing the blanket near his middle, and pulled that back over his body also.

Her hands press against his upper half, gazing at him with a soft, but heartbroken look as one of her hands travelled up to his face, and all the way to his forehead. She gently pressed her hand on it, feeling how his body heat was low.

She then removed her hand with a clenching heart, and moved forward to press her warm lips against his forehead, leaving a tender kiss as it lingers.

She pulls back a little with a shaky sigh, and leant the top of her head against his forehead for a few seconds, feeling his steady, but laboured breathing hitting her cheeks, "You're gonna make it, I promise."

Ellie gave her older sister a sad, but understanding look once (Y/N) pulled back, and went to squeeze her shoulder for comfort knowing it was hard to see Joel like this.

After this (Y/N) went to stand up from her squatting position, as she moved to the other side of Joel where his head wasn't facing. She sat down gently on the small mattress, while motioning Ellie to do the same.

The (H/C) haired makes sure he's tucked in under the blanket comfortably, before slowly laying down next to him, placing one hand on his chest against his heart, and places her beanie covered head just under his chin.

She moves herself right up against his side, drowning in his body heat and closeness that she's never felt from him before. (Y/N) burrows her face into his upper chest, keeping her eyes just open to spot Ellie falling asleep against Joel also.

Joel's head subconsciously ends up slowly turning, and falling to where the top of (Y/N)'s head was. His nose was nuzzled into it, while their heads rested against each others.

And with that, the three of them fell asleep in each other's warmth and protection.

...

Another day had past as the sun had risen over the town, and shined brightly in the sky. The wind was blowing a little, as the birds up above caw into the the breeze.

Inside the lower basement, the sisters were awake from their slumber. (Y/N) was holding Joel's hand intertwined with hers, as she rubs her sleepy eyes with her free one. Next to her, Ellie was getting the syringe ready for another injection.

(Y/N) turns her body back to Joel, and lets go of his hand that somewhat tightened feeling her removing it. She raises the back of her hand, and felt his forehead again, which was a bit better than last night, but not by much.

She releases a small puff of air, running her fingers momentarially through his messy, tangled locks as his sleeping figure relaxed into the soft touch.

She then goes to the opposite side of him, and pulls up his shirts as she looks at his healing injury, that still had redness around it but was getting better.

Ellie hands the ready needle to her, as (Y/N) grabs it gently and sticks the next doose into the wounded skin again.

...

The sisters both open the garage door of the house they were hiding in, as they push the white door up until it hit the top of the machine.

The two horses next to them snort in greeting, making (Y/N) turn back a little bit, and pet their snouts with a small smile feeling them nudging into it.

She then grabbed two buckets from inside the garage, handing one to Ellie as they both walk outside into the snow, and started to collect food for the horses to eat.

When they were finished, the two brought the somewhat filled buckets to the horses, and stood there as the animals ate food inside.

After the siblings finished feeding them, they placed the buckets away and (Y/N) went to walk outside with a frown hearing the bird cawing loudly, while Ellie run up next to her.

(Y/N) spots the bird flying in a opposite direction, seeming like they were heading away from something, as she grabs her sisters hand and quickly moves towards the long brown fence to see what was going on.

They both pause with wide eyes spotting people with guns walking a few meters ahead of them, and (Y/N) knew it was David and some of his group coming back.

"Shit, shit, shit." She curses repeatedly under her breath, just hearing them talking amongst themselves, as she pulls Ellie back towards the house Joel was in, and almost trips if it weren't for her sister.

The two arrived at the house, making sure to stay out of view as the group would be near them soon. (Y/N) runs down the stairs quickly, and straight to Joel while Ellie was packing their supplies away hurriedly.

"Joel! Joel, you gotta wake up." (Y/N) was shaking him by the shoulders, trying her best to be gently but this situation was serious, "Joel! Come on!"

He gasped a little at the sudden rough movement on him, his eyes barely opening up to the girl talking as his head lulls to the side.

She grasped his shirt material in her hands, furrowing her brows seeing he was just awake, and barely conscious. Her (E/C) eyes drift to the knife on the cupboard, and stands up away from him, as she snatches it and removes the cover on it.

