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It’s weird explaining Joel. Henry and Sam assume she’s his kid, and she has to awkwardly try to explain that no, they’re not actually related, stumbles on what to say until Joel cuts in. They seem to get it, or at least they don’t ask any more questions.
It must be easier for them, though, just to be able to say they’re brothers. Quick to explain, no one would question that. It’s not like Ellie can just say the leader of the Fireflies asked Joel to smuggle her out of Boston and then oops, a bunch of people died so now they’re trying to track down anyone who can find them because, oh yeah, she’s immune to being infected.
It’s kind of not the thing you blurt out. Maybe they need a cover story.
The idea of Joel having a kid is funny, though. She can’t picture him changing diapers or burping a baby or whatever else parents do. Not that she has much experience with parents, but she’s read books and shit, she gets the idea. And Joel so is not the type.
* * *
Maria seems nice, but leaving Joel makes her nervous. They haven’t been apart in months. These people don’t exactly seem like they’re going to murder them to steal their shit like those hunters in Pittsburgh, but it still throws her off-kilter.
She trusts him, though. If he thinks it’s okay…
Well, she really is starving.
Maria brings her to a room in the power plant where they’ve set up their supplies. There’s even a couple small tables and chairs. It looks nice. More normal than Ellie would expect, after everything she's seen since leaving Boston.
“Afraid I can’t offer you anything fancy,” Maria says, holding up a couple cans. “We’re not set up here for any real cooking.”
“I’m not picky.”
They have an actual camp stove, the little metal kind that you put wood in. Maria stokes the low fire in it, adding wood till it’s roaring again.
“It’ll take a minute, but I figure you wouldn’t mind a hot meal.”
She would absolutely eat them cold, and has, but she’s been hungrier, and a warm meal on this wet, cool day sounds really nice. It surprises her how smooth everything is here, how easy, and she’s even more surprised when Maria sits at the table and hands her a small parcel.
“What’s this?”
“Some jerky, some dried fruit. You pop that in your pack for later, in case you need it.”
She smiles. “Thank you.”
Maria waves it off easily. She gets up to check on the food, giving it a stir. “Hey, Ellie, how old are you?”
“Oh, I’m fourteen.”
“That explains it, then,” she says, laughing.
“Explains what?”
“Why Tommy never mentioned you, only Sarah. You wouldn’t have been born yet the last time he saw Joel.” She chuckles again. “Can’t imagine how surprised he is right now.”
Oh, Ellie realizes.
For a moment, she thinks about not saying anything. It’s just kind of a nice thought, the idea of having someone. Someone who’s there. He already takes care of her. He keeps her safe, and always gives her more food when they’re low, even though he weighs like twice what she does and needs it more. He looks for comic books for her and listens to her stupid puns and a couple times even laughed at them.
The other night it was fucking freezing and the place they found to sleep in was barely warmer than outside and she woke up in the middle of the night with his jacket laid over the thin blanket she keeps rolled up in her pack to sleep under. They didn’t talk about it, but it was warm and nice.
She doesn’t dream about things like that anymore, but…
“I’m not his,” she says when she finds her voice. “Joel’s just looking after me for a bit. Who’s Sarah?”
Then, later, it’s “I sure as hell ain’t your dad,” and, well, it was stupid anyways.
* * *
One of David’s men checks on her once during the night when she’s locked in the cage. Not James – a kid who barely looks older than her. He's got a gun that he holds like he doesn't know how to use it and she wishes he'd get closer so she could try and grab it.
“You should blame your dad, not us,” he says, like he's guilty. “This wouldn’t be happening if he hadn’t slaughtered our guys.”
Her head and her shoulder and her nose hurt. She’s scared and cold and she’s pretty sure Joel is dying in a basement without her. “He’s not my dad,” she says and she’s not even sure why at this point. What does it even matter?
The guy’s lip curls up in a disgusted sneer. “At least you’re already used to it, I guess.”
He leaves before she fully takes in what he just said. Used to...? Oh, gross. She actually recoils at the thought.
