"I'm old." He said, glancing to her. She looked up, meeting his eyes. "No, you're not. Grandpa's old." "Still, I'm older than you." "Yeah." She replied, letting her eyes sweep appreciatively over his body. Her eyes lingered on his arms, and the way they were folded. Joel didn't know what to do with that and let his arms drop to the sides of his body, dangling loosely as his fingers twitched. "I'm too old for you." "Agree to disagree." "I'm fifty." "Fifty-two, actually." Life's been trudging on since Joel and Ellie returned to Jackson from Salt Lake. The girl's been adjusting well, but Tommy has some choice words for Joel's lack of sociability. Just start with getting a haircut, why don't you? This is a fanfic of Joel Miller and an original female character. It takes place shortly after the end of the first game/first season, following life in Jackson, and Joel's attempt at dating. Also available on AO3!

The world ended, but people didn't. Not entirely. Twenty years after the outbreak, survival has become second nature. But when Althea agrees to help smuggle a girl across the country, everything shifts. There's Joel: quiet, brutal, impossible. The gruff, closed-off man with blood on his hands and grief in his bones. There's Ellie: foul-mouthed and sharp-eyed, with too much riding on her small shoulders. And there's Althea, stuck somewhere between running from her past and crashing headfirst into a future she never dared to want. Love isn't safe. Hope isn't smart. But some things are worth the risk. Because in the end, it's not about what you've lost, but what you're willing to fight for, even when the world seems beyond saving.