Disclaimer : I do not own any character of (The Last of Us) TLOU is owned by Naughty Dog.

A/N: This story is rated T, just to be safe. The story have only minor violence and bad language. Hi, this is my second one-shot so I hope you liked. Is not a holiday one, just something that come to mind. It suppose to be a humor story, but go all the way around and become a action one. Still have some humor in there, but not as much as I wanted to be. Anyway thank for reading and hope that you enjoy it.

The Negotiation

After a year in Jackson, Ellie and Joel are working in the town, doing several things to help out his brother and Maria. After Maria sent a few scouts to search for any surviving towns that were close to them to trade, the group of scouts found a small town close to the border of Montana. After they return, Maria and Tommy decide to go there by horse to negotiate a treaty with the people that live there. Maria and Tommy take Joel and Ellie with them. It takes almost a week to get there.

As soon as they arrive, they notice that the town is very small and not well-protected, but the land that surrounds the place is good for farming. Tommy and Maria decide to negotiate a trade route, even though the town doesn't seem to have much to offer, there are other things that can be worked out. Maria agreed with Tommy to bring Joel and Ellie with them, so that way, Ellie can learn how to negotiate with other people. As soon as they go inside, the leader of the town welcomes them by removing all their weapons, just as a precaution and agrees to talk to Maria. So Maria takes Ellie with her and sends Tommy and Joel to check the town. Lucky for them, things are good... for the time being.

(20 minutes later)

Maria and Ellie follow the leader to a small store in the town that was converted into the leader's office. As soon as they enter, the man offers for them to sit in the chairs in front of his desk. After Maria and Ellie sit down, he introduces himself.

"Well, my name is Roger, and as you know by now, I'm the leader of this town. So what brings you here? I mean... besides trade?"

"Nice to meet you, sir, my name is Maria and this is Ellie," Maria says, introducing herself and Ellie. "Like I said before, we're a part of the community that lives south of here." She starts leaning forward. "We try to make contact and trade routes between the towns we find for the benefit of all the people that want to live a peaceful life."

The man looks directly into her eyes, then at Ellie, and lets out a small laugh. "Sorry, but that sounds like a fairy tale. The people that live in this world now just do whatever they want to survive. And we have to do whatever we need to protect ourselves."

"Yeah, I get that. But we can do more than that - we can help each other. We can stay in contact, trading between towns and helping one another. There's a lot of things that we can do, and maybe in time, we can change a little... the world we live in now."

The man looks at Ellie, then at Maria. "Look, lady, this is a small town. And we deal with all kinds of people here… like I said, we do what we need to survive. We don't have much here, so I don't know what you can gain with all this. We're good so far, so we don't need your help here," says the man, leaning back in his chair.

Maria leans forward in the chair and looks directly at the man. "Yeah, I know that this is a small town - all the more reason for us to help each other. How many people live in this town?... 30, 40 max?" Maria continues talking with the man while Ellie just stays quiet in her seat, watching how Maria tries to convince the man.

Ellie has to give some credit to her: she is kind of good at this. But Ellie thinks that Joel is right. There is nothing in this town that's worth the trip here, trying to make a deal with these people. Ellie doesn't find this interesting at all, and she would prefer to go with Joel. She turns her head toward the glass window. It has some cracks in it, but it's still in fair shape. Also, it has a few old posters stuck on the glass, with some old promotion. As Ellie continues looking outside, she is wondering: where did Joel and Tommy go?

The man leans forward and puts his hands on top of the desk. "How many people live here and what we do is not your concern, lady. I agreed to this meeting because the people you sent before insisted that you can make a deal with us for things we can use. But so far, you're not offering anything except some fantasy dreams," says the man with a hard tone.

"Food is not good for you?..." says Maria, looking him in the eye. "What we're offering is a way to better your situation here," says Maria with the same tone.

"Food?... What food?... the only thing you're offering is to use the land close to here, to do some crops here," the man fumes at her. "I don't even know how you plan to do that - we're not farmers."

