Chapter 25: The Last of Us

Play the The Last of Us OST - All Gone (No Escape)

Joel looked down over the edge to see Devlin's lifeless body below, his limbs in jaunty angles and a pool of dark red blood already forming and pooling around his head...

"It's over..." Joel sighed with relief as he stepped back and fell in the chair next to the desk. "ACK! ...shit!" The glass embedded in Joel's side began to bleed and make his body and muscles scream in agonizing pain.

No, it wasn't over yet...

Joel attempted to get up from the chair that he was in but only fell to the ground in a heap of hurt that shot like endless strikes of sharp lightning coming from his side. The glass shard in his side tore and ripped through his body with each movement he took. Joel had to be extremely delicate and careful, less the glass break into pieces whilst still in his system. "Gotta get it out, gotta get it out." Joel touched his wound and the edge of glass that Devlin used as the handle. "GAHHH!"

The second he made an attempt to remove it, the searing sharp hot pain hollered to his brain to stop. He could barely move, he was immobilized. "Christ... no."

The only thing he could do was crawl with only his arms, that didn't use the muscles in his back as much, just his arms and upper body. Joel cut his fingers in the remaining glass from the window, but he pushed through so much so that he was able to travel around the desk and to the office door. "*pant* *pant* ...Come on, come on." Joel reached for the doorknob and just barely was able to turn it, still unable to get up on his feet and only able to crawl.

But when Joel slightly pushed the door open, he heard a voice. "What the fuck?" It was the first and the last voice the old man wanted to hear. Why though, why did they come back? "Joel!"

When he looked up he saw Ellie and Rylan looking down at him with the most worried expression he had ever seen. Before he knew it Ellie and Rylan rushed in and closed the door behind them, so that they could tend to Joel in safety. "What are you doing? I told you two to get on outta here!"

"Don't be stupid," Ellie spat as she dare not touch Joel for fear of hurting him, but she knew that he was bleeding bad. "Oh my god... what happened?"

"Devlin." Joel grunted as the simple answer.

Rylan piped up in an angered response. "Where is he?"

"Dead." Joel answered as he stifled back yelps of pain, he knew he was getting worse because he could feel his heartbeat pounding against his chest and his vision was starting to get blurry. "Why you here...?"

Ellie explained it to him. "We gotta separated from Bill and we... we saw Devlin heading back to the Science Building, we thought he was gonna get the jump on you and Liv, right?" She looked to Rylan for support to which he gave a solid nod. "She's dead too, isn't she?"

"Yeah." One-word responses were his easiest responses as Joel tried to keep his composure for them. The news of Olivia's death saddened them, but the two kids were more focused on saving him now.

"Joel, Joel! You gotta tell us what to do, tell us what to do!" Ellie panicked as she had a relapse of what happened to Joel last time they were here at the college. "Rylan?"

Rylan knelt down to Joel's level and did his best to examine the wound, the shard of glass still apparent. "We have to get that outta him."

"You're right, you're right. He won't be able to move with this in him." Ellie agreed as she racked her brains for anything they could use. "Wait! Give me a second."

"Take your time. GAH!" He shifted his body only a little to adjust himself to which he soon regretted. The shard had to come out and everything else in his being agreed with that statement.

Ellie and Rylan put down their backpacks and set them on the ground to search their contents. They didn't have much for supplies but they did have what they needed for a basic on the field med kit. Some bandages and cleaning alcohol along with a little water, even Ellie suggested using her switchblade. They thought they could make do with that so they did. Rylan warned them both. "Okay, there's gonna be a lot of blood, and it's gonna hurt."

"Joel can handle it." Ellie assured him. "So I'm guessing... uh."

"Use the alcohol to clean your switchblade and your hands, your fingers are smaller." Rylan told her and she listened intently. "We're going to make the wound bigger, so we can dig it outta him."

"What?!" She gave a quick look to Joel for assurance and he nodded for her to keep doing what they were doing. "Okay..."

Ellie quickly sterilized hands and her switchblade, and she cut down from the nasty incision only an inch or two. "GAAHH! Hrmmm!" It took all of Joel's willpower to not slap away Ellie's work on him, but he held it together.

Rylan cringed at the scene before him but then he had to instruct Ellie. "Good, it's glass now so be careful and just grab it."

"Okay okay. I got this." Ellie hesitantly put her fingers into the new incision and could immediately feel the edge of the glass. "This might hurt a little..."

Rylan pulled out a thick rag and folded it so that Joel could bite down on it. He placed the rag in the old man's mouth and signaled the redhead to go for it.

With her controlled might, Ellie pulled up and a shard of several inches in length slid and came out of Joel's body with a fountain of blood to follow it. "AARRGGHH! HRMmmmm!"

