The Doc

Chapter 3

Joel thought she was beautiful. Like, so far out of his league, a replay of Tess type beautiful. And there was no way he was going to tell Tommy that, otherwise he'd have to re-live what was probably one of the most heartbreaking nights of his life.

The one where Tess sacrificed herself for them both so that Joel could get Ellie to the Fireflies. He often wondered what Tess would have said to him if she knew how he'd fallen for the doctor. He wondered why he thought something would happen between them in the first place.

Yeah, there was no way he was telling anyone how he felt about Alice.

Which sucked, because she was currently living in the house right across from his.

They have opened the front doors at the same time on numerous occasions to collect post, and Joel could very vividly remember that one time she was still in her sleeping clothes.

Not pyjamas, no. Like, a T-shirt and what he assumed to be underwear type sleeping clothes, and it took every once of his nerves to politely look away, but there was no hiding the very obvious red tone his skin had taken on.

And now he can't look at Alice any differently. He can't look at her and not imagine what she looked like without her jeans and sweatshirts, because he had already seen it. And it was breathtaking.

It was already dark when Alice made her way to the armoury.

She checked out her rifle for her guard shift, the first of many graveyard shifts at the wall watchtower with Joel by her side.

Rodger, who was well known around town for his ridiculously strong home brew, was manning the armoury that night, and he slipped Alice a flask with a wink when gave her her rifle. Alice was pretty sure he was being more than friendly, but she couldn't honestly care less. At least she had something to keep her awake during her shift.

Alice clanged on the metallic stairs of the little watchtower to relieve the people from the previous shift, and as they made their way down, she couldn't help but shyly look around for Joel. He'd show up soon enough, right?

Alice had already made herself as comfortable as possible on one of the hard chairs in the watchtower when he came up, rifle slung over his shoulder, wearing one of his usual flannels but not rolled up to his elbows. It was a breezy night.

Joel grumbled something that sounded like a sorry 'm late but Alice couldn't really tell. He sat down and leaned his rifle against the wall in complete silence, and stared out into the darkness.

Awkwardly, Alice did the same, but she really couldn't see shit, aside from the few yards that were lit by the wall's spotlights. For a while, neither of them talked, and the silence shifted into something comfortable. Alice got the gist - he really didn't wanna talk right now, and that was okay with her.

Sighing, Alice decided to take a sip out of the flask Rodger gave her - it's not like she had anything better to do. She could feel Joel watching her out of the corner of his eyes curiously as she took a drink, coughing at the sheer amount of alcohol in it. Bad idea.

"What's that you got in there?"

Wow, he talks.

"What do you think?"

He huffed something that almost sounded like a laugh.

After a few more seconds of silence, Alice offered him the flask. "Want a sip? It's nice and warm."

Joel looked at the flask warily, and then met her eyes. He slowly took it from her hand, then took a sip, not breaking eye contact. He cleared his throat loudly after swallowing, grimacing.