Chapter Text
Ellie doesn’t remember how she got back to Jackson. She remembers Dina’s voice and her soft hands. How Jesse came downstairs with a blanket for him. The sound Tommy made when he woke up, how it echoed against the spattered windows. Most of all she remembers how far the blood spread, inching over the floor to reach her, as if it was doing what he couldn’t in those final moments.
She remembers that his head was carved in, like one of the melons Joel used to grow in his backyard. On summer nights when he’d pick one fresh, slice it in half and bring it to Ellie with a spoon. The later days when she wouldn’t answer his knock and he’d leave it on her doorstep.
Her memory stops sometime around there.
She doesn’t remember Jesse covering him with the sheet and carrying him to the horses, his now-red hair peeking out. How Dina had to help her walk, legs uncooperative and mind still pressed to the basement floor. Not the ride back or when Tommy snapped as they reached the gates, begging for his big brother to go to the doctor and not the morgue.
Ellie comes to in the bath. Her knees are pulled against her chest and her hands are shaking where they rest against her shins. The water is pink. Is any of it his? Did she touch him, hold his hand? She can’t remember.
Dina is sitting on the lip of the tub next to her, speaking quietly about a book she’s reading, gently running a rag over Ellie’s shoulders. Ellie turns to her, blinking a few times and meeting her eyes.
“Hi,” she whispers and it doesn’t sound like her voice. Dina’s eyes are red and the pity is bottomless. Ellie’s head feels foggy as she tries to place why.
“Hi, El.” Dina cups her cheek, brushing a thumb under her eye. “You with me?”
Ellie hums, letting her eyes flutter shut for a moment. He’s burned into her eyelids, still and concaved, the crack still echoing in her ears. She’s trying to picture him as he was last night, crack in his voice instead and sipping coffee he’d give a limb for. But her mind is disoriented and unfocused and the only thing she’s able to grasp is how small he looked, how lifeless.
She looks back at Dina and has a million questions. Where are those people? Did you find them? Where’s Joel? Part of her wants to ask if he’s alright. All of them lodge tightly in her throat.
“Is Tommy okay?” she asks instead because that’s easier, she already knows the answer.
“Yeah. He’s with Maria right now.”
“You and Jesse? They didn’t—” she cuts herself off, unable to finish.
“We’re okay. We didn’t–” Dina swallows, “I’m so sorry, Ellie, we didn’t see anyone.”
Ellie can only nod, turning her head back to the water. Dina continues to stroke her back and Ellie can still feel their hands, pinning her down. Their hands keeping her from reaching him, from saving him. The hands that made her watch. She shudders, nails digging into her legs. Dina stops.
“Do you want to get out?” Ellie must nod because Dina is moving up to grab a towel, grasping Ellie’s hands and helping her stand. Ellie has half the mind to realize she’s naked in front of Dina and maybe she should be feeling shy about that. Before she can think about it too long, Dina is wrapping her up tightly and pulling her from the tub. She catches sight of herself in the mirror. Her eye and cheek are a plum color and her lip is split. There should be a bullet between her eyes, a matching dent in her head. She should be dead and she doesn’t understand why she isn’t.
Dina guides her to the living room and sits her down at the end of the bed. Ellie stares at her hands, limp in her lap; her knuckles aren’t bruised. They’re pale and shaky and unmarked. They should be painted indigo and maroon with rage, blood under her nails from that woman with the braid. Dina rummages through her dresser and comes back with warm clothes.
“Okay, arms up,” she requests softly and Ellie obliges. “This shirt’s my favorite of yours. I forget how green your eyes are until you wear it.”
Ellie looks down. Joel got her this shirt, it has stars on it. Dina’s trying to make Ellie smile, give her some kind of distraction, and bless her for it. Ellie would do anything she wanted, but her smile is somewhere in the basement of the library, lost with the smoke and any hope she had for reconciliation.
She runs her eyes over Dina, making sure she was telling the truth when she said she was fine. Ellie can’t see any cuts or bruises and she’s grateful, all things considered. She doesn’t want to imagine Dina in that room. How long has it been since they lay warm and tangled and happy? Has it been hours?
Ellie doesn’t know how long she stayed pressed to the floor, eye to eye with a corpse who once placed her hands over the strings of a guitar, a light in his eyes that had been missing for twenty years. A light Ellie watched go out.
