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Joel sort of knows right away. He might be old now, but he’s not deaf, blind or senile yet, and Ellie, little spitfire that she is, has never been one for subtlety. He catches it the minute he sees them together for the first time.
Tommy had insisted on a tour on their first full day in town, even though they’d both been in Jackson before- “it’s tradition, Joel, don’t spoil the mood-” and honestly, the shifty way Ellie was eyeing people she didn’t know was starting to worry him, so he’d agreed. She needed to get back into socializing again- that isolation they’d kept on the road wasn’t healthy.
The town is small, but it’s growing. There’s more functional stores than Joel’s seen in twenty-something years (well, at least without armed soldiers standing guard around them), and Ellie is fascinated with a couple buildings she’s never gotten the chance to experience before, like the bookstore and a little movie theatre. Tommy eventually loops them back around to the restaurant. The Tipsy Bison , Joel thinks. That’s exactly the kind of piss-poor name his brother would like.
“Now, I reckon you’re hungry after all that walkin’, come on in.” He holds the door with a small, polite nod to Ellie, who smiles weakly and steps inside first.
It’s a cozy sort of place- reminds Joel of a restaurant he’d frequented back in Texas when he was Ellie’s age, the same sort of rural decoration and atmosphere. There’s a decent amount of customers milling about in booths and the bar, each subtly trading a glance at the newest citizens of their town. Joel sneaks his own private look at his kid- she hasn’t been in a real restaurant since that nightmare last winter, and he’s silently praying nothing about the place is gonna send her into a panic attack. They’d dealt with that before on the way back, and he wants a better first day in town for her.
She seems fine, though, eyes flicking to each new face and bit of furniture the way a curious kid’s should. Silently, he breathes a sigh of relief.
“You can sit down right over there, I’ll handle the food for us,” Tommy offers, already walking up to the bar before Joel can even protest. Joel motions to the booths- Ellie gives him a questioning look.
“Where are we sittin’?”
She hums, then picks a seat nearby. The fact doesn’t escape him that it’s the closest booth to the door, and every exit is visible from her booth. Some habits never die, he guesses.
While they wait for Tommy to come back bearing whatever food he’s decided is worthy for a welcome, Joel continues to keep an eye on her. Once again, he’s reminded of old habits.
She seems like she’s doing better lately, more relaxed. The couple days they’ve spent not having to fight has done them good. He’s even caught her trying to whistle again and stealing loose paper from around the house that she leaves covered with little doodles. Now, she sits relatively quiet, save for tapping her fingers on the wooden table and bouncing her leg as she looks around.
It’s good, he thinks. Kid like her, that’s how it should be.
Joel settles himself with people-watching, an old habit he’d nearly dropped in the days since he’d had to leave Boston with her. There’s a lot of young folk here- mostly twenties, thirties even. Not much his age, but there’s a couple here and there, and none of them with the look in their eye that he’s seen on too many people who were there the night it all went to hell. It truly is like, within the confines of this town, nothing had ever happened twenty years ago. The world had continued to spin. He has to hand it to Tommy and his wife- he’s done something real impressive here.
Ellie is fixed on a spot across the room, looking interested. Joel tries to subtly crane his neck to get a peek, but it just gives him a cramp. He decides to try the easy route instead.
“So, what’s the verdict, kiddo?”
Ellie seems to snap to attention, looking away from whatever she was watching. “Hmm?”
“What do you think?” he repeats.
“It’s nice.” She shrugs.
“Just nice?”
“I really like it.” She laughs. “Better than Boston, for sure. People look like they like each other.” Joel allows himself a chuckle at that.
Tommy, who has suddenly appeared at their table, plunks down two huge burgers in front of each of them, along with a sandwich for himself. “Dinner is served.”
“Never thought you’d learn to cook,” Joel grunts, half joking.
“Oh, ha ha.” Tommy, nonetheless, opens his sandwich and rips into it. Ellie just looks a little astonished.
“What is it?” Joel asks.
“It’s kind of a lot,” she mumbles, wide-eyed.
“You don’t gotta eat all of it if you don’t want.”
“No, just- I don’t wanna take too much if there’s not gonna be enough left over for everyone else. It’s ok if you want to put some back…” She trails off. Joel gets the sense that she would much rather not put any of it back.
Thankfully, Tommy steps in, putting a hand on her shoulder and shaking it gently. “Don’t you worry about that. We got plenty to go around.” He grins, and she returns it, glancing back down at her plate. “Besides, that’s moose meat- there’s always plenty left over, even after feeding one kid. Eat up.”
