A/N: This is my first fic for TLOU and actually my first multi-chaptered story for any fandom. Picking up right where the game left off is not exactly treading on new turf here, I see, but it makes the most sense to me, so bear with me in the beginning I also struggled with whether to use secondary category "angst" or "humor;" I went with angst but there will definitely be some humor in upcoming chapters. Thank you for reading!

"Swear that everything you told me about the Fireflies is true."

Look her in the eye, Joel. She'll never buy it if you don't. And oh God how he needed her to believe him. Joel was a damn good liar – to everyone except Ellie, it seemed. It was uncanny how the girl could see right through his bullshit. He would need to give an Oscar-caliber performance here.

Joel regarded her with as sober and sincere an expression as he could muster and looked her square in the eye. "I swear."

He was glad she was a few paces behind him so she couldn't hear his tell-tale heart beating wildly. But fuck she hesitated a little too long before that "okay." Joel could have sold the story more convincingly by embellishing the lies, fleshing them out with enough detail that she would never dream he could make this shit up on the fly – or, rather, rehearse and memorize them all during the long hours of silence between Salt Lake City and Jackson. He was glad those fuckers had doped her up enough to buy him the time to come up with something plausible. But with each lie he fed her now, the chance that he might fuck this up – or get tripped up later on – increased. He just had to hope that she hadn't heard anything contradictory somewhere in that span of time she was away from him. That bitch Marlene's choice of words led him to believe Ellie had had no idea what was happening to her: "It's what she'd want." Would she? Hell, why bother to ask Ellie if she wanted to die after reviving her from nearly drowning? Nah, just fucking knock her right back out again and get on with it like her opinion is irrelevant.

Joel had decided to keep her focused on the future as much as possible. The past could stay in the past where it belonged. Ellie had slept for most of the car ride, and when she woke up he filled her groggy head with sunshine and rainbows of their new life in Jackson. He would teach her to play guitar, and to swim, she could ride horses, they would have a roof over their heads and food in their bellies every day, she could watch movies every night with friends her own age, it would be so nice and oh Ellie you're just going to love it there just you wait and see I'll make damn sure of it. Ellie had been quiet. From the drugs, most likely. Yeah, that was probably it. Sure.

Ellie maintained enough distance between them that there was no need to fill the air with idle chatter; they walked the last half mile in silence. Since they were approaching the settlement from the southwest this time, it was the township itself that greeted them, not the dam. Joel knew they were getting close when he saw the fence. "Ellie, check this out!" He trotted up to the fence and pointed out the black clamps on one of the poles. "It's an electric fence. Tommy mentioned they had some. Me'n'him used to install 'em for the farmers back in Texas. Bet this one was a prison fence, with all that barbed wire on top. Think it's workin'?" Joel reached for a wire.

"No! Don't!" Ellie rushed over to save him from electrocuting himself. "Are you crazy?!"

Joel chuckled. "Some think so. You're right, I shouldn't test it with my hand." He grinned mischievously and grabbed her arm to tug her closer to the fence. "Lemme see yours…"

"Fuck you!" Ellie shrieked and jerked away from him, laughing for a moment but sobering quickly. Joel allowed himself a fleeting fantasy of Ellie giggling and running off into the forest, with himself in hot pursuit. When was the last time she'd run for the sheer fun of it, not because her life was at stake? He hoped she'd be able to be a kid here in Jackson. But, back to the business at hand…

"It prob'ly wouldn' hurt that bad, actually. Unless of course Tommy's got it on lethal voltage." About five hundred feet or so beyond the fence was a wall. Joel approved of all these security measures Tommy had taken. "We need to find a way around."

"Just like old times," muttered Ellie as she started scouting the area. "And by old times I mean, like, this morning."

It was hard to believe that only this morning they were blindly heading down that freeway exit to fight their way through a tunnel of Infected and, for him at least, a hospital full of Fireflies. The long, purgatorial drive here was a soft transition from before to after. Softer than the fucking outbreak, at any rate. Joel hadn't given much thought to what they'd say when they got here – his energies had been more focused on crafting a decent lie for Ellie's sake. A teenage girl who'd been through hell shouldn't have to shoulder the weight of the world. The load didn't bother him none for himself; he didn't give two shits about a world in which the 'good guys,' the heroes that everyone puts their faith in, kill innocents to further their noble fucking cause.

"Joel! Look!" Ellie stopped walking. There was a note of alarm in her voice that set Joel on edge. He looked in the direction she pointed and saw a couple of men in what appeared to be elevated guardhouses, just inside the fence. "That must be the entrance. I think I see… they have guns!"