What is fucking wrong with these people?
* * *
Of all the people to do it, she doesn’t expect it from Tommy.
He’s teaching her how to make horse shoes, and she’s not wearing gloves. He says gloves make you clumsy and that’s not a good thing when you’re working with red hot metal.
So, of course, she immediately proves she’s perfectly capable of being plenty clumsy without them and brushes the back of her hand against the hot tongs that were just being used to take the horseshoe out of the kiln.
“Fucking ow,” she hisses, yanking her hand back as pain floods her arm.
“Here, let me see.” Tommy grabs her arm, pulling her sleeve down to her elbow. She flinches, almost pulls away, but he already knows, of course, and he’s not even looking at her scar. He grabs a canteen of water and pours it onto the burn, which relieves the pain slightly.
“Sorry,” she says.
He shakes his head. “Not your fault. But, man, your dad is gonna kill me.”
It hurts from him. This time, she can’t stop herself from pulling away.
The worst thing is it takes Tommy a second to realize.
“Oh, hell, Ellie,” he says. “I didn’t mean anythin’.”
She shrugs. “Whatever.”
“It’s just… you remind me of being an uncle,” he says. “And that was somethin’ I loved being very much. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, honey.”
She lets him pick her hand up again. “S’okay.”
He gets the first aid kit and covers the burn with ointment before wrapping it in some clean white gauze.
“You must have been a pretty cool uncle,” she says eventually.
Tommy grins. “The coolest.” Then, just as quickly, he grimaces. “Seriously, though, Joel’s gonna be pissed. He didn’t like this idea in the first place, and I get you a second degree burn the very first day.”
“I’ve had worse,” she says.
Tommy gives a low chuckle. “If that’s my only defense, I’m definitely screwed.”
* * *
She’s trying to get along with the other kids. There’s only a handful in Jackson near her age, so if she wants to have friends, she’s going to have to try to play nice. Besides Riley and Sam, though, she’s never been much good at the whole “making friends” thing.
Joel says she should try.
And they’re not all bad. They’re nice enough to her. Just most of them have grown up together, and they’re already friends. Once again, she’s the new girl.
So she’s sitting outside with a few of them, hanging out. A couple are doing homework. One girl’s sewing – there’s always clothes to fix and people will trade her little things, snacks or nice pens or whatever, to do theirs. Pretty good hustle. Ellie’s just doodling, listening to the others talk.
There’s a bit of a commotion at the gates, and she looks up to see Joel walk through with the small hunting party he’d been out with.
He is, not unexpectedly, covered in blood.
Ellie stashes her notebook in her pocket. “Be right back.”
He’s unloading when she walks up. A few rabbits, some wild berries that she immediately steals a handful of, a pile of the miscellaneous clutter she always mentally catalogues as “Joel junk".
“You good?” she asks, nodding at his shirt.
“Infected. Just a couple stragglers.” He digs in his pack for a minute and comes out with a comic. “Here, brought you this.”
“Aw, fuck yeah!”
“You want any more before I head home?” he asks, gesturing at the berries.
“Sure.”
She snacks while he packs back in what they’re keeping. Rabbits don’t go that far, but the nice fat buck the others are bringing in will certainly help. They raise animals, and farm, but hunting some of the deer in the woods really helps stock freezers. Joel says there’s actually a lot more of them than there used to be, because there aren’t many predators besides, like, mountain lions and wolves, and that hunting can actually help them be healthier, as long as they don’t overdo it.
She’s not sure she gets it, but he tends to know what he’s talking about with these things. Plus she likes venison, so she's not complaining.
“Alright,” he says when he’s done. “I’ll see you at home for dinner.”
“Sounds good.”
He reaches over and ruffles her hair, messing her bangs up. She swats at him. He knows how much she hates that.
When she gets back to the group, they’re all staring.
The sewing girl, the cute one, is staring at her. “You've. Uh. You’ve got blood on your forehead.”