"It's out, it's out!" Rylan stated as he grabbed the bottle of alcohol and dumped an appropriate amount on the exposed wound. And boy, did that sting like hell for Joel as well. Ellie tossed the blood-stained shard aside and immediately began to wrap bandages around the wound along with applying pressure. "That's all I think we can do..."

Joel spit the rag out and was relieved that the foreign object was dealt with. He felt significantly better but he was still sore and light headed from the blood loss. "Help me up... get me up" Ellie finished with the bandages and took his hand as well as Rylan. With both their efforts, Joel was able to stand on his two feet albeit he favored one side and probably couldn't run less he reopen his wound again. "I reckon that could have gone worse..."

"That's the spirit." Rylan smirked at the old man's strength and endurance. "Now let's find Bill and get the hell outta here."

"I know the way, follow me." Ellie opened the door and looked back. "Guys?"

They could see Joel swaying where he stood, maybe his age was catching up with him. Rylan saw this and got under his shoulder on his weak side. "Joel? Joel. Come on, lean on me and let's follow Ellie."

"Alright..." He muttered weakly. "Alright..."

"Shit... shit!" Rylan directed Ellie to go and as he led the old man with him. "We got no time to lose."

The three of them walked, while two of them hobbled and made their way back down to the first floor of the Science Building and to the front door. "We got you Joel... we got you..." Ellie and Rylan checking in with Joel every few seconds as they noticed he was getting weaker and weaker. Perhaps he was bleeding internally? The Fireflies were broken and fragmented as far as they were concerned. Small units who abandoned the compound and paid them no mind, and others were concerned with the gunfire that seemed to be getting closer and closer.

When the three of them were out in the open in front of the Science Building, they were suddenly jumped by the notorious APC tank. "Fuck no!"

When they all prepared themselves for their deaths of being gun down, the attack never came and instead the entrance in the back of the tank opened up and a familiar holler came from inside. "YOU GUYS GET YOUR ASSES IN HERE!"

It was Bill from the driver's seat, none of them had been so happy to see him. So they wasted no time in getting inside and closing the tank door behind them while sitting on the bench. Bill hit the gas and they accelerated while they could hear ticks and clangs against the armor outside. Must be bullets vainly being fired at them. Rylan set Joel on one of the two benches which were on both sides of the interior. "Watch him while I check in with Bill." The brunette smiled. "Ellie... I think we might make it."

"We're not outta the woods yet." Ellie retorted as she tended to the old man. "Joel... Joel?"

Joel had fallen unconscious. His eyes would not open for Ellie and she began to worry, so she checked his bandages and she was horrified to find that he had bled through the white gauze. "Oh no... oh no oh no oh no! Please please please! Joel!"

Ellie undid her bandages and got some fresh ones to reapply with. She also looked around the inside of the tank for a first aid kit or something. "Rylan, help me!"

"What?!" He came back down from where Bill was and he got the message after a second's glance of a bleeding Joel. "Is he awake?"

"No he's not fucking awake!" Ellie lashed out as she applied more pressure to his wound. "Find something!"

"Hallelujah!" Bill shouted from the driver's seat. "I think we're home free-!"

And then in a flash, everything went to hell when the whole tank was slammed and t-boned by something huge, what that thing was they had no freaking clue. The collision however forced Bill off the main road and down a hill, dodging trees while it was too damn steep to use the breaks. The four occupants inside were banging around inside and they were in the hands of fate, whether they would die here and now was not there decision.

*CRASH!*

The APC settled and stopped on impact by a large tree at the bottom of the hill they were on. Bill was lucky he didn't fly through the tiny windshield but the driving controls would not let that happen and he did his best to unbuckle himself and tenderly climb out to where the others were... he lost his footing and he slipped into the belly of the vehicle where he found Rylan, Ellie and Joel unresponsive to his call. "Any of you... y-you still alive?" His mind then did a headcount; he was very saddened to see that Olivia was not here with them. She must have met her end too...

Carefully, Bill tried to get on his feet, he was still beat to shit and he thought he broke a few ribs because it was hard to breath for him. But that was when he heard a croak out of Ellie who sat herself up. "Fuck... w-what happened?"

"We crashed." Bill simply informed her as he limped over to Rylan to see if he was injured. "Fucking stupid... I can't fucking believe this shit..."

Rylan slowly arose from his momentary unconsciousness to find that the group was in ruin. He saw Bill standing over him when they locked eyes Bill moved on to the back exit, trying his best to pull the latch and open the door. "Ellie? Ellie?! You alright?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. But *sob* ...Joel." She was tending to the old man who took care of her, traveled across the country with her, risked life and limb for her, saved her... more times than she could count. "Joel..."

"Oh no..." Rylan was at a loss for words when he realized that Joel's skin was pale-white and his chest had stopped its constant rising and falling. "Ellie I..."

"NO!" Her scream echoed in the enclosed space, her cry ringing and reverberating in the others' ears. "This is a stupid way to die! I won't, I won't let you die like this! Come on Joel! Come the fuck on!"

