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"If you'd like," Joel says, shifting on the couch, "you could ask Preston to the dance."
They are just as they always are after dinner when Ellie doesn't have evening patrol duty - chilling on the couch, doing something or other. Yesterday, it was a guitar practice session (one that made her have a love-hate relationship with Sloop John B), but tonight is quieter. Ellie is laying down, using the arm of the couch as a pillow, legs bunched up slightly to leave room for Joel. She hears the sound of Joel setting aside the book Ellie had recommended to him last week on the coffee table, and Ellie lowers her Savage Starlight comic to make hesitant eye contact with him.
"Um," is all she manages.
"Or Nahid," Joel suggests. "Maria told me he also doesn't have a date yet."
"Uh, well..." she trails off, and Joel misinterprets her hesitance.
"It's okay," he reassures her, "you don't have to go to the dance if you really don't want to."
"No, it's not that." Shit. Shit. Her hands shake slightly, so she drops the comic in favor of clasping her hands together. This has never come up before. She's been with Joel for about 3 years and this has never come up. Her heart hammers in her throat. Damn it, why was she so nervous? This was Joel, he wouldn't... This was stupid. She thinks back to Bill, who Joel knew was gay. He never treated him any different.
"Oh, you want to go alone? That's okay, kiddo-"
"No, it's..." Ellie lets out a breath she doesn't realize she's been holding, then swings her legs so she's sitting up, a cushion away from Joel. "And I won't be alone." She smiles at him. "I've got you, old man."
He huffs a laugh. "But I'm not going to dance."
She fakes a scowl. "Oh, you're gonna dance, Joel. Mark my words."
He laughs again, the sound slowing her frantic heartbeat. "Okay kiddo, we'll see."
Ellie almost picks up her comic, almost shoves Joel's leg good-naturedly with her foot. Joel reaches for the book again.
"Did Maria mention any girls in need of a date?" Ellie blurts.
Joel pauses.
The teen's mind goes a million different places in the moment before he turns to look at her. "Oh, Ellie. I'm sorry, I shouldn't've assumed."
"Oh," Ellie replies, wishing her voice didn't sound so subdued. "It's okay." This feels weird, and scary, somehow. No one (at least, no one alive) knows she is a lesbian.
"No, really, I-" he lets out something akin to a chuckle.
"What?" Ellie asks, baffled. She fidgets, wishing she had her guitar. Her fingers tap out the G and C chord positions against her palm.
"Sorry, it's just-" he gazes at her with a look she's never seen before. "- you're even more like Sarah than I thought."
Oh.
When Ellie is stunned into silence, Joel seems to think Ellie is uncomfortable, and he scrambles to say something else. "I guess my point is that I have experience raising-" His mouth snaps shut.
Raising. Raising a lesbian kid?
Ellie remembers the autumn she stood in that girl's room, Joel's eyes like steel, telling her that he wasn't her dad, and that she sure as hell wasn't his daughter.
Ellie takes the risk.
"Well thank you for your unwavering support, parental-figure o' mine," she says, laying back down, covering her face yet again with the comic.
Joel doesn't speak for what seems like ages. Finally, she feels a hesitant hand on her knee. The teen lowers her comic slightly.
"I'll ask Maria about girls in need of a date if you want," he says.
The corner of her mouth tugs up in a lopsided smirk. "Nah," Ellie says, "I think I'll just go with you this time. Besides, Rana is way out of my league."
Joel fixes her with a stern look. "Absolutely no girl is out of your league, kiddo."
"Well, thanks, but you are in serious need of dance practice. I'll teach you all the cool dance moves I learned at military school."
Joel leans forward, hands clasped in a serious manner, like she so often sees when Joel is in a meeting with the leaders of the compound. "Have you ever heard of the macerena?"
"The what?"