Thanks to Pewdiepie I got into this game and I felt like writing a fanfiction for it. I'm not entirely sure where it is going, but I'll continue if I get enough reviews/PMs about it. Otherwise it'll remain a one-shot.

The Last of Us belongs to Naughty Dog, this fanfiction belongs to me and any characters I happen to create and put in it.

Joel looked up at the ancient weeping willow. It's branches were thick and windy, with many dips and twists.

"Ellie, I found a place for us to sleep." He told the fourteen year old behind him. he went to the car width trunk of the tree and bent down. "C'mon kid, up ya go."

Ellie just nodded and grunted as Joel boosted her up to the base. Once up he handed her his pack. "Ya ready?"

"As always, old timer." Ellie smiled a bit at the grizzly old man as he jumped up and grabbed a hold of her hand. Over the past few months they'd become a close knit, in tune team. Both became stronger, smarter, faster, and wiser. Both learned to loosen up a bit as well, which was good for anyone in this kind of world. People needed to be open with each other sometimes, for the sake of sanity.

Ellie lifted him up with ease that was unusual for most children her age due to the strength she'd gained from having to do it for so long. Since Tess had been lost, she'd almost...replaced her as Joel's partner, though she knew she never would truly be Tess. As the two wandered up the thick and sturdy branches, searching for the proper place to rest for a night or more, she thought on them. She really knew very little on him and Tess. She'd guessed maybe there was something romantic, though more than likely just a deep bond of friendship. Joel had to be, what, 50? He didn't seem the type to go with a woman so...young.

Though, he also didn't seem one to have once been a hunter.

She took this into account as they set up their sleeping bags in a dip of intertwining branches far above the ground, well away from any zombies that might wander by.

"Hey Joel?" Ellie said while sitting on her sleeping bag with one of her comic books. Joel grunted to say he was listening while taking out a can of beans, which he split into two bowls and gave one to Ellie.

"Can I...uh...ask ya somethin'?" She put the book away and took a bite of her food. They had no utensils, using their fingers instead.

"Depends on what ya mean by somethin' Ellie." Joel said, looking at her a bit cautiously while eating his own food, barbeque sauce on his greying beard.

"Well uh...just like...uh..." Ellie paused, thinking how to go about it. "Can ya tell me a story?"

Joel blinked. "You want a story?"

Ellie nodded. "Yeah..."

"Well, about what?" Joel began to think of the several things he could tell her about the world before it all went to hell.

"How you n' Tess met."

Joel nearly choked on his food and looked at her, nearly glaring. "No."

"Please?"

"I don't see it as any business of yours how Tess n' I met-"

"It kinda is." Ellie interrupted, looking at her food.

"How is it then?!" Joel finished his food, licking the bowl clean and shoving it into his pack.

"You wouldn't have taken me if Tess hadn't told ya to."

Joel froze, staring at his feet, then his hands. Ellie watched his eyes as they continued to wandered, stopping at a ring on his hand-a spoon ring. She'd known a girl at the boarding school who had one. It was literally a ring made out of a spoon, and was rather pretty. Joel's was made to look like a half moon with a wolf howling by it. It was grimy and in dire need of a good polishing.

"...She giv-"

"I'll tell ya how we met kid." Joel said finally, looking to her. "I'll tell ya a story."

Ellie couldn't help but grin, quickly wolfing down the rest of her food and putting her bowl in Joel's pack and going up to him and sitting cross legged in front of the man as he crossed his arms and leaned against and uprising limb.

"So...this is how it went..."

It was five years after the world had turned to shit.

Joel, now 40, was a hardened dog-eat-dog styled man. He knew it was kill or be killed, and he wasn't going to be the latter.

Though he almost was once.

He had decided to quit hunting. He couldn't stand it, killing all the people. All the uninfected. They should be working to overrun the zombies with normal people so they could kill them all or something, not killing their own! But he hadn't been discreet about it. He'd told a man-a man he considered a friend, a confident. Little did he know this very man was working with the ringleader. He was now being chased down by three of the members of the hunters, through the alleys and up into various abandoned buildings. Joel didn't go into any he hadn't gone into before, though. He wasn't stupid. He wasn't going to get caught by a clicker.

He rushed up the stairs of an old apartment building, turning for only a second to shoot, riding himself of one man.

"He got Josh!"

"KILL THE BASTARD!"

"Shit!" Joel muttered and ran faster up the stairs as bullets flew past him, grazing his skin. He got to the second floor and ran to the end of the hall, the men hot on his tail. That's where he found himself cornered in the kitchen of one of the apartments. He turned around in a panic, his breathing rapid and uneven. The crooks smirked smugly.

