Silver ||Joel Miller||

steal us more time

LAURA

"I love you, Mum."

Laura thought she'd already experienced terror—that she'd already felt the worst of it. That thought had just been corrected.

This was it.

This was pure terror.

But Ellie was right, she couldn't shut down. None of them could afford it. She would have to wait until they were all safe again before she could do that, and if that meant waiting until they were back in Jackson then so be it. Although, she doubted she would make it that far.

"Joel, you need to get the fuck up." She told him a she ran over to him to check he was breathing one last time. He made some kind of noise in response but she didn't know what it meant. "I'm going to chase down the ones above ground. I know it hurts but you need to get the fuck up."

His eyes opened and landed on her, her eyebrows pinched as she looked down at him.

"I can't-"

"You're going to have to. I'll do my best go keep them away, but like Ellie said, if any of them come down here you have to fucking kill them." She made sure the knife was clenched in his fist. "I understand that what we've been given together is a gift, and I'm not going to take it for granted. But I'm not happy with just a few days of peace with you, understood? So if that's all we're going to be given, then we're going to take more. I can't steal us more time by myself, I need you to help me."

She felt his hand grab her wrist and he nodded. Good. Good, that meant he'd heard her. That's all she could ask for.

"Promise me you'll help me," she said.

"Laura..." he whispered.

"Promise me." There wasn't any room for argument. She wouldn't let him pull out of this. The last couple of days had been excruciating, but it surely proved to him that she and Ellie weren't going anywhere.

"I promise," he whispered between laboured breaths. "You, promise..."

"I pr-"

"Not to sacrifice yourself for me," he cut her off, even though his voice was hardly louder than his breath.

"Joel-"

"I wouldn't be able to live with myself, just... promise me." She wasn't sure if she could make that promise.

"Honey, I-"

"This isn't your fault. Your perfect streak was bound to break, but that doesn't mean this was your fault or that you give up. No one can be perfect, we're only human. You don't need to make up for anything, darlin'."

Darlin'.

Laura's breath shook. She hadn't heard him call her by that name in years, and it stirred some painful part of her to hear it while he was on his death bed with bad guys swarming them.

"Darling?" She asked in a whisper, and he smiled.

"Honey?" He questioned, and she realised that she'd let the name slip before. She never had a name for him, nothing aside from Texas. Nolan had been 'baby' or 'pumpkin'. But Joel...

"Honey," she confirmed. "I won't sacrifice myself for you." A tear fell down her cheek. "I promise."

"Good. Now go," he told her. She couldn't leave just yet.

Laura quickly placed a kiss on his lips, but just as fast as she'd intitiated the contact, she pulled away. She couldn't afford to stay any longer.

She sprinted up the stairs, bow in hand and quiver on her back, and moved a bookshelf in the way of the basement door. She slipped out the back of the house and kept behind the bushes.

Ellie was about to begin her distraction, and Laura had to be ready. With her string pulled taut she lined up her first shot and took a shaky breath. If she knew who the leader was she would have targeted him first, but instead she picked the largest man there. He was the one who would pose the biggest threat.

And then chaos ensued.

Ellie was on the back of a horse, and started shooting at every man she saw. The second horse bolted, terrified of the gunshots.

In the chaos, Laura loosed her arrow and watched as it hit its target. A few of the other men saw her prey go down, but they quickly turned their focus back to Ellie.

Laura picked off one more before she saw both of the horses get shot. She only managed to hit one more before Ellie went down. While she knew what the plan was, and that she wasn't meant to shut down, seeing them pick Ellie up...

She froze.

"No," she whispered, her heart pounding in her ears as the men carried Ellie away.

Laura had to protect her daughter.

She knocked another arrow and lined up her shot, and took out another one of their men. Two. And in their confusion she shot another. Three. And another. Four.

There weren't many stragglers left now, not since they'd taken Ellie. But how many of them were left-

She was cut off by hands yanking her backwards, pulling her against a body that felt wrong with a hand clasped over her mouth.

Hell no.

They weren't going to take her. Not easily, at least.

She stomped on his foot and in the shock he let go, so she used her elbow to clip him in the nose. With only a second to work with she punched him in the throat, and readied herself for another swing, but instead another pair of hands took hold of her.

"Oh, I can't wait to be alone with you..." the man behind her whispered, his hand over her mouth just like the original assailant.

Fighting against him wouldn't work. She was a ranged fighter. While she could take on one person if they got too close, fighting two...

She needed Joel. She needed him to be awake, and moving and alive. She needed him to...

Without wasting anymore time, she bit the hand that covered her mouth hard enough to draw blood. With the metallic tang on her tongue, she squirmed in her attackers grasp and shouted the one word that would make these men regret ever touching her.

 "Silver!"