Author's Note: Hey there! It's been a long time, and I have MISSED you. Yes, YOU. I feel terrible for neglecting you, so here we go: back FULL SWING. I've missed the characters a lot since I've been gone but it's nice to see them again. I'm going to be honest: I struggled with this chapter. I wanted a nice balance of humour and darkness, and in this chapter there's sort of an unhinging. All will be explained in the future, I promise. Let me know what you think in reviews, make sure to favourite and follow if you enjoy it, it encourages me to write more QUICKLY. I understand that the TLOU fanfiction community has really blown up since I last updated, and that's great. It means there's a potential new audience out there, I suppose, but it also means that there are so many great new fanfictions that I have to live up to. I hope you guys still stick with The Last of Them.

JOEL VI

The footsteps and followed them up the corridors as they ran, sprinting. Sometimes Ellie slashed her knife across their throats, Joel shoved his elbow hard against their face. They crumpled and fell as the pair of them mowed them down, fleeing with all they had. The shouts and the footsteps always just behind them. Once, Joel thought he heard a dog barking and his guts had dropped. Joel had liked dogs a long time ago – he had been close to getting Sarah one, but now… dogs weren't loveable anymore. They were two types of dogs now – wild and feral, or domesticated (and still feral).

"GET THEM! Your days are fucking numbered!"

Ellie laughed a little. "I'm okay with that," she said as they ran. "Just as long as it's a really big fucking number."

Back through the mess hall and into the tunnels they fled, Ellie always slightly ahead. Joel was exhausted, but he kept going, breathing heavily and his chest sore. In his ribs he felt the sting of a stitch. Please stop running, it begged. The world kept him running, and the running kept him fit, but the effects of age had not deigned to leave him entirely unscathed. His legs ached and his back was close to folding in on itself on a spasm. It would not be the first time. He was almost fifty. Hell, maybe he was fifty, Joel couldn't tell anymore.

The orange lights were brighter now, casting dancing shadows along the rocky walls. Indiscernible mutterings from behind them told them they knew where they were, but they did not grow closer.

"Why aren't they coming after us?" Ellie said, ahead of him. She had been sprinting, but her pace had slowed. Joel wondered if Ellie noticed the toll his age took on him. I wonder if she knows what age I am at all. It'd been a long time since Joel wondered what people thought of the way he looked. He made a note to ask her later.

"They're hesitatin'," Joel replied. "I dunno why. Let's not question it right now, huh?"

"What if there's infected in here?"

He shook his head, though she wasn't looking at him. "I doubt it. So far it seems pretty obvious that –" He had to stop for a moment, his breath was running away and if he didn't catch it, he'd probably have a heart attack. "Ellie, wait."

"What's wrong?" she said, turning. Her eyes were raised and his brow was furrowed with worry, confusion.

He paused, listening, just for a moment. To make sure they ain't following us. The voices had died out and they didn't even seem to be travelling up the corridor anymore. Besides, they had made a couple of turns.

"I just need a minute," he said, hands on his hips, panting with every word. He tried not to notice the furrows afurrowing deeper in Ellie's brow. "Think we can find our way back out to the cabin?"

Ellie brushed loose strands of hair behind her ear, eyes glimmering with some unknown victory. "I dunno," she said, and then took off her backpack and reached inside. She produced the blueprints. "Still remember how to read one of these?"

Joel rolled his eyes and held out his hand. His breathing had slowed but he could still feel his heart pounding against his ribs so hard the rest of his body could feel the reverberations. Ellie put the map in it and he squinted to see it. Orange light on blue paper wasn't ideal. He folded out sections and parts, tracing their route with his finger. Occasionally his head looked up for markings on walls. N7, SR2, ME2 – all labels for sections within the underground. By chance he noticed the date on the blueprints and he eyes got stuck there.

"Joel?"

"Hmm?"

"You've been staring at the corner of the map for about a minute."

"Oh. It's just the… it's just, there's a date. 2012."