Could he see it, her fear, her desperation? Could he hear every word she hadn’t said and wanted to learn how? The statements in between her begging. Joel, get up. I can’t lose you. Joel, fucking get up. I just got you back.
Could he feel it, bloody and broken on the tile, that she loved him and missed him and forgave him? Did he die thinking he’d see her soon?
Dina helps her with the rest of the clothes and Ellie cooperates as much as she can with lead-filled limbs. Her stomach is mottled with black and purple and she thinks about the permanent smile she gave the man who did it. Dina kneels on the floor in front of Ellie, gently grabbing her ankles and sliding thick socks onto her feet.
“It was cold in there,” Ellie whispers, “the floor was freezing. He hates the cold. He always wears socks to bed. Do you— do you think he was cold?” Her face is wet and she doesn’t know when she started crying. Dina is looking up at her, face crumpled.
“He’s fine, right? He’s fine. Tell me he’s fine.”
“Ellie–”
“It was just a routine patrol.” She shakes her head, confused. “We were going to hang out tonight. I was gonna invite him over because I need to try. I need to try and fix things and because I miss him. Fuck, Dina, I miss him. So– so he has to be fine because I want to forgive him. I have to tell him I forgive him. I was finally ready, I wanted to try. How can I tell him that now? Dina, he has to be fine.”
Ellie’s breathing hard and the words are rushed and strangled. She can’t hear Dina over the roaring in her ears and the sound of his skull breaking over and over. She chokes, fluttering a hand against her chest, unable to catch her breath. Ellie knows he isn’t fine. She knows because she saw the force of the hit and the way his body went so still, no longer twitching or trembling. She knows because she felt it, like all the air was sucked from the room, the invisible cord that tied them together being violently snapped.
“Oh fuck, oh Jesus.” She meets Dina’s eyes. “He’s not– He can’t– I can’t fix this, I can’t fix him.”
He’s probably in the morgue now, an old building that used to be a restaurant. It was quiet and sterile, so different from the rest of the town and Ellie would go out of her way to avoid walking past it. She always thought it was odd, being so used to the burn piles back in Boston. They have funerals here in Jackson, caskets and burials and eulogies. They treat their dead like people. Joel now joins that group. God, he must be so cold, in that empty fucking building. Ellie thinks she might throw up.
She’s off the bed and running back to the bathroom, feet slipping on the concrete floor. She makes it just in time to empty her stomach in the toilet. Dina’s there on her heels, pulling Ellie’s hair back from her face. She continues to heave even when there’s nothing left.
Her stomach aches and it feels like penance.
She pulls away, wiping her mouth and leaning against the tub. Ellie flits her eyes over to look at Dina, sitting with her back against the sink, and reaches out to grab her hand, needing to feel something warm, something alive. It’s grounding. She rubs her thumb over Dina’s knuckles and meets her eyes.
“You don’t have to stay. It’s okay.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Even if I asked you to?” Dina smiles softly and raises an eyebrow.
“You really think it’d be that easy?” She presses a kiss to Ellie’s hand and goes to stand up. Ellie’s eyes widen and she frantically grips her hand, an anxiety tightening in her chest that she didn’t have a moment before. Her breaths come rough and fast.
“Please don’t go. I take it back, I don’t want to be alone.”
Dina kneels back down next to her, brows upturned and concern written over her face. She shushes her gently, cupping her cheek with the hand not held in a vice.
“I was just going to get you some water, El. Right around the corner. I’m staying right here with you.” Ellie nods jerkily, trying to catch her breath. “In and out, okay? Follow me.”
Ellie slips out somewhere around here. The beginning of a recurring cycle. Doing the one thing she can to protect herself from this onslaught of panic and grief, to protect herself from seeing him. Maybe one day she’ll regret losing all this time, these few raw moments before weeks and months of anger. She’ll be coated in muck and numbness for so long that she’ll wish she could remember the denial, the fear. Anything but the stagnancy in her veins and stillness of her hands as she guts and butchers half a city.