She then hastily moved down towards Joel again, placing the big knife on his chest, as she grabs his hand in hers and slips the knife into, "Okay...okay," She starts of frantically, before nuding his face to stare at hers, "Joel, love, look at me. There are men coming, okay?"

Joel looked like to be in a daze as his droopily eyes stared into her wide ones, the male barely even understanding what was happening as he tries to focus on the sound of her voice.

"Me, and Ellie are gonna lead them away from you," (Y/N) continued on softly but frantic, as her thumb rubs his knuckles to keep him looking at her, "but if anybody makes it down here, you fucking kill them, got it?"

His gaze was drifting again, and she spotted that making her squeeze his hand tightly with a strict tone, "Joel, do not fall asleep. We'll be back, alright?"

She gives him one last glance over, before quickly pressing a hard kiss against his cheek, and run upstairs with Ellie, leaving a half awake Joel to listen to their fading steps.

Once they were upstairs, the siblings both grunt when they move the massive wooden cupboard to keep people out from Joel. After they finished there, (Y/N) grabbed a horse to lead outside as Ellie closed the garage door shut, leaving the other one for Joel.

(Y/N) hopped onto the horse with a huff, placing her boots into the stirrups as she held out her hand for Ellie, helping her up behind onto the horse also.

"Let's go." The older Williams gently bumped her boot against the horses' side, and it neighs as it starts to trot away.

They both look out for the unwanted people invading the area, and come to a slower pace on the horse spotting them a few meters beside them.

"Hey, mothefuckers!" Ellie shouts to them as her shout gains their attention, and she fires a few shots from her gun at them, while (Y/N) made the horse quickly flea from their incoming fire and chasers.

"Alive!" They hear David shout to his group of people chasing after them.

(Y/N) focuses on leading the people away from Joel, as she looks around for any near them on the horse, "Keep comin' assholes." She mutters under her breath, making sure her sisters hands were around her waist so she wouldn't fall off.

However, what the pair didn't know was, that James was behind a tree and had his gun aimed, and ready to fire as they past him on the horse.

And just as they do pass him on the animal, he lets the fire go, causing the horse to whine as it drops dead, knocking the sisters off straight forward onto the ground also.

"I got them!" James alerted his group near, as he saw the sisters rolling to a stop on the snow.

(Y/N) had taken most of the fall as she had Ellie in her arms, but lost her when they rolled. She wheezes as the air was knocked out of her, head dizzy as she tries to find where Ellie was.

"Ellie...Ellie where are you-" She desperately mumbles through laboured breathing, and rolled onto her back with blurry eyes as she just spots James, and a few others standing over her with guns.

"Do it." The one next to James ordered, as they saw their chance to kill the defleness girl on the brink of going unconscious.

James reloads his sniper, going to lift his weapon up at her, but another gunshot goes off behind them, and the males turn around to see David, the one who fired it.

He had a furious expression on his face, as he ejects the cartridge in his sniper, and makes his way over to the scene. His eyes land on (Y/N), who had her arms outstretched in hopes of feeling Ellie near her, and was now unconscious.

He moves his gaze a little bit forward, and spotted her younger sister, also knocked out with her arms outstretched.

David then takes off one of his gloves, kneeling down to (Y/N) and pressed his fingers against the side of her neck to check for a pulse.

When he found it, he pulled back and gave his group a scolding look, "Three of you with me. One of you bring the other girl, and the others drag the horse." He orders them, and places his glove back on.

"The rest of you, stay here. Go door to door." David continued his instructions, as he went to pick up (Y/N) from the ground bridal style, her lead lulling off to the side, "You so hungry for vengeance? Deliver it."

He gives one last glance over everyone in front, before turning around with (Y/N) in his arms, and walked on ahead.

He didn't have the slightest idea what he just took away from Joel. And his friends, those poor dead men walking, would soon find out.

( gif ; sporadicstarsx )

AUTHORS NOTE;; man writing these scenes with joel makes me feel so lonely pls 😭😭  i very much enjoy adding them though, got me giggling as i write them

also guys, kiss scene this season or next???? gotta let me know so i can plan and add it somewhere (it most likely will be at the very end if i do)😜🫶