She gives Joel a look first, but after a quick, small nod, she does, and he has to hold back a laugh- she barely gives her cutlery a glance, stuffing the largest amount of burger into her mouth that she can fit and poorly hiding a grin at the taste.
“‘S good,” she manages around a mouthful of burger.
“Good to hear.” Joel starts in on his own meal.
The conversation is light and fleeting, their focus much more on the food. Joel notices Ellie’s eyes flicking back to wherever she had been looking before, and so Joel tries again to get a glimpse. This time he succeeds, catching two kids about her age talking animatedly about something.
“What are you lookin’ at?” he tries.
Her head snaps back around to her plate. “Nothing.”
Now Tommy leans out of the booth to see, and Ellie looks as if she wants to disappear into the floorboards. “Oh, them?”
“No, it’s- it’s fine,” Ellie mumbles into her fries.
Tommy doesn’t seem to notice her embarrassment, though- or maybe he had and just wanted to torment her. He’d done that more than once with Sarah. “Hey, Jesse!” One of the kids’ heads turns to face them. “Bring your friend over, both of you come meet our newest!”
The kid- Jesse- gets up from his seat, waiting for his friend to follow, and walks over. The other one rushes a little faster and arrives first with a smile. “Beat ya,” she calls to Jesse, who rolls his eyes as he shoves his hands in his pockets. He’s tall, collected, and, in Joel’s opinion, overdue for a haircut, but he smiles at them as well. Everyone here seems so eager and friendly that Joel’s first instinct is to ask them what they’re looking for from him, but somehow, it’s nice to be back in a place where not everyone hates each other.
“Hey.” Jesse offers his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr…”
“Miller,” Joel responds, somewhat impressed. He takes the boy’s hand and gives it a short shake. “Just Joel’s fine, though.”
Jesse reaches to Ellie next, who takes it awkwardly and mimics Joel. “Hey. Haven’t seen any new folks our age for a minute.”
“I’m Dina,” the other kid jumps in, and Joel can pinpoint the exact second it registers for Ellie. It’d be funny if it weren’t so embarrassing for her.
The minute her eyes turn to the girl in front of her, her eyebrows shoot up and she blushes, just a little. If she weren’t so pale, he might not have known, but as it was, it becomes obvious very quickly.
“Williams,” Ellie blurts out. “Wait, no, Ellie. My name is Ellie Williams. I’m- uh, sorry.” Joel has never seen an expression that more clearly reads “oh fuck”- a talent that, of course, only Ellie would have.
“You don’t need to apologize,” Dina laughs, setting a hand on the table close to Ellie’s right arm. Ellie tenses but, to her credit, doesn’t flinch away. “It’s nice to meet you, Ellie.”
“Nice to meet you too,” she mumbles back.
“Say, what are you up to today?” Tommy asks.
“Not much,” Jesse says, at the same time as Dina nonchalantly adds, “Just burning down the stables, you know. See what happens.”
She seems to notice the look on Ellie’s face, but completely misinterprets it. “Kidding, jeez. We’re gonna head out and fix up that treehouse we found,” she laughs.
“Would you two mind taking Ellie with you? Got some catching up to do with my brother here.” He slaps Joel on the back.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Ellie interjects with some displeasure. “I can just go to the house.”
“I mean, you don’t have to come if you don’t want,” Jesse shrugs.
“I’d like it if you did, though.” Dina tilts her head, looking directly at Ellie. “Could always use some extra hands. Plus, you look cool and I want better friends.” She grins at Jesse.
“Okay, rude,” he gasps.
Ellie takes a moment to consider before sighing and getting up from the table. “No, I’ll come. Where are we going?”
Dina reaches out and takes Ellie’s hand, and Ellie’s face reddens even more, her mouth opening slightly. She probably couldn’t be more obvious if she’d tried, and Joel rubs his hand over his beard to hide his smile. “We’ll show you, come on.” The two kids drag Ellie to the counter to pay, then to the door, her eyes practically begging Joel for help the whole time.
“What did you want to discuss?” Joel asks warily.
“We’ll get into it later, s'not that important,” Tommy responds, stretching out in his seat. “I just thought she could use some friends. Don’t worry, they’re good kids. She’ll be safe.”
Joel rolls his eyes and goes back to his meal.
So Ellie definitely likes girls. He'd had an inkling. She likes Dina, especially. She seems like a sweet kid, and Tommy’s stamp of approval isn’t bad proof, but Joel’s still gonna keep a little closer eye on her from now on.
Doesn’t matter either way. Long as she’s happy.
Hours later, Ellie walks into her house, falls onto the couch, pulls a pillow over her face and screams into it. She gives herself a minute to wallow, then drags herself off the couch, upends her bag and starts hanging her new fairy lights across the garage door.