But for now, Ellie won’t remember how long of a night it was. How Dina led her back to bed, holding her forearms tight and taking the ten-foot journey one step at a time. She won’t remember how she panicked once she lay down, instantly back in that basement, prone on the floor. That Dina was there each time she woke up with iron in her mouth and eyes, creeping across the floor towards her. And when she finally found sleep, it was sitting upright, head cradled gently against Dina’s chest, listening to her heart.
Ellie wakes to the faint sound of voices outside, barely drifting in through the crack in the door.
“She finally fell back asleep,” Dina says quietly. “I don’t want to wake her up.”
“I understand, I do, but Tommy doesn’t want to do anything without her,” Maria responds.
Ellie rolls over, turning her back to the door and yanking the blanket over her head. She wants to pretend that they’re discussing patrol routes and partnerships, that she accidentally slept in and will deal with the consequences later.
She wants to pretend that the house next to her has a light on in the room upstairs, where the window is open and the sound of chipping wood slips out. She wants to pretend that last night they watched a movie and she’s actually waking up in the guest room, when she knows she fell asleep on the couch. That there’s a quilt covering her body and a kiss pressed into her hair.
Reality is starting to hit, as she listens to the muffled noises through the blanket, that Joel is dead and Tommy waiting for her in order to take care of him. To get him out of the cold, lonely morgue that used to be a restaurant.
It makes Ellie’s stomach flip and she curls up tighter, determined not to be sick again.
God, she wasted so much time. So many months and years that she could’ve spent with him, that instead, she spent angry and resentful. Rightfully so, but she can’t take those back now, there’s no making up for all that time. He’s dead and that word still feels numb in Ellie’s mouth. Dead. Joel’s always been invincible in her eyes. Someone who would take hit after fucking hit and never go down. He survived the unsurvivable, both mentally and physically, and some bitch with a fucking golf club was his end? If it was anyone else Ellie would laugh.
Ellie doesn’t notice that the voices have stopped until she hears the front door creaking shut and soft footsteps getting closer.
“You hiding under there?” comes Dina’s quiet voice, not trying to pull the blanket away from her head. She waits a moment for Ellie’s reply which doesn’t come. “Mind if I join you?”
You could do anything you want, Ellie wants to reply. Kiss me, cut me, pull me apart and see every rotten piece. Whatever you want, I’m yours. But Ellie can’t find it in her to move her lips, so she settles for a quiet hum and hope the message comes across. Dina slips in next to her, her dark eyes seeming to glow, searching over Ellie’s face.
“Hi,” she whispers.
“Hi,” Ellie manages back, finding Dina’s hands in the shadows and holding them tight. Cradling them between her larger ones like they’re precious, a once-in-a-lifetime discovery that she cannot risk losing.
“Did you hear us?”
Ellie nods, shutting her eyes.
“Please don’t make me get up.” Dina brushes hairs from her eyes and opens her mouth to talk. “I know Tommy wants me but please. Dina, I can’t see him. I’ll help with anything else but I can’t go there. I can’t see him like that again.”
“Okay, that’s okay, El. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I told Maria we’d meet them there if you were up for it and only if you were up for it.” She pauses. “I can go though, if you want. Whatever you need. Or I can stay here with you.”
“Stay. Please,” Ellie cuts in quickly.
“Of course.” Dina links their pinkie fingers. “Me and you, love.”
They’re silent for a moment, breathing the same air and connected through their hands. Ellie thinks Dina might have fallen asleep when she speaks again.
“You should probably eat something soon though. We don’t have to leave. But I can go get you something or find something in your poor excuse of a kitchen.”
“I’m not all that hungry.”
“I know, but I am, and I hate eating alone so you’re gonna have to help me out.”
Ellie narrows her eyes at her, seeing right through the lie. It’s working though and Ellie is acutely aware of how tightly she’s wrapped around Dina’s finger, literally and figuratively. She sighs, pushing the blanket back from their heads.
“Fine, you win.”
Dina looks through the kitchen cabinets and Ellie moves to sit on the edge of the bed, watching Dina stand on her tiptoes to sort through an array of jars. She’s wearing one of Ellie’s shirts, she hadn’t noticed that last night.
“Have you talked to Jesse?”
“Not since we got back to town. I wouldn’t be surprised if he stops by later though.” Dina turns to look at her. “But don’t worry you don’t have to talk to him or –”
“No, it’s alright. I wanna see him.” Ellie looks down at her feet, shuffling them against the floor. “I wanna thank him, for yesterday. For, ya know…” She can’t bring herself to say the rest, for carrying him. For bringing him back, for taking care of him when I couldn’t.