"But we have people that are!..." Maria leans back a little, frustrated; she knew that selling this was going to be hard. But this is a hard-headed man that doesn't have any vision of the future. "Look, we can provide the things you need to do all that. We only need a few people from your town to help us and a place for ours to stay here while they work."

"That still sounds like a fantasy to me. This world went to hell 21 years ago, and nothing we do can change that. The only thing we can do now is survive the best way we can."

"That's where you're wrong. Yeah, maybe we can't go back to the way we were before. But we can still try to make this country a better place to live. The last of us just need to work together for that," Maria finishes, leaning back again in her chair.

The man shakes his head and looks at her. "I've heard a lot of that crap before... People like you that think things can get better, but in the end, everything's still the same. You think that-"

The man looks at the window as soon as he hears some noises coming from outside. Ellie and Maria look as well, hearing some commotion coming from the other side of the street. The man shakes his head and looks down, grabbing his head with his hands. "Shit, not this again... I told them to stop fucking around in that place already," says the man with some indignation.

"What's going on in there?" asks Ellie with a worried expression. "Are we being attacked?"

The man looks at her now. "No… they're just a few drunk men, releasing some steam," says the man with little interest now. "Don't worry about it... we have a local sheriff that is going to take care of that very soon."

"What is that place... it sounds like people are fighting?" asks Maria now.

"It's the local bar. Some of the men found a truck full of liquor a few months ago. So they decided to repair and open an old bar that was on this street again. But sometimes they get carried away, get too drunk and start a brawl in there."

Ellie and Maria look at each other. "Joel!" both girls whisper at the same time.

The man looks at both the girls. "Don't worry, it'll only take a few minutes before our local sheriff and his men take care of the situation without any major problem."

Maria leans close to Ellie from her chair. "Sweetheart, maybe it's better if you go there and check if the boys are not involved in that," she whispers to Ellie.

"Okay," answers Ellie, standing up from the chair and moving toward the door. Ellie gives a last look at Maria, making sure that she is going to be okay before she opens the door and goes out of the little store. The street is almost deserted, except for a few people here and there. Ellie starts to walk toward the bar that's a few buildings away. As soon as she gets close, Ellie sees a few children in front of the bar, trying to look inside through the dirty glass window. Ellie takes a deep breath and crosses the street. As soon she arrives at the front of the supposed bar, she decides to ask the kids what happen there. "Hey, what's going on in there?" Ellie asks one of the kids after putting one hand on his shoulder.

The kid turns and looks at her. He couldn't have been older than 9. "It's a fight - they do it all the time now," answers the kid, looking at her with some curiosity.

The other two kids there turn and look at her. "You want to bet?" asks one of the other two. That one is like 13. "Wait… who're you? I've never seen you around here before."

"Dude!... I think she came with the outsiders," says the other one. He is like 10.

Ellie rolls her eyes. "You're making a bet on who wins a fight from your own people?... you kids should be ashamed. People should only fight if their lives are in danger... Not for a game," Ellie says to the 3 kids.

The oldest one moves closer to her and smiles. "We're not making bets against our own people. Well, not all of us, anyway. Two of the people that are fighting are yours," says the boy with a smile. "So you want to bet, or not?"

"WHAT!..." Ellie yells in surprise. Then she walks toward the door and opens it. As soon as Ellie enters the old bar, she sees the men who are fighting in there. "What the hell is this?" she asks while looking at them with a furious expression.

All the men who are fighting in there hear her and stop. Ellie looks around the place, and even though it's poorly illuminated, she sees a few men already unconscious on the floor. None of the other men there say anything as she continues looking. Then she sees Tommy being held on top of a table by two men. "Where's Joel?" Ellie asks in the direction where Tommy is.

"You shouldn't be here, kid!... this is a man thing," says one of the men holding Tommy.

Ellie starts to move more into the place when she sees another three men close to the bar counter, holding Joel by his arm. She is surprised to see that he got a few punches in his face, and those guys are still standing.

