Silver ||Joel Miller||

that's no way to speak to the love of your life, darling

JOEL

"Is this who you were travelling with?"

Joel looked up at the person who he believed was in charge of this place, Sean. He'd been locked in one of the terribly built cabins in the little village they'd made, one that Joel was almost sure would fall over if a gust of wind came along that was too strong.

"I told you already, I'm not travelling with anyone. I'm trying to find my brother..." he trailed off as two men carried in an unconscious woman, one with recognisable dark curls. Fuck.

"So you have no idea who this is?" Sean asked, and Joel shook his head as they placed Laura on the bed.

"No fucking idea," Joel replied. It was difficult to keep himself from running over to her, from making sure she was okay. It was even harder to stop himself from breathing too hard, to stop his hands from shaking.

"Really? Because after she fainted at our front gate, she's been in and out of consciousness saying she was looking for her husband that she called Texas. Now I think it's pretty coincidental that you have a Texan accent, don't you?" Sean asked. He kept his mouth shut and looked at Laura once again who was laid out on top of the bed like a doll. "We want to help you, and her. Like we said before, being out there is dangerous, but here we have the solution. You could be a part of the future if you just trusted us."

"I might trust you more if you gave me back my guns." Joel replied as they dropped Laura's bag on the floor. No quiver, no bow. They must have taken them as well. Fuck.

"And like we said, you'll get them back if you earn our trust first. We'll be bringing you food shortly as well as more water, we assume she's fainted because you haven't had food for a while. After you eat we can continue talking about where to go from here," Sean said. He then walked out of the cabin with the other two, which left him alone with a still unconscious Laura.

In the silence he was able to process exactly what Sean had said.

"Husband?" He whispered to himself before he turned to look at Laura. Her eyes were fluttering udnerneath her eyelids too much for her to be unconscious... she'd been playing them. "They're gone, wife," he said, and she hissed as she sat up.

"That's no way to speak to the love of your life, darling." There was a smile on her face that he didn't like the look of, but there were more important things to address; like the fact she was here and not fucking anywhere else.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" He asked as she stood up from the bed and walked over to him.

"I'm here to get you out of here alive, thought that one might be obvious," she replied as she took in the room around them. It was rudimentary at best. Simple walls without any windows and a stone hearth that had no business being inside a wooden building. He'd been keeping a close eye on the fire, because he was sure that one wrong movement could send the entire building ablaze.

"Where's Ellie?" He whispered, just in case there was anyone outside listening to them.

"Hopefully halfway back to the mineshaft by now," Laura whispered back. Hopefully? She hadn't even made sure the kid was safe before she...

"Are you fucking kidding me?" He rubbed his face in an attempt to calm down. It didn't work.

"No, she'll be fine. And before you go off at me for leaving her alone, maybe consider the fact that I've already scolded myself with harsher words than you ever could." Laura looked up at him and he shook his head. She had left their kid to come and save him. How could she—wait. Did he just think of Ellie as their kid? No, no he hadn't, because that would mean he hadn't pushed her away at all. It would mean quite the opposite and that would only end badly for him.