“El–”
“I wanna thank you too. For taking care of me. For staying.” She fiddles awkwardly with her hands, rubbing the skin of her knuckles.
“You don’t need to thank me for that. Look at me, El.” Ellie looks up to meet her eyes, suddenly standing in front of her. She puts her hands on Ellie’s cheeks. “You don’t need to thank me. That’s what– whatever we are, that’s what we do okay? I care about you and I want to be here.”
Ellie nods. If she could smile she would. She places her hands on Dina’s legs and tilts her head forward, resting it on her stomach. Dina wraps her hands around the back of Ellie’s head.
Whatever we are, she thinks. She can feel Dina’s heartbeat from here. God, how she wishes she could relish in this feeling, of Dina’s gentle touch and accidental admission. She wants to blush and have something clever to say, to make heat bloom in Dina’s cheeks as well.
Ellie wonders what Joel would say, if she’d gotten the chance to tell him that it wasn’t just one kiss, that she knew why Dina had done it now. She’d be lucky to have you, he had said that final night and she thinks that he had it backwards. Ellie is lucky to have her, solid and stable and offering reassurances Ellie doesn’t deserve.
They eat quietly, or Dina eats and encourages Ellie to try. She manages a few bites, but it tastes like ash and takes her several minutes to swallow.
“I could make something else if you’d like?” Dina offers. Ellie shakes her head. She’d made oatmeal with dried blueberries, something that was usually Ellie’s favorite.
“No thank you. Maybe I’ll have some later. I think I just wanna try sleeping again.”
“Alright,” Dina murmurs, taking her bowl and putting it back in the small fridge. Ellie slips back under the covers, staring up at the ceiling. “Do you want me to stay? Or do you need some alone time, ‘cause that’s totally okay if you do.”
Ellie thinks for a minute, eyes still on the ceiling. Dina has moved back over to sit on the edge of the bed. Ellie has no idea what she wants anymore. She wants to scream into her pillow, she wants to punch the walls bloody. She wants to get on a fucking horse and follow those people, snowstorm be damned. She wants to grab Dina and kiss her until it says all the words she can’t figure out how.
“Stay,” Ellie decides. “If you wanna. I don’t wanna keep you–”
“I’ve got nowhere else I’d rather be.” She squeezes Ellie’s hand. “Rest.”
Ellie closes her eyes and tries to ignore her bloodstained eyelids, begging sleep to come to her. Dina settles in at her side, sitting up against the headboard and Ellie can hear her flipping through the pages of her book. Ellie lies still for a while, with no sleep creeping in to relieve her fatigue. Dina’s fingers find their way into her hair, gently scratching at Ellie’s scalp. It’s heavenly and Ellie doesn’t feel like she deserves to feel this nice. After all her failure and sin, what has she done to warrant love like this?
Eventually, Ellie opens her eyes and turns to look up at her, “You should read out loud.”
“Have you read it before?” She turns the book so Ellie can read the title. Coraline. Ellie shakes her head. “I remember they had a showing of the movie right when I came to Jackson. Scared the shit out of me. Found a copy of the book on patrol a while ago and figured I’d give it a shot. It’s kinda scary though. You sure you want to hear that?”
Ellie nods. It’s not like I’m listening to the words, and even then, nothing from your mouth could be scary. I just want to hear your voice.
Dina begins to read and Ellie only catches a phrase or two, sleep finding her quicker than she expects, lulled by Dina’s fingers against her temple and her voice like honey.
She’s woken later when Maria returns around lunchtime, requesting that they both come over to her house. Ellie sits up in bed, shoulders slumped and Maria stands in the entryway, rubbing her thumb along her bottom lip.
“Tommy wants to see you. I was hoping you’d come over for a little while,” she says softly, a tone she rarely hears from Maria, something usually reserved for shaking, bloodied newcomers. Or with the kids whose parents hadn’t come back from a patrol. Maybe that’s what Ellie is now.