It was a total, complete embarrassment. Fuck Tommy for letting her do that to herself, and fuck Joel for letting it happen, and fuck herself for being so goddamn stupid. Fuck everything.
It had been a nice day at first. Jesse and Dina were nice, and they were funny, too. Their treehouse really was cool. Of course Ellie had to fuck it all up. It’s what she does.
Someone knocks on her door. “Go away, I said I was sorry,” she yells.
“It’s me,” she hears Joel say. She rushes over, somewhat embarrassed, and opens the door. Joel stands there with a small container of something, and she lets him in.
“Nice lights,” he remarks.
“Thanks.”
He sets his box down on the little side table and leans back against her door, crossing his arms with a smile she’s rarely ever seen on him. “How’d it go?”
“Great,” she mumbles automatically, a bite of sarcasm ringing through it.
Joel silently opens the container, gesturing for her to take one. She peers inside to see-
“Cookies?”
“Figured it would be nice for celebratin’,” he mutters, looking a little embarrassed. “Don’t go thinkin’ it was me who made those- Tommy picked ‘em up from the baker, told me we should share.” When she doesn’t move to take one, he adds, “Go on, there’s more where those came from.”
She picks one quickly- it looks the biggest, she decides. It’s good, too. She hasn’t had sugar in ages, probably since Riley had snuck in a chocolate bar that she’d stolen from one of the contraband offices back in Boston. It’s just as good as she remembers, even though that memory is bittersweet now that she’s gone.
“So, how was your day?” Joel looks a little awkward, but he can pretty obviously tell something’s wrong. Ellie both hates and likes that he can do that.
She sighs and plops down next to him on the couch. “Kinda sucked.”
“What happened?” Joel breaks apart his cookie in his hands, looking over at her every so often.
“It was fine for like, an hour.” And it had been- she really liked these new kids. They seemed like good people. She had especially liked how Jesse had turned and asked her opinion of everything the same way he did Dina, like he actually cared about what she thinks, and how Dina had gotten excited and told Ellie a bunch of stupid jokes, just the kind Ellie herself liked. Didn’t hurt that Dina was fucking beautiful, too.
“The treehouse is nice,” she adds.
“Those are all good things, kiddo. Did they say something to you?” She sees his walls go back up for a second- “You didn't tell them anything, right?”
“No, of course not,” she scoffs. “I’m not stupid.”
“So?” he prompts. He bumps his shoulder against hers, and she gives in.
“I just kinda embarrassed myself,” she mumbles. She doesn’t want to tell him the whole truth- Dina’s gotta know about the huge fucking crush she has on her, and it’s humiliating, alongside the bigger, other thing. “They didn’t… they didn’t really give me the lights.”
“You mean the…” Joel motions to the garage door.
“Yeah.”
“You stole ‘em?”
“… Yeah.”
She hadn’t meant to do it, not really. They were just lying there- Dina and Jesse didn’t really need them, they had plenty of other lights for the treehouse. It was just sort of a habit now- you see something nice that nobody’s using, you can take it. The lights were very nice. She’d never seen something like them before, and even now they glow on the door in a way that Ellie really likes watching for some reason. It had worked similarly in Boston too, except then you might have to fight someone if you really wanted an item. Jackson is different, and she should fucking know that instead of acting like a freak.
It had made it all so much worse, though, when Dina had caught her stuffing the lights into her bag. She had been expecting a fight, her hand had already been on her fucking knife. Dina had just looked at her- her deep brown eyes pitying, kinda like Ellie was a sad puppy- and told her that if she wanted to keep them, she could always just ask. She would’ve let her have them anyway. Dina didn’t even ask for them back, just turned back to her task calmly. Ellie had left then, scampering away, embarrassed beyond belief to have humiliated herself on the first fucking day with new friends.
As she explains this to Joel, she can feel her face and ears burning. She leaves out the part where she had tried (and failed more than once) to compliment Dina. Maybe she had not gotten the best romantic advice from old magazines and classmates and Riley, or maybe before the outbreak nobody had ever been so busy staring at a pretty girl that it had knocked all the thoughts out of their brain and temporarily stunned them stupid. She’d stuttered through “you have nice hair” and nearly fallen off the tree branch when Dina had responded with a laugh that “you’re pretty cute, Ellie”.
Again, humiliating.
“Kiddo,” he sighs. “You know you don’t have to do that here, right?”
“I know,” she mumbles.
“Did you apologize?”
“Yeah, I’m not four,” she grumbles. She hadn’t, really. She’d picked up her bag, made some bullshit excuse about meeting Joel for early dinner and ran. “Just… kind of embarrassed. They seem so cool, and I really wanted them to like me. Guess I messed that one up, too.”