Huh? She touches it and her fingertips come back bloody. But she’s not – oh, goddamnit, Joel. It’s probably in her hair, now, too. She huffs and swipes as much off as she can, wiping her hand off on the grass.
“Okay, you can all stop staring now.”
“Dude,” one of the boys blurts. His name is… Robert? Albert? Just Bert maybe? She can’t remember. “Your dad is fucking scary.”
She makes a face. “He’s not my dad and he’s not scary. He’s just Joel.”
“Uh, yeah, right,” Maybe Just Bert says. “Do you have any idea how many people he’s killed?”
She snorts. “Don’t act like your dads have never killed anyone.”
Almost every adult works guard duty, and she knows there’s no one here who hasn’t had to deal with bandits or raids or whatever. That’s just life.
“Not like your dad has,” Maybe Bert says.
She huffs. “He’s still not my dad.”
Turns out Maybe Bert’s name is Kevin and she heads home vaguely wondering how she could have gotten that so wrong. She’s also pretty sure she’s going to forget and call him Bert at some point anyways. Meh, he seem kind of like an asshole anyways. Might be funny, even.
“I’m home,” she yells as she walks into their house. Joel can get a bit jumpy and she always feels bad when she startles him into reaching for a weapon when she comes home.
She finds him in the kitchen where a pot of rabbit stew is bubbling gently on the stove. It smells delicious. He’s actually a decent cook, not that she’d tell him that. She’s eaten more consistently in Jackson than she has in her whole life, and a lot of that is just how much they work to produce food, but she won’t deny Joel having a knack for making almost anything decently edible helps.
He’s gotten cleaned up, changed into clothes she can’t even see any bloodstains on. The sun is starting to set and the house is warm and golden. It’s not huge, but that’s on purpose. There’s plenty to pick from, but it’s not like they have a ton of shit, and too much space makes Joel nervous.
The house rats her out when she sneaks downstairs at night for midnight snacks, and if she takes too long, Joel yell at her to go to bed, but she knows it helps if he knows where she is.
She knows how to be quiet. He’s taught her, and experience has taught her. She doesn’t need to be.
“That smells good,” she says, getting dishes out.
“Mm.”
When it’s done, they sit at the kitchen table to eat. He doesn’t tell her not to eat on the couch or anything, but she can tell he likes the routine of eating dinner together at a table.
When they go over to Maria and Tommy’s on Sundays, Tommy calls it family dinner and she pretends she doesn’t hear.
She has her shoes off and her feet on the edge of Joel’s chair. He prefers sitting in the corner of a room when he’s sitting alone, the best angle to see the whole room, but when they sit together he ends up tucking her into it and sitting between her and the door. She’s not entirely sure he even notices.
And it’s not like he doesn’t let her be alone or anything.
But this is nice.
She can’t help herself from bringing the bread he’s sliced up to her nose and inhaling deeply. She’d never had fresh bread before coming to Jackson – she didn’t realize bread could be like this. They mostly got hard tack at school, made to last, liable to chip a tooth if you weren’t careful. When they did get actual bread, it was always stale, sometimes moldy. She’s not sure she’ll ever get used to it.
She’s on her second bowl of stew when Joel clears his throat. He’s got that look on his face, that awkward, uncertain one.
Oh boy. Last time his face looked like that, she’d just told him she liked girls. Which is not to say he didn’t handle it well. As far as she’s concerned, he did fine. Especially considering he's the first person she ever told. But the talking about feelings and shit, it’s just hard for him.
“Hey, look,” he says. “I heard you talkin' to your friends earlier.”
Huh, she’d thought he was further away than that. He’s worse than a clicker sometimes, she swears.
“It’s so fucking weird they think you’re scary,” she says with a laugh. “Chickenshits.”
“Yeah,” he says, but he’s clearly distracted. “I just wanted to… you can call me anythin' you want, you know, yeah?”
“You wanna be Bert instead?”
“What?”
She chuckles. “Never mind.”