Maria tells them that she has people handling all the important stuff; she doesn’t specify that it’s people digging into the frozen soil and handling his body. She doesn’t say anything about the group who killed him. Ellie finds herself nodding but not really hearing the words. It all goes over her head, in one ear and quickly out the other without any time to process. Ellie turns her gaze away and focuses on her hands.
Maria starts to explain how Tommy wants Ellie involved in the personal stuff, the service and Joel’s belongings. Her voice fades out, Ellie blinks and she’s outside, walking with the others to Tommy and Maria’s house. If she were more with it, these absences would be jarring, scary. She’s not sure how much time has passed since they were inside, she doesn’t remember leaving or putting on her coat. Could she have missed something important? Ellie doesn’t want to think about it.
The first thing that hits Ellie as she takes in her surroundings, is all the color against the white. There are several bouquets of flowers decorating Joel’s front steps and it stops Ellie in her tracks. Maria follows her gaze and a small smile forms on her face.
“All the greenhouses are basically empty. People were lined up to go in and pick some out. And I overheard that some of the school kids are making you a card. Something ‘extra special’, so be prepared for that.”
There are several bundles of purples and pinks, delicately placed with letters attached. The gesture brings sudden tears to Ellie’s eyes and she blinks them away quickly. Seeing this tangible example of how much people cared, of how many lives he touched, it’s overwhelming. She wonders, given all her time apart from him, if she even knows how these people knew him. Ellie’s sure she’d recognize names if she looked, but not the histories.
She drags her eyes away and hurries to catch up, swiping a finger at the corners of her eyes. The walk is quick and Dina stays at her side the whole time, eyeing her anxiously when she thinks Ellie isn’t looking. Ellie doesn’t have the energy to meet her gaze.
Tommy is at the dining table when they arrive, raising a hand to greet them. It’s the first time she’s seen him since yesterday and bile rises in her throat. She hadn’t realized how similar the two of them looked until she was searching for his ghost everywhere. She finds it in the slant of his eyes and the slope of his cheeks. Ellie thinks if he opens his mouth the sound of his voice might actually make her sick.
She takes the chair across from him and keeps her eyes firmly on the table. Maria forces glasses of water into each of their hands, tells them they need to stay hydrated, and returns to the kitchen to get tea. Dina sits next to Ellie, tapping her fingers against the table and eyes intently on Ellie, her brow furrowed. She leans in close so that only she can hear.
“You okay? You weren’t there for a second, El.”
Ellie pulls back slightly to look at her. Dina’s eyes search her face, lingering on the bruises and cuts. It makes Ellie anxious to think that her disappearance was noticeable, that anyone who was really paying attention could tell she wasn’t actually present. She feels like what little amount of control she has left is slipping out of her grasp. Ellie’s never been particularly good at coping with things; grief, trauma, every moment of terror life throws at her. But she always remembers it, grounds herself in it, and these gaps in her memory make her feel unraveled.
“‘M okay. Promise,” Ellie whispers, wrapping her hands around the glass of water, an attempt to stabilize herself. Dina’s eyes remain on her face and Ellie can tell she wants to say more.
Maria comes back with a teapot and several mugs hooked on each of her fingers. She sets them down and starts pouring. She’s always been a fixer, someone who deals with problems head-on, actively. She and Joel had that in common.
Tommy clears his throat, “Washington Liberation Front,” he says and Ellie looks up. “They were wearin’ patches. WLF. All of em’”
“Maybe let’s not talk about that right–” Maria begins.
“What else?” Ellie interrupts, feeling the first surge of energy since yesterday. “Did you get any names? Locations?” Tommy’s eyes remain on the table and he shakes his head.
“Only one. Abby. They–” he swallows, mouth working but unable to say anything. “They recognized our names. Right when we got there. That’s when they...” he gestures to his head, to the ugly bloody wound on his forehead. The right side too, Ellie thinks humorlessly, just like Joel.
“Stop. I know where this train of thought is going to lead and we do not need to be doing that right now,” Maria interjects. Her voice is firm but there’s sympathy in her eyes. Anger begins to bloom in Ellie’s chest. “I understand. I promise, I understand. But we cannot be planning a suicide mission. Not now. We need to plan this with clear heads. At least let us have the funeral first.” Ellie scoffs.
“So you plan on letting us after?”
“We can discuss it after.”
“So that’s a no.”
“Ellie–” Tommy tries, finally looking up.