The man in front of him looks at Ellie before speaking. "You heard the man - this is no place for a kid… so it's better for you to go outside until we finish this," says the man, then he turns around to punch Joel again, but stops when he hears the girl yell at him.

"STOP!" yells Ellie while moving close to them. "Let him go… now!"

The man turns around and looks at her. "Listen, kid!... I already told you to-" he is interrupted by Ellie again.

"No!... you listen to me, asshole!... let them go... NOW! If you know what's good for you." Ellie changes her sight to Joel. He is now looking at her with worried eyes. "Joel, what the hell is this?... You and Tommy are supposed to check the place, not start a fight?" Ellie talks to him like she's reprimanding a kid.

"Sorry… kiddo… I was trying to be... polite, but these people... don't know... when to stop," says Joel with some difficulty.

"Polite!... you call this polite?... I don't think that it's too polite if you start a brawl in a town that we came to negotiate?"

Joel can't believe that Ellie is talking to him like that. She sounds like Maria already. "Sorry… but I had to do something when these people… started to talk bullshit about us."

"Well, your play time's over, Joel, now c'mon and let's go... both of you," says Ellie, crossing her arms in front of her chest, a glare on her face. Then she looks back to the man in front of him. "Look, sorry for all this, okay, he gets in over his head sometimes. Now if all of you would be so kind and let them go. I'm sure that Maria can arrange something to compensate for all the damage done here."

As soon as she finishes, all the men there start to laugh. "Well, well, well. It seems like the tough guy here needs a little girl to defend him." He starts to laugh again, then all the others start, too. "Listen, you stupid little shit. You think this is a game?... This man just knocked out three men over there, out of nowhere. And one of them was my brother. So if you don't mind, the only compensation I'm going to get is to beat the shit out of him… until he can't stand up anymore. So get out of here if you don't want to see your fucking grandpa get hurt." Then he turns around and looks at Joel furiously.

"What did you say?" Ellie tries to hold herself back and not jump into the man right now and give him a piece of her right there. "Look, I'm just trying to stop this before it gets worse… so if you want to get out of here in one piece, it's better for-"

The man turns around and looks at her. Then he starts to laugh hard. "You really have some balls, girl, I give you that." He turns and looks at one of the men close to Tommy. "You!.. get her out of here, before this gets really ugly," he says, pointing at the man. "And make sure she stays out until we finish. Then we can think about what to do with her and the other woman."

The man nods, then walks toward Ellie and grabs her by the arm. "C'mon, kid, it's better for you if you don't see what's going to happen to your grandpa." He starts to drag her toward the door.

Ellie struggles and tries to get out of the man's grip. "Grandpa?... it's better for you to let me go... right now, before this gets really ugly for you."

The leader smiles as he sees Ellie being dragged out, then he turns to face Joel. "I can tell you, old man, she is a piece of work."

Joel spits some blood on the ground and looks at him with smile. "You don't have any idea, asshole."

"Humm… maybe I can check on that, after we finish with you." Then he punches Joel in the stomach, making him bend over and spit more blood.

"Stop!... you don't know what you're doing," Ellie yells as she continues to struggle.

The man turns and looks at them. "I said get that little bitch out of here... NOW!"

"Now you're really making a big mistake." Joel moves forward as fast as he can and hits the man in his face with his head. The man moves backward, putting his hands on his face to stop the bleeding from his nose.

At the same time, Ellie moves one of her legs and kicks the man holding her in the balls. "What did you say to me, you jerk?..." The man screams and lets go of her arm as he drops to the floor in pain.

"What the hell!" says one of the men holding Tommy.

As soon as the man gets distracted, Tommy pulls one of them to the side, making him lose his balance and fall to the floor. The other one tries to keep hold of Tommy's arm, but Tommy gets up on his feet and punches the man in the face.

The leader of the group looks at the blood on his hands. "You broke my nose… you motherfucker." The other two men try to keep their hold on Joel when the leader starts to move close to him. "Now you're really going to pay for this." As the man gets closer, Joel moves his legs up and kicks the man in the chest. With that move, one of the men loses the grip on his arm, so Joel takes the opportunity to pull him to the side to bump with the other man, and the two of them fall to the floor. "You fucking asshole - don't let him get away… grab him!"