He stares at her for a second, then shakes his head. “No, I mean. What that boy called me. You don’t always have to argue with people about that if you don’t want to.”
They’ve only ever talked about this once, and it went… poorly.
Fuck, it hurt like hell. He’d read her like an open book, and called out exactly what she’d secretly been feeling, and she’d felt so stupidly betrayed. Not just by what he said, but by how clearly she apparently was broadcasting her emotions.
She’d felt like such an idiot.
“Whatever you want,” he says before she can figure out what to say. “Just wanted you to know I wouldn’t mind.”
* * *
There are new people in Jackson, a new family. Three kids, which amazes Ellie. She’s never met anyone with more than one sibling before, and one was rare at that. Though she did grow up in an orphanage, so maybe she’s biased. No one in Jackson has more than one sibling either, though.
They’re real nervous and she can’t blame them. Smart, really. Jackson looks good, but Ellie herself knows very well first impressions can be deceiving.
But they seem like nice people, and Tommy gets her to hang out with the kids while their parents are talking.
“You look like less of a threat,” he says quietly when they’re not listening. “Help them feel a little more comfortable for me, okay, Ellie, honey?”
He calls her that a lot. She doesn’t mind.
It feel good to help, and the kids seem alright, if a bit tense. A bit scared shitless. The oldest is a girl around her age, the second a boy a few years younger. There’s a baby, too, but it stays with the mom and Ellie can’t tell if it’s a boy or a girl. Just small, she thinks, and God it must have been terrifying travelling with a baby.
She takes them to eat – everyone’s always hungry when they show up, and the canteen is a big, open building with multiple exit points. It makes people less nervous, and she’s noticed parents might not eat when they first arrive, but they always want to get a meal into their kids.
She asks them where they’re from and tells them she’s from Boston, and they compare their old quarantine zones. It’s nice to talk about it again – she doesn’t miss it, at all, but it’s different with people who have an idea what it’s like out there.
And she realizes - she’s not going to be the new kid, if they stay. She hopes they stay.
Joel was out of the house early for patrol duty this morning, and she’s not surprised when he comes straight in to the canteen for lunch. He always knows where she is – she’s pretty sure people tell him as soon as he comes back, if he didn’t already know ahead of time – and he always checks on her before anything else.
She tips her head back to shoot him an easy smile as he comes up on her side, a habit he’s formed since that time he accidentally snuck up behind her and she threw an elbow into his throat.
“New arrivals?” he asked, giving her shoulder a squeeze.
They hesitantly introduce themselves, but she can tell they’re glad when he leaves to go talk to Tommy and their parents. She doesn’t get it. He’s not even bloody today.
“Dude,” the boy says, eyes wide. “Your grandpa is kinda scary.”
Joel’s still close enough to hear, and she sees exactly the second when he does hear it. His back tenses up and he actually stops walking for a moment.
Ellie is laughing too hard to correct the kid.
Later, after Tommy takes the new family out to show them around Jackson, Ellie finds Joel sitting at a table, his face in his hands.
“You okay?” she asks.
He makes one of those Joel-noises that means yes and no and stop and why all at once.
“Come on, it’s not that bad. You’re not actually old enough to be my grandfather.”
He says nothing and she slowly realizes. Her eyes go wide as she tries to remember her history classes and do math at the same time. Sarah is always twelve in her head, when she tries to picture her, and she kinda forgets that if she were still alive, she’d be so much older than Ellie. And she’s never actually asked how old Joel is, but Outbreak Day was, what, almost twenty-two years ago? And if Sarah was twelve then, then today she’d be…
“Holy shit.”
“Don’t,” Joel says painfully.
“Joel.”
“If you don’t stop right now, I’m gonna wash your mouth out with soap.”
“Nah.” She sits on the bench next to him. She leans into him, letting her chin rest on his shoulder. He’s warm and solid and it’s kind of like a hug, which they don’t do very often. He always hugs her like he’s scared she’s going to break. She still likes them. “Your old bones couldn’t handle that, grandpa.”