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Ellie fills out the questionnaire, going quickly down the line as she ticks off boxes. No, yes, no, no, no. Just a bunch of information she doesn’t know why the people in charge need to know. Snoops. It reminds her a bit of her days with FEDRA, though she knows it’s different. This is different. For starters, she’s not alone now.
That brings her back to the top of the form, which she’d left blank. The last few lines need her address, which she hasn’t had the chance to memorize yet, so she gets up and opens the front door. Next to it, freshly painted black wooden numbers read 1015. Her and Joel’s house. The first time she’s ever had a place that was actually her own.
Back at the table, she scribbles down 1015 Snapdragon St. Joel said a snapdragon was a flower. “Pretty sure all of them died when the world went to shit,” he’d noted, apology creeping into his voice at Ellie’s frown. He’d been able to find a picture of them for her, though, in an old book. They were colorful, all stacked up in little cone shapes. Ellie hopes there are still some left out there, saved by someone, on the chance that she might get to see them in person one day.
Working up the form instead of down, because rules are for suckers, she fills in Joel’s name as a person who lives in the same house and checks off the father box under “relationship.”
Last but not least, she writes her name. First name: Ellie. She resists the urge to put something like Awesome or Leaf or Bellie. Ellie Bellie is what Joel had called her, just once. It could easily be patronizing, but it didn’t sound that way when he’d said it. She wonders if he’ll call her that again. She ends up just drawing a line through the middle name space and moving onto the next. Last name. After only a second’s hesitation, she writes in Miller.
Ellie Miller. She likes it better than Ellie Williams. Williams has always been elusive, a reminder of a mother she doesn’t remember. A wish, a potential, a life that could never have been but exists in the little fragment of her last name.
She wants a last name that represents something real. Joel is real, Joel is a family she has, not one she just wishes she did. Her mother may have given birth to her, but Joel is the only parent Ellie’s ever had. Joel and Ellie Miller. Up until now, they’ve been father and daughter in everything but name.
⸻
They’ve been father and daughter in everything but name, and Joel’s slowly come to accept it, slowly been able to push back against the fear that keeps him in a stranglehold. He’s long past thinking of her as cargo, as a one-and-done mission he’d never have to think about again. They’re sticking together, a package deal, and he loves her the way he hasn’t been able to since Sarah’s death.
But the truth of it, the reality of what they are to each other is dragged front and center as he checks over Ellie’s papers. Because there, first line on the form, she’s written Ellie Miller. That’s his last name. The implications, the permanency of it, makes him freeze, makes his body go into fight-or-flight, ready to run at the first sign of danger.
And just below that, he notices how she’s checked father next to his name.
“Looks fine,” he says, handing it back. Ellie’s barely grabbed it before he’s walking away, down the hall and out the front door. He cringes inwardly when it slams behind him, but he can’t bring himself to care too much. He needs air, needs a moment to himself.
The concrete steps are cold beneath him, chill sinking into his jeans as he sits. Ellie and Joel Miller. Ellie, his daughter. Him, a father. Again. He wants it, wants to be a dad again so desperately he sometimes feels sick with grief and longing. But he is terrified.
Everything always comes back to Sarah. Everything he does, every time he helps someone, it’s all for Sarah, a way to atone for his failure to protect her. But staying with Ellie, becoming a parental figure for her, has never been for anyone but himself.
When Sarah died, he promised he would never be a dad again. He didn’t deserve it, didn’t deserve another chance when he had fucked up so badly the first time. It was for his own good and for everyone else. Joel Miller was better off alone, not failing people when he ended up not being able to protect them.
He’d slipped, let his defenses down, and Ellie had snuck right in, made a home in his heart and declared it hers. He has nowhere near enough resolve to reclaim it. And, selfishly, he doesn’t want to. He’s grown to find her constant nagging amusing instead of annoying, her stubbornness endearing. He’s grown to love her.
It’s getting cold these days, and he rubs his hands together to warm them up. A few more minutes is all he needs. He wants to be her dad. That’s the truth left bare. He wants it, wants to teach her about life before the apocalypse and start a garden or something sickeningly domestic because he’s tired, and she deserves a life of peace.
He hopes Sarah can forgive him. Maybe staying can be a step toward forgiving himself.
The door shuts softly this time as he reenters the house. He finds Ellie in the same spot he left her, forlornly staring at the form on the table.
“I didn’t mean to make you mad,” she says quietly, eyes not leaving the form. “I can just cross it out.”
Joel crosses the room in an instant, engulfing Ellie in a hug before she can say anything else. He doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to explain the tangled, complicated mess in his head. Or if he even should.
He settles on pulling her as close as possible and hoping it can convey everything he can’t put into words.
“Leave it as it is,” he says eventually.
“Good, because it was gonna be a mess otherwise,” Ellie replies, snark softened by relief.
Joel presses a kiss into her hair. “Ellie Miller, huh?” He pulls away, but keeps a hand on her shoulder. “Thought you couldn’t stand me.”
Ellie makes a face. “Can’t stand you.” She grins. “I’m just using you to get food, a house…”
Joel chuckles and drags her back into a hug. They’ll be alright.