Joel sighs deeply, nodding in understanding. “Yeah, I can see why that would be tough. You said you were sorry, though. Did you explain to them why you did that?”
“Well… no.”
Something seems to dawn on Joel’s face. “And they were alright anyways?”
“Yeah.”
“Ellie,” he starts slowly, “did they act upset with you at all?”
“... No, I guess not.” He shakes his head, and Ellie jumps in to defend herself- “But they could’ve been thinking it! I wouldn’t wanna hang out with some jerk who steals shit from me, they probably hate me anyway and they just didn't tell me.” Even as she’s saying it, she knows how weak her defense is.
“You can’t waste your life tryin’ to read other people’s minds,” he tells her. “Looks like you’re gonna be okay, alright?” She doesn’t respond, stuffing her hands in her hoodie pockets and slouching.
“Look, I tell you what.” He gestures to the container on the table in front of them. “Next time you see those kids-”
“Jesse and Dina.”
“Yeah, the next time you see ‘em, you bring some of these with you. Nobody hates someone who brings 'em cookies.” He sets a hand on her shoulder gently. “I’m sure they don’t hate you, kiddo. You gotta be a little nicer to yourself, okay? And if you ever wanna talk about it-”
“I’m fine, I’ll be fine.”
He nods and gets up to leave, taking hold of the doorknob. Before he opens it to go, though, he turns back to her. “Ellie?”
“Yeah?”
“You did good today. I’m real proud of you.”
“... Thanks.” She offers him a smile, which he returns before leaving and quietly shutting the door behind him.
“No more stealin’!” she hears him call as he walks away. She huffs and rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling too.
She looks at the cookies still on the table. Guess she’s just gonna have to hope Joel was right. She’d like to redeem herself, if she can. They seem really cool.
Honestly, she's missed having friends her own age. It's gonna be nice to be able to just hang out and talk. Jesse is funny and kind, and Ellie thinks they'll get along just fine.
Dina, though… man, she's something else.
It's fine. She'll just keep her crush hidden for a little while. Maybe later on she'll try again, maybe ask her out on a date. The idea makes her stomach twist. She's never been on a real date before. If she did, though… Dina would definitely be the kind of girl she'd want to go out with. She's still kind of thinking about her beautiful dark eyes and how cute her freckles are, and how her hand had felt so nice in hers with its little calloused spots and…
Yeah, she's gonna keep it a secret for a while. Just to figure things out, how she wants to approach this.
Nobody's gonna be able to tell, anyways.
Dina makes her way through the night to the house the new girl had told her about earlier. She feels a little creepy for showing up to someone's house like this, but… she gets the feeling Ellie might want to know about this.
She sneaks around back to the garage and stands on her tiptoes at the window. Gently, she taps on the glass, and indoors she sees a figure shoot up from bed as if the sound had been a bomb going off.
Poor girl. She remembers being like that when she’d first arrived, too.
"Ellie!" she whispers.
The figure gets up and opens the window, and then Ellie's face is right in front of hers. She rubs her eyes roughly. "What- what's going on?"
"Just wanted to say hi." Dina gives her a cheeky grin. Ellie looks like she desperately wants to go back to bed.
"Okay, okay," Dina relents. "Me and Jesse were doing a little more work on the treehouse after you left and we found a bunch of old scary movies. We were wondering if you wanted to come watch them with us?”
Ellie blinks and looks at her clock. “It’s one a.m.?” she manages.
“We’re gonna get in trouble if we watch them with other people around, we're not supposed to have them,” Dina explains. “Plus, it’s just more fun at night.”
Ellie sighs and turns away, and Dina thinks for a second that she’s gonna say no, but she seems to spot something nearby and looks back to her. “Give me a minute to get dressed.”
Dina grins and gives her a thumbs-up, quickly scanning the backyard to make sure they haven’t been caught.
Ellie opens the door a minute later dressed in holey old jeans and a long-sleeved grey shirt. She’s holding a container awkwardly, and extends it to Dina to show her, a little red-faced.
“We can have cookies,” she suggests.
“Sweet.” Dina grins, watching Ellie’s mouth turn up in a smile. She’s cute, Dina thinks to herself idly. Maybe she’ll ask her out sometime. She’ll wait for Ellie to show interest first, though. She doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable.
She turns back to Ellie, starting to walk away backwards. “You coming?” Ellie smiles for real then- all bright green eyes and freckles over her nose, her hair glinting redder under the moonlight.
Yeah, Dina thinks as she turns away to hide her flushed face. She’s pretty cute.