“No. You just expect us to stay here?” Ellie asks incredulously.
“I’m telling you this is not the time, okay?”
Not the time? Ellie wants to scream. Not the fucking time? She wants to stand up and get in Maria’s face and fucking scream. You weren’t there. You weren’t fucking there. Helpless, listening to him cry and watching him die. You didn’t see the resigned fucking look in his eye. So don’t tell me this isn’t the fucking time.
But Ellie makes the mistake of looking at Tommy, who’s staring at her with Joel’s wet, swollen, eyes, and suddenly she can’t find the words. Joel’s brother, his blood, his real family, doesn’t want Ellie to do this right now, so she doesn’t. Even though it’s hardwired in her, the rage and the bloodlust, she can’t find it in herself to argue with him right now, not when she’s the one who had the opportunity to save Joel. She’s the one who had the gun and the chance, and she’s the reason they’re having this conversation, the reason why his big brother isn’t at the table.
“Okay,” Ellie whispers, desperately breaking eye contact with Tommy, because as her eyes blur with tears, his face looks too much like Joel’s. She can fight later, when her eyes are clear and she’s positive her voice won’t shake. She lifts a hand and runs a knuckle under each eye, taking a deep breath.
Maria visibly relaxes. She finally takes a seat next to Tommy, taking his hand into hers.
They spend the next hour discussing the service. Ellie doesn’t want to say she doesn’t care. All she can think about is the people who put them here at this table, but she can tell it’s important to Tommy so she tries. He looks at her before answering each of Maria’s questions, like he’s looking for reassurance or guidance or even permission, none of which Ellie can offer. She nods or shrugs or offers short replies, but Tommy still checks with her first.
It’s so odd seeing him like this, so lost. He’d always looked up to Joel, and despite all their years apart, he’d fallen back into step with him as if no time had been lost. The bond you have with a sibling is something you’re born with, something you die with, and something that Tommy now had to live with alone. The two of them were tethered, whether they liked it or not sometimes, and now Tommy was left with the end of a frayed rope and nothing to tie it to.
Joel had always been the decision maker of the two, and while Tommy had come into his independence after they separated, he still looked to his big brother in times of big importance. Joel had to grow up fast when they were young, and that gave him a wisdom far beyond his years. It’s something Ellie always admired, how Joel always seemed to know what to say; even if he wasn’t the most book-smart, he’d know something to get him to the right answer.
Joel was also a cut-and-dry man. He didn’t make a fuss about most things, the stuff he found superficial. So that’s why Ellie is starting to find it a bit hilarious how meticulously they’re planning this funeral. If Joel were here he’d call them all idiots and ask to be tossed into the woods. He’d ask for them to get their asses on a horse and get some fuckin revenge.
Before she and Dina leave, Tommy gives her a tight hug that she does her best to return, and she tries not to think, her head tucked against his chest, about how much he smells like Joel. Maria squeezes her shoulder on the way out, placing a shocking and gentle hand against Ellie’s cheek, and reminds her to take care of herself. It’s motherly in a way that catches Ellie off guard, all she can do is nod dumbly and say she’ll try her best.
Dina and her walk side by side, not saying anything. When they get to the juncture that splits off to Dina’s house Ellie stops.
“I think maybe I wanna spend the night alone. Try and sort out my thoughts a bit.” Ellie glances up at her, shoulders heavy. Dina nods and rests a hand against her arm.
“Okay, El. You sure?” Ellie nods, looking back down. “You come get me if you need anything at all, okay?”
“Okay,” Ellie murmurs. Dina reaches up and places a firm kiss against her cheek, her hand warm against the side of Ellie’s neck. She squeezes her hand.
“I’ll stop by in the morning, just for a little bit.” Ellie nods again and Dina walks away, hands tucked in her coat and walking slower than usual. Ellie watches her for a moment before turning and going back towards her house.
By the time Ellie has returned and gotten into bed, still in her clothes from the day, the sky is deep shades of purple and Ellie realizes she’s lived a full day without Joel. She’s been living without him for a while now, but he was always there, like a shadow, a scar. She knew he was there when she received easy patrol routes and melons on her doorstep.
She doesn’t know how to garden, she realizes; who’s going to make sure his plants grow this spring? She’s gonna have to learn.