When Maria handed me the picture, I wasn't sure what to expect. She seemed to be very nice, taking me to the mess hall to get some food so I wouldn't have to shoot a squirrel. That alone was enough, because I frankly didn't want to waste a bullet if I ended up missing.

We had gotten our food and she began asking questions. "Where are you going? Why are you with Joel?" We were asked the same things every time we meet some one and hung around a while.

I gave the generic answers. "Joel promised some one to take me to out here when they couldn't."

Maria raised an eyebrow. "Why couldn't they?"

I shrugged, "The zone's kind of hard to get out of. They got injured and they got Joel to promise."

Maria probably sensed from my tone that she was getting into some topics that weren't too good to talk about just yet. That was great, the prying ones were always extremely annoying and sooner or later Joel would tell them off or flat out knock them unconscious and leave. If they some how found us again, (that happened once) he just shot them.

Maria instead asked about how Boston was, where we had traveled through, and what we both liked.

I'd fished out my pun book when Maria said it. "You must remind Joel so much of her."

That confused me for a moment. "Remind him of who?" It wasn't Tess. As far as I know, she didn't know Tess existed.

The smile melted off and her face looked at the same time sad and guilty. "He hadn't told you?"

I shook my head, "We agreed early on that we wouldn't talk about our pasts. Among other things." I rubbed my nose and looked away.

Maria looked dumbstruck. "Oh." That was the only thing she said for the rest of the meal. I kept wondering. Who was she talking about? Some little girl that had been in Joel's life pre- Infected shit storm? A niece from another brother or sister?

When we finished, Maria dropped off our plates. She motioned for me to get to get up and follow her. "C'mon, I wanna show you something."

I jogged to catch up to her. She seemed determined to show me this because she was practically running. Crossing over a catwalk, we arrived in a building with bunks pushed against a wall. Marching over to a bag on a table, she rifled through some of the side pockets before pulling out a small slip of paper. A photograph. She lifted up her arm and waited for me to take it from her. When I did, it blindsided me.

I didn't recognize him at first. The picture was clearly old, there were cracks, pieces had flaked off, and a small stain discolored part of the background. After staring at if for a few seconds in confusion, it hit me like a fucking train.

His beard was smaller and there wasn't any grey peppering his hair, and the wrinkles were non-existent. This had been Joel twenty years ago and he couldn't look more different. Then there was the girl.

She looked so small, especially with Joel's arm around her (even back then he'd had some muscles), a striped jersey, trophy in hand, with a proud smile on her face. I looked at Maria, my expression asking everything.

She'd been chewing her lip, gauging my reaction. Her face heavy she opened her mouth. "That's Sarah. She was his daughter."

My mouth fell open. Joel was a father?! It didn't seem believable. His temper could scare off any hunter, he'd killed more men then I'd ever meet, and was... well, a robot. He never seemed to feel anything beyond anger, sadness, and apathy. A small voice spoke in the back of my mind, maybe he went that way because of her.

Getting my voice to work again I croaked out, "what happened?"

Maria seemed to take a deep breath and steel herself. "She was shot by a soldier. Twelve fucking years old and she gets shot and dies in her father's arms." she shook her head. "Just goes to show how fucked up our society was before it all went down."

I looked down at it again. She looked so happy, and so did he. Joel was actually smiling, something that never happened now, no matter how hard I tried. The closest I got was that soap joke I told in that bookstore back in Pittsburgh. And I'm probably never going to either.

"That'd been taken a few months before. It'd been hanging up in her bedroom and Tommy had gotten it when he'd gone back to Joel's old house..." Maria had been talking but I tuned her out.

I studied it closer. They looked nothing a like. She was all blonde hair, narrow face, and sharp features. I couldn't tell the color of her eyes, but it didn't look like they matched Joel's muddy green.

Maria sighed and patted my shoulder, bringing me down to Earth. "Come on, let's get back to the mess hall. When the boys are done they'll look for us there." Maria turned around and headed to the door.

I glanced around to make sure no one was looking and stuffed it in my pocket. Joel had a daughter and he never told me. So much made sense, why he saw that "dumb teen movie", the distance, and something Tess had said at the beginning. "I get it."

She knew. And so do I now. He and I are going to have a talk one day. I want to know about Sarah, and if I'm feeling generous, he might get some Riley.

My stomach clenched at that, after I ran to catch up with Maria. No, not Riley, not yet. But I wanted to know why he kept that bottled up for so long.

I wanted to know, and I damn well wanted an explanation.

AN: Thanks to users Astern and niddur for suggesting this.

As usual, review and leave a suggestion: NO CUTSCENES, not yet. I lack patience to look up dialogue.