Another man grabs a wooden chair and attacks Joel with it, but Joel quickly moves to the side and the chair hits the counter. The two on the floor get up and try to grab Joel again, but Joel moves away from them.

"I was easy on you, because I don't want any trouble. But no one insults my girl like that." Joel moves forward and grabs one of the men by his shirt and kicks the other away. The one he has in his hand is pulled close and Joel hits him in the face. "Nobody... calls my little girl that… you asshole," Joel says to the man, hitting him several times in the face.

As Joel drops the man to the floor, he goes for the other one that grabbed another chair and tried to hit him. Tommy, on the other hand, grabs one of the men attacking him and punches him in the gut. The other man grabs Tommy from behind and pushes him toward the wall, but Tommy lifts his feet and uses the wall to propel himself backward. Both men fall to the floor, but the man behind him feels all the impact from the fall.

Joel moves to the side, avoiding the chair, but before he can kick the man in the back, another one tackles him down. "You son of a bitch!... you're going to pay for this. I'm going to kill both of you and then we're going to have some fun with your little girl," says the leader, grabbing a wooden leg from one of the chairs and starting to move close to Joel. Joel tries to push the man who is grabbing him on the floor, away from him. But before he does, the leader is beside him and hits him with the wood stick. He is going to hit him again, but Ellie jumps on his back, grabs him by the head, and starts to yank his hair. "Ahhhh!.. What the hell!... Ohhh!" he starts to scream and pull back.

"That's for calling me names, you asshole." Ellie then moves her head close to his shoulder. "And this is for hitting Joel, you motherfucker!" Then she goes down and bites the man on the neck.

"Ahhhhhh!... you little fuck!" the man screams in pain.

After Ellie attacks the leader, Joel nudges him in the side and pushes him away from him. Then he goes up and attacks another man that is going to hit Ellie. Before he does, Joel pushes him against the bar counter and hits him in the ribs a few times. Then Joel grabs a bottle from the top of the counter and hits the man on the head. As the man gets disoriented, Joel moves forward and punches the man in his face, making him fall down unconscious on the floor.

On the other side of the bar, Tommy is fighting the two men holding him; he punches one in the stomach, and when the man falls down, he grabs a chair and hits the other with it, making him fall down, too. Tommy moves and kicks the man on the floor in the head, leaving him unconscious. But before he moves away, the other one grabs him from behind, making both of them fall into a table and break it.

Joel finishes with the last one that was on him by punching him in the stomach, then grabbing him by the head and smacking him on the side of the counter. As the man falls down, he wipes the blood from his nose and starts looking for Ellie. He sees her on the back of the leader, still yanking his hair.

The man is screaming and yelling back at Ellie. Then he moves close to a wall and smashes his back there with Ellie on it several times. Ellie lets out a scream of pain, and after getting hit against the wall, she lets go of the man and falls to the floor in pain. The man turns and kicks her in the stomach. "You're going to pay for that, you little cunt!" He is going to hit her again, but Joel runs toward him and tackles the man to the floor.

"You like to hit kids, humm." Joel turns him over to face him, then he sits on top of him and starts to punch him in the face. "Let's see how you like that… asshole!" Joel grabs his shirt and pulls him up, then hits him again with his other hand.

(Outside the bar)

The three kids are looking through the window. The oldest one turns to look at the others. "Okay, the fight is over, pay up!... you lose." The other two kids look at each other, then back to the oldest one. "I told you that the outsiders were going to win… Now pay!" the oldest one says, extended one hand to them.

"That's not fair - that girl went in there and helped them," one of the other kids protests. "And besides, they're still fighting, so the fight's not over yet."

"It doesn't matter if the girl went in. The bet was that the outsiders were going to win the fight… so stop whining and pay up."