Ellie had set him up to have CPR performed on him, she began the chest compression by placing both of her hands above his heart and she pressed down. "One! Two! THREE! FOUR! FIVE!"

Without a second's hesitation, she filled her mouth with fresh oxygen, pinched his nose and tilted his head back to blow life into his lungs. And then she repeated the process. Rylan watched on, the shock of what was happening till whirling around in his head. "I'm sorry Ellie..."

Bill sighed as he was about to open the door. "We gotta leave him... let him move on, so we can move on."

Hot tears began to sting her eyes as Ellie ignored Bill's comment and she went on in her efforts to bring Joel back to life, but things were looking bleak. "I'm not leaving him!"

Rylan and Bill's eyes went downcast as the latter opened the door to get out of the tank. However when the exit was wide open, they heard the sounds of rifles clicking and arming themselves.

"Hands on your head!"

Rylan knew the sound of that voice because he heard it quite recently. It was the head guard he and Joel met at the perimeter of the University, it was Sargent Samson, and behind him a dozen or so remaining Fireflies stood with him and they blocked off any means of escape.

"I said hands on your fucking heads!" Samson repeated, his many guns ready to fire on his command. "Do it!" Bill and Rylan raised their hands slowly in surrender, but Ellie would not cease from her possibly vain attempt to revive Joel. It was like the rest of the world had disappeared and her tunnel vision made her focus at the one thing that mattered most in that situation. "You too girl!"

"No! Fuck you!"

Rylan didn't want to lose her too. "Ellie please!"

"It is over now!" Samson warned her to stop for the last time. "I only need one of kids to make the cure, so I will shoot you! Get your hands up! NOW!"

"NO!"

A roll of what everyone thought was thunder cut the argument short but Samson still had his sights set on the grieving redhead. He was about to pull the trigger when... "Uh... Sarge?"

The Firefly known as Andrew tapped his superior on the shoulder to get his attention to look off to their left where the people in the armored carrier couldn't see. "What?! ...Oh shit."

It was probably one of the most bad-ass sights anyone could have seen in a long while. That wasn't thunder that they heard a moment ago... it was hooves.

Twenty horses... twenty men... twenty guns.

A group of cavalry stood ready to shoot and attack the grounded Fireflies, and in front who pointed his pistol right between Samson's eyes was Tommy. "Maybe you ought to drop that gun right there... might be a bad idea to shoot it too."

The Fireflies were frozen in place, intimidated from the whinnying of the animals and the new faction added to aid our heroes, in their minds it was really over.

"You know these folks?" Samson inquired as he ordered his men to drop their guns and give up. "You know what we are about to lose?"

Tommy grimaced as he declared something that wowed them all. "I can tell ya what you didn't lose..." He holstered his weapon and led his horse closer to the tank. "... You didn't lose your lives." This was true. "Now go on, git, all of you. Leave these people alone and no one else has to die, go back to your families, to the people you care about. Stop the fighting, because if you have to sacrifice people to maybe save some others... then you know that ain't right... just go."

Everything was quiet for a moment until miraculously the glee of a little girl's screams erupted from inside the tank and they could hear an old man coughing. "Oh my god! Oh my god! You're okay!"

Joel had a bit of a coughing fit as he shot up to find a relieved and tearful Ellie hug him once more. "Ellie, it's alright..." His voice was weak but he was back. "...it's alright."

Tommy motioned for his men to lead the Fireflies away from the tank, they were tired and they did leave their guns behind so that Tommy's men would escort them back up the hill. Joel's baby brother then hopped down from his horse and stepped into carrier to confirm his strong suspicion of who was inside.

"It's time to go home."

One Week Later...

It was peaceful winter day in the Rocky Mountains, the flurries continued to fall without a care in the world and then become part of the endless white blanket which covered the settlement of Jackson. But today was a special day because those who survived the onslaught of these events were blessed by another magnificent miracle.

In the building where they converted it into the makeshift hospital, Joel laid in his bed still recovering from his injuries, and with the insistence of his loved ones to stay and rest for a few more days. Rylan, Ellie, and Bill stood in Joel's recovery room, with Bill near the door. "So... I think I've overstayed my welcome, I'm just going to head on out back to my train."

"What? Where you going?" Ellie whined at him. Ever since he saved their lives with the tank and when they were all rescued, Ellie actually had gotten use to Bill's company, so much so that she would call him a friend. "You going to come back big guy?"

"Tch..." Bill followed his scoff with a chuckle, after all of his years of surviving, he never thought he'd end up under these circumstances. "Thinkin about heading out west, see the Pacific... look for more survivors. I figure, I could help a lot of people."

"Well..." Joel smirked as he looked at his old business partner. "You've come a long way since I've known ya."

