sunshine // joel miller

FIFTEEN

Chapter Fifteen
Sheep ranches on the moon

It had been a long three months since everything had happened in Kansas City, and to say the dynamic of the group had changed would be an understatement.

Fran was not the same person that Joel had first met, not by a long shot. She was quiet, very quiet, and kept to herself. While she used to be the one to encourage Ellie's silly jokes, and join her when making fun of Joel, now she just stayed silent, not smile to be seen.

It had taken Fran two months to really get over what had happened in Kansas city, who they'd left behind. It was a sore subject for them all, and while before she would've been more focused on Ellie and how she was feeling about it all, she couldn't find any room to put her feelings aside, needing to take the time for herself.

Joel knew Fran had changed when the group made it to Cody, expecting Tommy to be there. He'd watched her scream at an infected that had run at them - but no longer was it a scream of terror, but one of anger. Both him and Ellie had watched Fran bash it's head in, the thing's head left in pieces as she used it to get all of her anger out.

The months moved by, autumn bleeding into winter as the three continued to walk. Cody was a failure, no Tommy to be found, so they'd headed west, hoping that there would be any clues.

In actuality, it had just got them lost, their only hope being a little cabin covered in a fresh blanket of snow. An old couple living inside. Only the wife was there when they first arrived, not at all alarmed by the gun Joel had pointed at her. She simply offered them soup.

That led to where they were now, Fran busying herself cleaning up the nice soup woman's kitchen as a thank you, as Joel waited patiently for the husband to arrive home - Ellie hidden upstairs and out of sight.

She heard the front door open, Joel being hidden in the kitchen by her when it happened. She paused her movements, knowing Joel most likely wanted the element of surprise, and listened as the husband put his crossbow down and started to take off his jacket.

Joel took that as his time to make himself known, waking out with his gun raised as he told the man to put the gun down.

Another thing that had happened since Kansas was Fran's feelings towards the objects. She didn't like them before, but absolutely despised them now. Her gun had been put away in her bag since it had happened, no longer okay with it creating a heaviness in her pocket.

Joel had tried to get her to understand the importance of it, and how she needed it just in case, but she refused to entertain the conversation, her only come back always being, "look where it's got us so far."

"Who the hell are you?" The man's voice was gruff as he spoke, sounding less stressed than he probably should of, and more pissed at the situation.

"Just someone passin' through," Joel answered as Fran cleaned up another bowl, the clattering making the old man's eyebrows furrow, trying to spot the other intruder.

Joel was quick to shut it down, "Take the gun out, two fingers only, put it outta reach."

The man stared for a silent moment as more clattering occurred in the kitchen, before doing as told. He looked to his wife's "Why didn't you shoot him?"

"The gun's all the way over there." She answered from where she sat in her rocking chair, "He didn't hurt me, by the way."

"Yeah, I got eyes." He responded as Fran appeared, not looking at any of them and instead just grabbing the bowl that sat on the counter, half the soup the woman had made still inside.