"What is it now?"

"Huh?" He looked up.

"The date. What's the date?"

"2033."

"Weird, huh?"

"I guess I thought there'd be rocketships and aliens by now."

"Huh?"

You ain't got time for this right now, Joel. "Another time. We gotta go."

With the map they doubled back and looped, taking different turns this time. The tunnel grew darker as they went, and eventually they were walking beside the running water.

Ellie was walking beside him. "What if we went out the front gate again? When we came through this tunnel the first time we went up and outside. Could we do that again?"

Joel thought for a moment, and then said, "I don't wanna risk it. We just keep going this way. Back up to the cabin, and we see where this takes us."

"And then what?"

He took a deep breath. He'd dreaded the question. "I don't know."

They had to go on without Tommy, but Joel still felt like he needed his input, like he was an essential part of the process. A long time has passed since I needed Tommy, Joel reflected. But it hasn't been long since he needed me. There was a sting at his ribs again, but it seemed more like an emotional twitch than a physical stitch. He tried to ignore it, pay no mind to the worries in his mind.

He had Ellie; she was what he needed. Together, Joel and Ellie could continue to make their way in the darkness of these tunnels, and then emerge unscathed. Then they'd push on through the darkness of the world, and they'd endure. Endure and survive. Were the guilt not eating at him, and the worry that they were wandering out into the world blind as a clicker fresh in his mind, he might have smiled. She says that to me all the time, and I've never said it to her. Maybe Joel had just never been one for mantras. Maybe one day he'd say it to her. Just to see how she reacted.

They walked in silence for some time. The lights made noises sometimes, crackling and popping like Joel's old bones, and each time they would both flinch. His hand would reach down for a gun he did not have, and Ellie's switchblade would be in her hand. The smell of rank shit grew thicker as they moved on; muggy shit that made Joel sweat under his clothes. It was hot down here, and it made the smell all the more unbearable.

"Holy shit at the smell down here, Joel."

"Yeah. It's worse than it was before."

Ellie shivered a little. "No shit. I think I know something that could help us with the smell." She pulled her shirt up over her nose and mouth.

Joel laughed. "That's it? That's our plan?"

"Hey, it's my plan. Get your own."

"My shirt probably smells a lot worse than this."

Joel hadn't washed his clothes in a long time.

"D'you think there's anywhere that still cleans their clothes?"

He shook his head. "I doubt it. All the plumbing won't work anymore. And besides, is there anywhere you would trust to go for a shower?"

"I don't know. Never used one."

"Oh."

"One day, maybe," she almost sighed dreamily, as if her thoughts had wandered elsewhere.

"Might be you will," Joel said, though privately he doubted it. He couldn't even be sure if she heard him. The world where people needed to take their shoes off at the door, where neighbours were people we visited, was gone, and showers were too. In his bag Joel had some alcohol rub but it was for sterilising things more than cleaning; in fact, he'd never used it for cleaning.

Ellie was quiet as they walked, which Joel didn't mind. His brother was on his mind again. In his head he heard Tommy's voice.

"I'm with Maria now, at least. Dead."

You aren't a religious man, Tommy.

"What can I say, death has changed me? I've seen the face of god."

Joel shuddered a little, hoping that Ellie didn't notice, but she was skirting ahead of him, whistling. What would Ora have made of Tommy saying that?

"Jack shit," Tommy's disembodied voice said. "The man's a lying piece'a shit."

Joel rubbed at his head. I need to sleep. It seemed like days since he had last slept; his head was pounding and Tommy's dead voice nagged at him. In his gut he felt stirring, the guilt again – always there, ebbing at him. Ellie had it too… she felt like she didn't deserve to live, but Joel had no such reservations about life. Or do I? It was slowly eating away at him. The names. Sarah, Tess, Tommy… And now his guilt was talking to him; clawing at him, like a beast trying to escape. And then it tried to. He felt it travelling up his throat, stinging all the way and the sick spewed out, wretching acid bile along the floor in front of him.