"Yeah Joel, I'm all about helping others, being a hero, and flying off into the sunset." Bill remarked sarcastically. "...I'll come back to visit, maybe."

"Good luck Bill." Rylan waved him off. "And thanks."

"Yeah and don't be fucking weird and start talking to yourself when you meet other people either." Ellie gave a playful grin as she gave a thumbs up at him. "Got it?"

He would have lashed out at the redhead, but you know what? That was generally good advice. "I won't if you won't kid."

Before Bill was about to leave his room, Joel stopped him one more time, hoping he wasn't too depressed about the loss of his companions Olivia and Lance. "Hey Bill."

"Yeah?"

"You going to be okay?"

"...You know me Joel." And Bill finally let himself out of the room, leaving the three of them alone.

"Wow, just... wow." Rylan sighed as he turned back to Ellie who was sitting right next to him and Joel. "Real crazy, right? About everything."

"What do you mean?" Ellie questioned as she and Joel noted the concern on the brunette's face.

"I mean... can you believe the astronomical odds of this all happening? Me meeting Ellie, the whole thing with my parents, then my immunity, and everything else."

"Hey I'm still in shock... does that mean we can... you know~" Ellie's voice got extremely low and arousing.

"HEY!" Joel interrupted them, seriously he was right there. "None of that until you're 50 years old, both of you!"

"Okay!" They both said in unison but then the two kids began to laugh it off real quick. Joel would be watching them like a hawk now.

"And before we discuss anything else, we gotta remember all those people who gave their lives to help us, all of us." Joel reminded them of the sacrifices other people made for them so long ago, the lives they affected.

The hunters from Jackson Devlin had executed, Brad and Claire, Carter, not really Grant, and Olivia and Lance...

"Yeah..." Rylan nodded as did Ellie at Joel's words.

But where there is death, in turn there can also be new life...

*Cry* *Cooing*

Joel, Ellie, and Rylan turned back towards the door to see Tommy pushing an exhausted Maria in a wheelchair with their newborn baby in her arms wrapped in a cradle of white blankets. In fact, when was the last time any of them had seen a beautiful creature like that? Joel was speechless and Rylan's eyes began to water from the scene. "Damn... allergies..." He sniffed.

Ellie however jumped at the opportunity and got up from her seat and ran to towards the new happy family. "Holy... it's so tiny! Can hold him?" She begged the mother and showed off her green puppy dog eyes. "Pleeeease?"

Maria looked up to the father of her baby. "What do you think dear?"

Tommy approved and advised the redhead. "Go right ahead Ellie; make sure to support the head."

Maria gently held up her baby for Ellie to hold and she supported the infant all the way through. She whispered down at the little miracle who had a little bit of blond hair. "Hey there little guy... How you doing?"

Rylan was grinning from ear to ear. "You're killing me with cuteness Ellie." The brunette crossed his arms. "He's adorable guys."

"Actually kid, the baby's a girl." Tommy revealed to them and then he directed this at Joel. "You're looking at your niece and your goddaughter."

"After everything I put you and Maria through because of me-!"

"Because of us." Ellie corrected him.

"Because of us..." Joel accepted that. "I will do whatever it takes to help you with anything around here, including your child. So I'm... I'm glad that I ain't dead yet."

"Beautifully said Joel." Rylan chimed in.

"Shut it, boy."

Rylan sighed. "Yes sir..."

Tommy and Maria gave a look to one another to address the next matter. "Joel, she still needs a name... and Maria and I been talking and she likes one in particular. ...I think you know what it is."

Oh yeah they all knew who it was. But it was real kind of the new parents to ask for permission and blessing to dub their child with this name.

Would it help him let her go?

Or will it always be a constant reminder of what happened?

"Joel..." Ellie spoke up and interrupted Joel's dark trip down memory lane. "Here..." She gave the quiet blond baby to the old man, and he reluctantly accepted her.

"Ellie I-!" *Cooing* Joel looked down at his goddaughter with beautiful sparkling eyes. It would just melt anyone's heart if her innocent stare locked eyes with anyone else. Joel did a scan of everyone who was with him. His family. "You know what...? Welcome to the world."

It was time to let go of the past...

"Sarah..."

And embrace the here and the now among the Last of Us...

A/N- Aw man... I was in tears when I wrote this chapter with the music playing. I hope I struck some feels with you guys too. SO, that's the end of the main story of this sequel to The Last of Us. Please give your thoughts of this story that turned out to be bigger than I ever previously thought.

It may not have been perfect, I tried my best to keep everyone in character, but this was my longest story, period, in all aspects. I almost didn't want to finish it, but I pushed on because of you guys! Sincerely thank you! :)

Please review this chapter if any, tell me what did you like, what you didn't like so I can improve, who were your favorite new characters, did you like the ending? Or...
do you want an epilogue? Go ahead and leave your comments, and take care guys :)