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Ellie thinks Joel has started to care for her. But she can never be sure.
She knows he’s protective of her. But that’s because she’s cargo - important cargo. He shields her from danger because if she gets damaged, he doesn’t get paid. He always comes back for her because she’s his ticket to freedom, and you don’t leave important tickets lying around. He places himself between her and injury because it’s fine to shoot the messenger as long as the message is whole.
“That was fucking stupid,” she tells him one night as they camp under the overhanging roots of a long-ago fallen tree. He’s carefully wrapping a bandage around a deep scratch on his leg. The stray Infected had been coming for her, but Joel had shoved her aside and engaged it with his axe. He’d avoided getting bitten, but not getting cut. “I’m the one who’s immune.”
“Not immune to getting ripped apart,” he reminds her. He tries to bend down to tear at the bandage with his teeth, but ends up groaning and straightening up. Ellie’s eyes light up.
“Forgot to do your morning yoga, grandpa?”
“How do you even know what yoga is?”
“I went to school, asshole.” Ellie hesitates before pulling out her switchblade and scooting closer. Joel looks like he’s going to refuse for a second before closing his eyes and sighing. She takes that as a yes and tugs the end of the bandage from his fingers, pulling it taut. With one swish, her knife goes clean through it. Joel takes it back and ties it himself, as though unwilling to have her do this for a second longer than she has to. Ellie should move backwards now, her job done, but it’s cold and Joel radiates warmth. As opposed to his personality. She stores that thought away for a future quip and avoids looking at him as she speaks. “Why didn’t you just shoot it?”
Because it had seemed almost instinctual, like he hadn’t even thought about it before placing himself between her and danger as a human shield. Because if he had thought it through, he would have definitely moved back and shot the Infected, because if he had thought it through, he would have known Ellie was never in any real danger and that Joel getting bitten or dying would be the most dangerous thing that could happen to her. And Ellie has been betrayed and let down too many times to allow herself this delusion, but it still worms its way into her heart, sneaking into the little crevices, searching for the hope she has long since buried -
“I need to get you to the Fireflies in one piece,” Joel finally says. “You’re no good to them as damaged goods.”
The worm recedes.
It shrinks back in on itself, trying to find a way out. But it’s trapped in the middle of a well in her heart; no way up, and refusing to fall further down, because that is where the silvery piece of hope lies. Ellie nods and says she’s not hungry when Joel pulls out the pieces of jerky. She curls up on her bedroll, facing away from him, unwilling to cry and unable to move further away. She feels him look over at her once or twice. Wonders if he’ll say something. Something to make her sure.
Ellie often has nightmares. She doesn’t remember them when she wakes up in a cold sweat, shaking, tears on her face that she doesn’t remember crying. When she takes in her surroundings, Joel is always right where he should be; sitting with his rifle against a tree, at the mouth of the cave, on a stump of wood with his back to her. He’s never looking at her when she wakes up.
Except one time.
She can feel herself trembling, but she’s too scared and exhausted to open her eyes. Her knees are drawn to her chest. Her shaking intensifies.
And then, inexplicably, there’s a hand on her back.
It doesn’t move, and the owner of the hand doesn’t talk. It just rests on the place between her shoulder blades, warm and heavy and big. Ellie doesn’t even remember when she falls asleep.
When she wakes up, Joel is packing his bag. Ellie sits up. For once, he doesn’t quip about how late she’s woken up or how she drooled in her sleep. And she doesn’t say anything either. But she watches his hands, trying to measure if they’re the same size as the patch of warmth that lingers on her back.
Who else could it have been, though? Ellie almost laughs as she thinks of a stranger sneaking up to their campsite, putting a comforting hand on her back for a few minutes, then leaving, all without Joel noticing. It had to have been him, right?
Well. Him or her imagination.
Ellie sighs and starts to pack her stuff.