"Caught a rat today." One said, smirking. He rose his gun to shoot Joel, right between the eyes. He would be with Sarah, at least. Right before the man shot, his head exploded. Then the other one.

"ASSHOLES!"

Joel stood in shock as a pretty young woman stepped into his vision. She was probably 10 or more years younger than him and had fair brown hair and deep brown eyes. She was rugged, completely made of muscle. She had a pack on her back, a black t-shirt and blue jeans, along with new looking Nike shoes.

"Hey, you infected?" Her voice was tough as she looked as she came up close to Joel, gun still ready to shoot, examining him.

"Nah I-uh I was just runnin'." Joel said breathlessly.

"Why?"

"They're hunters. I was one...but I quit."

"Weren't having any of that, eh?" The woman smirked and then stuck her gun in her pocket and turned and looted the men of their ammo, food, whatever they had. "Name's Tess. What's yours, survivor?"

Joel ran a hand through his hair. "Uh, Joel."

"Nice. Sound like a country singer name." She tossed him an extra gun, fully loaded. "I'm from out west. You?"

"Texas." He checked the gun over and then put it in his pocket, looking at her oddly. Why did this strange woman just save his life and give him a free gun with ammo, really?

"Thought so. You got that twang." She smiled some. "Guessin' you alone in this world?"

Joel sighed, his mind wandering to Sarah. "Yeah."

"Well you ain't anymore. Follow me, I know a way out." She began walking the opposite direction. Joel just followed her without really knowing it.

"Why are you-"

"Helping you? Life gets lonely in this world. Besides, any guy getting chased down by these hunters that isn't infected gets some brownie points from me." She smirked while going down the stairs, looting the body of the man Joel had gotten earlier.

"You trust to easy." He muttered, taking the gauze and alcohol she offered him.

"No, I just know who I can trust." She continued to lead him about the city. "This way, Tex, don't slow us down."

"I'm movin', I'm movin', sheesh woman."

"Well you're moving like a snail." She slowed down enough to whack him upside the head and then continued.

"Ow! What the hell-don't get on me movin' lika' snail there are hunters all around here!"

"Mhm, whatever."

Joel growled, prepared to make a smart remark when a pack of hunters jumped them. None did. He was actually disappointed at the lack of his life being put into jeopardy.

They reached a large wall, one which neither could get up without assistance.

"How much you weigh?" Tess asked while looking up at the wall.

"Uh, more than you." Joel went by the wall and bend down, making a cup with his hands. "I'll give ya a boost."

She smirked. "And you say I trust to easy." She took up his offer and was soon up on top of the wall. She leaned over and held out her hand. "Grab on Texas."

He did so, surprised at the ease she lifted him up and over, revealing she was standing on top of a truck. Now they were out of the city.

"Damn, you're strong." He commented, looking her up and down before jumping off.

"Thanks. Always have been." She followed him down and began walking down the road towards an intersection, checking cars as she went. "C'mere and start this car."

"You're bossy." Joel commented, but complied. He didn't know why, but he just felt a need to do as she said. Maybe it was because she was a woman that terrified him.

"Comes with being the eldest of seven kids." She said while messing with whatever was under the hood of the car she was looking at.

"Seven?! Jeezus woman." Joel shook his head.

"Yeah. What, you an only child?"

Joel sighed. "Nah, I got a brother."

"Nice. I got six." She commanded him to start the car, it working immediately to his surprise. She wordlessly took out some tools for siphoning from her pack and siphoned gas from a couple cars and filled the tank of that one before kicking Joel out of the driver and taking it for herself. "You ride shotgun Joel."

Joel looked agrivated. "Why?!"

"Because you have an actual gawd-damn shotgun! Now get!"

Joel blinked, realizing she was correct and complied grumpily. "You're kinda a bitch, you know that?"

"Thanks, I've been working hard at it." And she drove, starting a partnership that would last a long damn time.

Joel finished his story and got into his sleeping bag while Ellie sat with a surprised face. "Now git ta bed kid."

"She was kinda a bitch." Ellie commented, getting into her own, looking up at the night sky.

"Yeah she was, always was. Always bossy too." Joel said, yawning. Inside he couldn't stop thinking about the woman, and how she was more than bossy, she was smart.

"Joel?"

"Yeah Ellie?"

"Will you tell me anything else about you and Tess?"

"Go to bed, Ellie."