Silver ||Joel Miller||

we can still get out of this

JOEL

Of all the ways he'd imagined their road trip to Wyoming going wrong... this hadn't been one of them. But, they were out of the main part of the city. All that stood between them and freedom was a residential area that had been quiet so far.

"He's starting to grow on you, isn't he?" Laura whispered, walking close enough to him that her shoulder brushed his arm.

"No," he replied. He should have knows better than to think that he would get away with lying to her.

"You talked with him for a long period of time without any kind of prompting and without me involved. He's growing on you." God damn it. Of course she'd listened to the entire conversation he'd had with Henry in that abandoned underground community.

"What, the conversation we had while you were searching the entire place for more books?" Joel didn't know how else to respond that wouldn't prove her point.

"Yes, that exact one." That was not how he thought she'd respond. Or maybe it's not how he'd hoped she'd respond. He'd wanted her to get angry at him because he'd questioned her and her books.

"Do you know where we are?" Joel asked, needing to change the focus of attention away from Laura who was getting far too close for comfort.

"Yep, we're on the other side." The level of confidence Henry had nearly matched Ellie's. "And no one is here. No one is going to be here, because my plan worked." They weren't out of it yet, and Joel didn't want to get comfortable until they were far away from the damned city.

"So much goddamn talkin'," Joel said. Talking wasn't the only thing Henry was good at, because the kid also had a talent for assuming. Even after the absolutely wild suggestion that Joel and Laura were married, he continued the trend by assuming that Ellie was his kid. Or rather, assuming that Ellie was their kid. The second assumption had been shut down much more efficiently than the first.

"I'm just saying, I delivered. We make this right, go down the street, through the embankment behind the last house and we're out." If only Joel believed it could be that simple. It couldn't be because nothing ever was.

"So we get across the river and then what? Where are you going to go?" Ellie asked. The question made Joel's shoulders tense, because he had a feeling he knew exactly where the conversation was going.

"Don't know yet," Henry answered.

"Well, we're going to Wyoming." This kid was going to be the death of him.

"Ellie..." Laura's voice was a quiet warning, which surprised Joel. If anything, he expected her to be on Ellie's side of this.

"What? There's surely enough room in the state to fit two more people." That argument may have had a valid point, but that didn't mean he had to agree with it.

"Yeah, it might be best to just call this a win and say our fond goodbyes," Henry replied. Joel couldn't agree more.

"No, they'll change their minds. Trust me. Laura's only against it to keep Joel happy, but give it a day or two and she'll switch her side." The way that Laura grimaced told him that was the truth. Was she really just agreeing with things to keep him happy? If that was the case why the fuck did she let Henry and Sam stay last night? "And Joel, he'll be all like 'no, Ellie. Never, ever, ever happening'." Was that supposed to be what he sounds like?

"That impression was pretty spot on..." Laura whispered, looking up at Joel with a smile on her face.

"I don't sound like that." He had said that with far too much conviction.