Ellie was at his side. Her hand was on his shoulder. "Joel?"

"I just feel a lil' woozy."

"You took a slam to the head from a plank of wood, I'm not surprised. Why don't we sit down for a minute?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that's a good idea."

Joel moved back from the sick a bit, guided by Ellie, though he couldn't smell it for the sewage. He collapsed onto the floor prematurely and Ellie stumbled a little. "Sorry." She nodded and sat down beside him. They sat there for almost as long as they'd walked. He felt his eyelids growing heavy but he wouldn't let them fall; if he had a concussion, he might not wake up and he wouldn't burden Ellie with his body. Not again.

She had proved resourceful and clever the last time it had happened; she'd supported him and saved his life, kept him going through winter. Without her he'd have died. I won't put her in that position again, he thought and tried to push himself up from the ground again, but his arm didn't have the strength.

"Can we just sit here for a little while? My legs are fucking screaming at me," Ellie said.

Joel looked around to see Ellie, head tilted away from him, staring off into the blackness across the river of sewage. There was a wall to be seen on the other side of the railing he was sure, but it couldn't be seen. The tendrils of light did not reach that far out; they were swallowed by the darkness just over the railings. Sometimes Joel couldn't even make out the shape of the running water. Then again, it was almost as black as the darkness around it.

They sat in silence for some time, only the dark and the water dripping around them. The smell of the sewage did not get better as they sat though, it became more putrid and strong. Joel had thought he would adapt to the smell, but no – the reek grew worse and worse.

"Are you okay?" Ellie asked after some time, worried. He didn't know when they'd last spoke aloud.

"Yeah I'm fine," he said, his low southern voice barely a grunt. His head was still thumping at him from the inside; at that moment, Joel had never been more aware of the fact that he had a skull. "We should probably get moving."

"Joel, if you wanna talk about Tommy or – or whatever, you know," she said. Ellie was trying hard to hold eye contact but her eyes kept lagging down, unsure.

Joel smiled as well as he could, but he didn't even manage to bare his teeth. "I know," he said.

It took a long time but eventually they saw light at the other end. Not sunlight, no, it was the moon. All silver light and no heat. On the approach they saw bodies, a few of them. For a moment Joel had begun to panic, but it passed when he realised what they were – the infected that they had slain on their way down from the cabin. His eyes darted and his movement sped a little, though he tried to resist. Ellie was slightly ahead of him and it seemed she'd divined the same. Her fingers caught his eye and he noticed she was lightly brushing them over her second bite.

He almost moved his fingers towards his watch but then he came to the stairs and they moved up them, into the body-strewn cabin. There was blood everywhere on all the floors, and in the air there was –

"JOEL!"

Quickly he held his breath, not taking any deep ones – that would make it much worse – and reached into his bag and brought out his gas mask. He pulled the string over his head and attached it firmly to the front of his face. Through the murky plastic he could only just make out Ellie in front of him.

"Did – did any…?"

"I don't think so," he said. His voice echoed deep and loud inside the mask, as always.

She nodded a few times and allowed her eyes to look around for her bag. It was here somewhere, she knew. It would take Joel half a day to find it with the dirty visor and the spores swirling in the air. On the floor in front of him some of the bodies had fungus growing out from them onto the floor, like some bacterial blanket keeping them warm in death.

Why did it take me so long to see them? He thought for a moment on that; he thought about how many people he had killed, how many miles he'd travelled; all that and to be defeated by spores because he wasn't looking where he was going. Never again.

Ellie was holding her bag up in front of him when he came to again.

"The spores must'a kept people away," he said. "C'mon, let's get outta here."

The cold night air felt good at first. It made him feel as though he was free again; no saggy heat oppressing them, keeping them down. The heatless light of the moon filtering through the clouds and trees high above them, only some of it made its way down to their feet.

They walked until they could no longer see the cabin when Ellie stopped.

"Joel," she began and he turned, "where are we going?"

He shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "Where do you want to go?"

She said nothing for a little while, staring at the floor. Joel didn't interrupt her; he wanted to know where it was she wanted to go. There were so many places, continental United States were a big place. Ellie hadn't seen so much of it.

"How long would it take to get back to the Quarantine Zone? Back to Boston?"

"As long as it took us to get here. Maybe longer. We'd need'ta get a car again, that won't be easy, we don't got Bill this time. Is that what you want to do?"

"How long would it take to get to – Texas?"

"I don't know," he said, stunted a little. Texas?

"More or less?"

"Less," Joel said. "Much less."

"Let's go to Texas."

"Texas is a big place."

"We'll go to where you know. Do you – remember it?"

He thought hard, he thought of the streets – he could still imagine driving into town, driving back, taking Sarah to school; hell, Joel could still imagine it all on a map. Joel remembered so many things about Texas, but all he saw was, "Yeah."

"I wanna go there."

There were a lot of demons in Texas for Joel; demons and ghosts, and the south was not safe if reports were to be believed. At the Boston newspost they'd heard of a giant quarantine zone in Texas, fortified far beyond what Boston had experienced. It wouldn't be easy, he knew.

"Let's go."

They started to walk.

They walked for a long time, sometimes pausing to stop to regain some energy. Not once did Ellie express any tiredness, and so Joel didn't either, but he was exhausted. His legs were tired and his back hurt. Maybe it was right for him to return to Texas, he hadn't wanted to leave in the first place. But Tommy had begged, pleaded… Tommy.

When the sun came up it was hot. Joel took his jacket off and tied it around his waist; Ellie did not, she left her own on. Joel suspected that she didn't like to because of the bite on her arm.

Hours later, they reached a road. It was empty, though in the distance a deer sprang across the road.

"Just leave it," Ellie said. "It's not worth the trouble. Is this the way to Texas?"

"I have no clue. I've been looking for road signs. I don't got a magnet in me that takes me back to Texas."

She gave some over-emphasised mock laughter.

They began to walk up the road, hoping they would find a car that worked, knowing that they probably wouldn't. They came to a hill eventually with the forest long behind them, the river meandering left and right always on the right of the road. They kept off the road, but for the hill they realised they couldn't. Up they went and what they saw made them stop.

The road stretched out miles ahead of them; in the distance the sun glared off the shining hard road surface, broken in places. There were sections of fog in the distance, parts of the road were obscured. There were cars and small houses in the distance too; things that could help, things that could hinder. The sun was lowering itself down behind the clouds at last; the day was coming to an end.

Just as fast as spring had come, summer had arrived.

The days would be long, the walking would be hard.

But they'd beat on down the road, Joel travelling towards his past, Ellie into her own uncertain future. Joel worried a lot about what they'd find in Texas. A few times he wanted to tell Ellie he didn't want to go, but maybe some part of him did want to go. To see what they'd find.

You know what you'll find there. Turn back.

They didn't turn back. They kept going. They always kept going. Where others fell along the journey, Joel and Ellie did not falter; they endured and they survived. Mankind had not disappeared but humanity was, and Joel did not delude himself; maybe his was gone too. But he cared for Ellie, he loved Ellie more than he did anything else.

Nothing would hurt her. And if they tried, he would hunt them down until there were none left, until the last of them begged for mercy. And then he'd kill them too.

Ellie was whistling again, the sun setting behind her in the west. It made for a beautiful sight.

Joel and Ellie kept going.

Author's PS: I know it feels like the end, but it isn't the end. This ends the first phase of The Last of Them, the phase of Wyoming. Next up begins The Summer Phase, which will comprise maybe ten chapters, maybe slightly less. I'm looking forward to this piece unfolding with you as it goes. What do you think is next up? After twenty years, is Joel losing it, is his mental health really deteriorating or is it just the slamdunk to the head? Is Ora dead? All these questions will be answered soon. Looking forward to sharing them with you. ;)