"Dude!... how do you bet against our own people?... even though your dad was in there, too?" says another kid that just arrived at the front of the bar.

"My dad is an asshole… he likes to hit my mom a lot when he gets mad or drunk. So he deserves what they did to him," the oldest kid says. "Anyway, this doesn't concern you. These two bet on that, so they need to pay up," he says in a hard tone, then looks at the two boys. The two boys look at him with a worried face.

While the kids continue with their discussion, a group of adults arrive at the front of the bar. "What the hell is going on here?" asks a man in the front of the group. The four kids turn and see the sheriff of the town, with three more men behind him.

"It's a brawl!" says the youngest kid.

"Yeah, I can hear that already," answers the sheriff. "You know that you're not supposed to be here… now go back to your houses - the show is over."

"No it's not, they're still fighting-" one of the kids starts to say, but stops when they see the glass window breaking and a man landing on the sidewalk, unconscious. "Okay, now it's over." As soon as the kids see the man on the floor covered in blood, they run away.

The sheriff moves quickly and goes down to check the man, and after confirming that he's still alive, he gets up and looks at the others. "Shit!... Those guys went too far this time," he says to the other three men there. Then he takes out his weapon, moves slowly toward the door, and grabs the handle. "Okay, you guys, be ready. I don't want things to get ugly with those assholes in there, so do what I tell you." He takes a deep breath, but before he opens the door, another voice can be heard on the other side of the street.

"What the hell is going on here?" asks the leader of the town as he and Maria walk toward them.

The sheriff turns to meet the leader, then moves away from the door. "I think they went too far this time, sir. I told you that opening this bar was a bad idea."

The leader of the town gives him a serious look. "Isn't it your job to keep people in line?... and keep the peace in this town?" asks the man in a serious tone. Then he looks at the man laying on the sidewalk. "Jesus!... Is that Toby?... he doesn't even drink, so what the hell was he doing in there?" The man is going to look inside through the broken window, but the sheriff stops him.

"I don't think it's a good idea to do that, sir," says the man, pulling him away.

"Why… I don't even hear anything now… and what were you going to do with that weapon?"

"They just threw a man through the window, sir. I'm not going inside there wi-"

"Jesus Christ… Just stop talking and open the door. I want all this to stop now."

"Yes, sir." The sheriff turns and grabs the door handle again. "Okay, boys, just be careful... those assholes always do stupid things when they get too drunk." Maria and the leader just stay put as the sheriff starts to open the door and enter with his men following. He stays in the entrance just in case. When he looks around, he sees all the destruction there. "Okay, guys, I have a gun, so don't do anything stupid."

The place has poor illumination, so he can't see clearly in there. As most of the light comes from outside, he needs to be carefull. As the sheriff starts to walk into the place with his men, he starts to see a few men laying on the floor. Maria and the leader go in after they move inside and start to look around, too. Then she sees Tommy sitting at a table, holding a cloth against his forehead. Maria quickly runs toward him and puts her hands on his shoulders. "Tommy, are you alright?... what the hell happened here?" she starts to question him.

The leader looks at them. "Yeah, I want to know that myself," says the leader, turning to look toward the bar while the sheriff and his men start to check the men on the floor. The leader moves close to Joel and Ellie, who are sitting there. Ellie is cleaning the blood from Joel's face when the man gets close to them. "What the hell happened here?" he asks.

"Well, that's going to be a long story," says Joel, spitting some blood on the floor.

(Five hours later)

"I can't believe that you two ruined the negotiations. I can believe that from Joel, but from you, Tommy? What the hell were you thinking?" says Maria with an angry tone.

Ellie is going to protest, but Joel turns his head and gives her a look (that tells her not to make it worse). So she closes her mouth and looks away. She is now riding behind Joel as Tommy and Maria are riding the other horse.

"Sorry, honey, but they started it. We only-"

"Just stop - I don't want to hear any of that right now. They not only threw us out of town and don't want to do any business with us - we also had to give them two of our horses and half of our provisions and weapons. Just to let us go and not make things worse. We were lucky that they believed that we have more people in the forest waiting for us, and they don't want a war with us."