Maybe it’s her fault. Maybe she ascribes everything he does to affection because she’s never known what it’s like to have a loving parent, or indeed any parent at all. When he scolds her for letting him fall asleep, when he tells her to get down from whatever rock or tree she’s climbed with concern and a tinge of panic lining his voice, when he finally relents to her plea of five more minutes, Joel , with an amused shake of his head and a dramatic sigh, maybe that’s nothing.
But maybe nothing is everything to her.
Sometimes he lets her walk in front of him. She loves it. She feels like an explorer, an adventurer, out to discover the world and all it has to offer. She’s read those silly children’s adventure books, all with the same title format. NAME and the THING. What would hers be? Ellie and the Prairie that Goes On for Fucking Ever. Ellie and the Bird that Took a Shit on her Face. Ellie and the Grumpy Old Man who Won’t Teach Her to Shoot a Rifle.
She likes leading the way, and Joel doesn’t mind as long as they’re in a low danger zone - an open prairie, an abandoned highway.
A forest.
That last one is a mistake on his part.
She slows her pace gradually so he doesn’t notice. Maybe he thinks she’s tired. She slows until she’s right in front of him. Then she raises her arm, quick as a viper, and swats the overhanging pine branch, diving forwards.
The snow cascades onto Joel’s head.
She doubles over laughing as a stream of curses erupt from his mouth. The snow is all over his face and shoulders. He shakes it out of his hair. “Oh damn,” she says, "the snowy white hair didn't age you one bit." Joel removes the snow from his shoulders, but it doesn’t fall to the ground. Ellie’s eyes widen as she registers the ball forming in his hands and then it’s too late to duck as it flies towards her, hitting her square in the face. “You dick!” she exclaims, sputtering through the snow as she brushes it off her face. Joel isn’t outright grinning like she is, but the corners of his lips are curved upwards. She suddenly thinks of a new title. Ellie and the Quest for Joel's Smile. “I thought you were from fucking Texas, how do you know what snowballs are?”
“Ever heard of books?” he asks, mimicking her.
“I didn’t know you knew how to read.” Before he can respond, Ellie’s ducked down to form another snowball and she flings it at him. But he reacts just as quickly and her snowball goes wide over his head.
“Maybe you can read, but you can’t really throw,” Joel taunts as he throws one at her and she ducks behind a tree. With her momentary cover, she ducks down and forms three snowballs, stowing one in her pocket. Joel is silent - suspiciously silent. Ellie takes a deep breath and springs out from behind the tree, flinging her snowballs one after another. But he’s not there anymore.
Then one hits her in the back of the head.
“Ow!” Ellie exclaims, clutching the back of her head. “I think there was ice in that one, moron.”
The smile drops from Joel’s face. “Shit.” He hurries over, dropping his second snowball. He turns Ellie around, prying her hand away from the back of her head - but forgetting about her other hand, which had snuck into her pocket. Then there’s snow in his ear and Ellie is doubled over laughing again. Joel shakes his head at her, the tiny smile back on his face as he hoists his pack up higher. “Let’s keep moving. We want to get there before dark. And no more snowballs.”
Ha. And she’s the delusional one.
Maybe the title of her book should be Ellie and Joel's delusions.
They start to walk again, and she tries to just enjoy the moment. She determinedly doesn’t think about the concern and fear on his face in the moment he thought he’d hurt her.
He’d just been scared about damaging his cargo, that’s all.
Or maybe he cares about her. Maybe this is how Joel shows love - no, care, she doesn’t even want to think of love yet. She doesn't know if she knows what love is, or if she'll ever know. But care, maybe it's this. Protection, quiet reassurance, small moments of joy. She wishes this was a novel so she could read his perspective, see what all the moments that mean the world to her mean to him. If she was writing the novel, she knows what she’d write. But she’s not, so she can’t be sure.
Until she is.
She sees him rush to hug his brother, sees the smile of pure joy and relief and love.
That’s what Joel caring about someone looks like.
Now she knows.
And now she wishes she didn’t.
(She's found the title, finally. It's just Ellie. That's all it'll ever be.)