"They do. Can't very well guard a place without 'em. Come on, let's go introduce ourselves."

"They could blow our fucking heads off!" He noticed Ellie scouting the area for cover.

"They'll be sorry if they try. We have to talk to them to get inside, silly. It'll be fine." Joel had no intention of blindly trusting these people just because they happened to be on the other side of the fence, however, and his right hand hovered near the shorty, just in case. Ellie didn't seem convinced but she kept walking, slightly behind him now. He reckoned they would both have to rewire their brains so that the mere sight of another human being wouldn't automatically trigger a fight-or-flight response. "Remember, these are Tommy's people, and Tommy's always been nicer than me. He wouldn' give anyone a gun if he thought they were trigger-happy."

Ellie snorted. "He's not the 'shoot first and ask questions later' type like you are, huh?"

"Definitely not. Hey, I ask questions first. Sometimes." Like back in Colorado when he needed to know where that motherfucker David was holding Ellie. 'Course, he killed them right after anyhow. Kill or be killed. No middle ground. That's why we're still alive.

"Hey, Joel…" Ellie put her hand on his arm to stop him from walking any closer to the settlement. She looked down and kinda shuffled her feet like she does when she's nervous or uncomfortable.

Please don't call me out on the lie, not now, not yet – "What is it?" he asked gently.

"What if… well, Tommy said there was a place for you here. He wasn't exactly expecting me to come back too. I was just your cargo. So… um…"

Shoot, was that all? I got this. "Ellie, stop. There's room in this town for both of us, I'm sure of it. Hey. Look at me." He waited a moment for her to oblige. "This ain't gonna happen, but if for some reason, my brother decides to be a dick and says you can't stay here, we'll both go. We're a package deal. Got it?"

"Got it." She did seem relieved, but she turned away so abruptly, like… like she remembered she was mad at him, or something. As they got closer, she did fall back – but only to let Joel take the lead as the men took more notice of them.

One guard drew his rifle as they got closer. The other one… actually laughed. "I'll be goddamned. You're Tommy's brother." Was the family resemblance between them really that strong? Joel didn't have to wonder long. "I'm Earl. I was on duty at the dam that day you and your girl passed through here. You were a big help to us, as I recall. Lower your gun, Tuck, these two are all right. Hold on and we'll get this gate open."

Joel hadn't realized how tense he was until he felt himself relaxing, even though the man called Tuck was still eyeing them warily. "Thank you. I appreciate the welcome. Pleasure to see you again, Earl." Ellie snickered quietly beside him, presumably amused at hearing him play nice. He elbowed her gently.

"Do you even remember him?" she whispered.

"No. Shut up," he hissed back, trying to suppress his own amusement. He heard Tuck calling Tommy on his walkie talkie ("your brother and a little girl here to see you" – good, at least Tommy wouldn't be taken aback by Ellie's presence). There were some clunking noises and a moment later the gate swung inward, closing and locking again behind them as soon as they stepped inside, and the men didn't need to climb down from the guardhouses to do it. Earl dropped down from his post anyway to shake Joel's hand, and after introductions were made he answered some of Joel's questions about the town while they waited for Tommy. Pretty much every adult who was proficient with a firearm was part of the militia, many of whom took turns guarding the entrances, usually in pairs. The population was estimated to be over two hundred – they'd grown a bit over the winter. Scouting parties 'rescued' people they found out there struggling to make it on their own, if they were deemed an unlikely threat to the town. Tommy insisted on interviewing each newcomer himself at length, and everyone had to spend their first three days in quarantine - Earl said he figured Tommy would bypass all that for Joel and Ellie. They held monthly meetings for the militia and for the town as a whole, usually on the first Wednesday of the month (Joel had no idea what day of the week it was, and only knew the date from that cunt Marlene's recorder).

"Hey big brother!" Tommy's voice rang out across the grounds, and he sported a wide grin. He trotted over with Maria in tow. "You made it! Not that I'm surprised – ain't nothin' in this world could kill you!"

"Oh you'd be surprised," Joel said with a chuckle, and then Tommy was hugging him, a good long fierce hug and damn was it good to lay eyes on him again. "How you been, baby brother?"

Maria nodded a hello to him and then turned to greet Ellie with a hug, Joel was pleased to see. Ellie was smiling and she seemed genuinely happy to see Maria. They had the rapport of old friends even though they'd spent all of, what, an hour together all those months ago? Joel felt a surge of gratitude for his brother and sister-in-law, and for whatever gods or powers-that-be or stroke of fucking luck that smiled down on him and Ellie this day - a day that nearly ended so very differently.