Tommy leans his head close to Maria's. "Yeah, we're lucky... things could've been worse." Maria turns and gives Tommy a hard look. "Okay, stop talking," he says with a trembling voice.

"That negotiation you want to do there... it wasn't going to work anyway," says Joel. "That town is not going to last long as it is."

Maria turns her head back again and looks in Joel's direction. "Shut up, Joel, I didn't ask for your opinion. I bet that you started that fight, just for fun. Why do you always have to resolve everything with your fists?" says Maria with a mad voice.

"Even if you believe that, I don't fight for fun. I just do it when it's needed to defend myself and those close to me, to stay alive... Look, I'm sorry that your trade treaty or whatever didn't go as you wanted, but those assholes… I know that those assholes were going to do something bad at the end."

"Yeah, Joel, you always think that everyone is planning something bad... that was why you put two of them in a coma, and almost killed the other six," says Maria.

"Hey, your husband was there, too, if I remember. And those assholes almost broke his head and a few of my ribs."

"Joel is right." Ellie is the one talking now. "I don't know how all that started, but when I entered, they were trying to kill Joel and Tommy. And when I tried to stop them, they wanted to hurt me, too. So I think that they were only defending themselves," says Ellie proudly.

Maria shakes her head and continues without saying anything more. Tommy moves his head close to her ear and starts to murmur something to her. Joel and Ellie stay a little behind. Ellie tightens her arms around Joel, but loosens them when Joel makes a sound of pain. "Sorry… that still hurts too much?" asks Ellie in a lower voice.

"Just when I laugh…" answers Joel, smiling. After a moment of silence, he speaks again. "It's okay, kiddo, I'll be good in no time," he says to her, moving one hand and putting it on top of hers.

Ellie moves closer to him and lays her head sideways on his back. "Shit, Joel, did you need to fight all of them?" she whispers to him. After a few minutes of silence, she speaks again. "Are you going to tell me the real reason of why you two were fighting in there?"

Joel closes his eyes for a moment to think before he answers her. Then he opens them and speaks. "I already told you and Maria what happened. And that was the truth, and you heard Tommy confirm it. Look, kiddo, those people were going to do something bad, and when we tried to find out what it was, they attacked us. We only defended ourselves."

Why do I have the feeling that you and Tommy are not telling the whole truth? says Ellie to herself, but doesn't say anything to Joel.

(A few hours later)

They continue their travel back to Jackson, and as soon as the night is close, they stop at a lake and make a camp there to pass the night. After everything is set up, Joel walks to the shore of the lake and starts looking in the distance. He is alone, thinking. It's already night now, so the moonlight is reflecting on the water. He is in deep thought when he hears someone coming from behind. "Do you think that they'll really believe our story?" asks Tommy, stopping beside him.

"I hope so," he says, shaking his head and moving a small object in his hand. "I should kill him… I should kill them all. If they found out about her…"

"Don't worry, bro, I don't think he did. And even so, you put him in a coma, so I don't think that he'll be talking with anyone anytime soon." He puts one hand on Joel's shoulder. "C'mon, it's late and we need to rest. Besides, Ellie is going to come looking for you if you don't come back soon."

"Maria still pissed?" asks Joel without looking at his brother.

"Yeah, but don't worry about that, either. She will calm down in a few days," he says, smiling.

Joel shakes his head. "Yeah, it's going to be a long way back."

"Yeah, you're telling me?... I'm the one that needs to sleep beside her," he says, laughing a little.

Joel looks at him and smiles, too. "Go ahead, bro, I'm going there in a minute, okay?" Tommy gives him a few slaps on his shoulder, then walks away.

Joel looks at the lake again, then looks back to the military tags he has in his hands. "I will never let them find you again... baby girl... No matter what I have to do." Then he throws the military tag chain with the Firefly insignia on it toward the lake. He watches it go down in the water, then he turns and walks back to the small camp with Ellie and the others.

The End…