Work Text:
It is both for a selfish and selfless reason that Joel does what he does.
(It won’t be the last time he makes a decision like that)
Ellie’s been quiet for too long. Normally he wouldn’t mind a little quiet, sometimes her incessant chattering does grate on his nerves when it goes on for nigh on twenty-four hours a day, but tonight she’s a little too quiet, in a way that harks back to the very early days after Kansas City. She’d eaten her dinner with only the barest of comments about how tinned sweetcorn ‘fucking sucks’, and had curled herself up to go to sleep without a single pun. He got a “night, Joel” which had allayed his concern a little, but even so.
He’s worried.
This is a relatively safe space they’ve set up camp in, or as safe as they’re ever going to get. They both could get a few hours sleep without someone taking watch, tucked in as they are between two boulders. some fallen logs, and a horse for good measure. It would make sense. There’s no knowing when they’ll get this sense of security again, especially since they’re still a good few days out from the university.
Still.
Instinct for survival is something he has acquired in abundance. There’s a little voice within him that lets him know whether something is safe or an ambush, if the canned food is just bad or deathly so, if they need to stop or if they could make it another couple of miles. It’s why he’s managed twenty years. But with a teenage girl, even back then, his inner voice has always been fucking useless, letting him know something is wrong, but not exactly what, and leaving him utterly no clue as to what to do with it.
That little voice is in overdrive tonight, as it has been a lot over the past few months, but it still hasn’t developed the power of telepathy. Figures. His best strategy is usually to just wait it out but tonight the little voice doesn’t want to do that and, strangely enough, neither does he.
Except he’s still a gruff, battle-hardened Southern man who’s never been the best at the big conversations and the expressing of feelings, even before the end of the world, and knowing Ellie like he’s come to, he knows that won’t work anyway. So he lies on his back, looks up at the stars, and just does what he’s done since that very first moment he became a father: flies by the seat of his fucking pants.
“You know, people used to buy stars.”
Joel had only been ninety-percent sure that Ellie was still awake before he spoke. There’s no longer any doubt. At the thought of conversation, he feels rather than sees her perk up, hears her rustle about excitedly, like the kid she is doing anything to put off going to sleep. “What?”
“Yeah. Used to name ‘em, too.”
He risks a glance and finds that, even in the moonlight, he can clearly see her frowning. “But they already got names.”
“They didn’t pick the big ones,” he says, like he’s talking about sheep in a field. “Not the ones that were part of constellations.”
Ellie shifts closer to him, the rustling of her jacket and sleeping bag a dead giveaway. Something loosens in his chest. It’s a little bit easier to breathe.
“So what ones did they pick then?”
He shrugs. “Any ones, I guess. Ones that hadn’t been picked by the other people who got there first.”
“How did you get to decide what one was yours?”
“You didn’t. They just kinda gave you one.”
Joel can practically feel the cogs in that head of hers turning, trying to figure out how it all makes sense with the knowledge she has of the world back then.
“How did they know they weren’t giving two people the same stars? Like that would suck, if you bought yourself a star and thought that you were all fucking special and cool and it turned out, like, your nemesis had bought the same one.”
“Nemesis?” He can’t help himself. “That’s a pretty big word comin’ from you.”
“Same letters as ‘asshole’, asshole.”
“Yeah,” he chuckles, a puff of white in the night air. “I guess it is.”
“So,” she says, “how did they know?”
“They had their ways.” He has no fucking clue how it all worked, but he’s not about to admit it. Not when Ellie’s this close and he feels like he’s making amends for what he said to her a few nights but may as well be a lifetime ago.
If Ellie was listening closely enough she’d recognise his bullshit but she isn’t. She’s transfixed on the heavens and the intricate dance it performs above them. Eyes-wide, slack-mouthed, like it’s the coolest thing she’s seen. It reminds him of when Sarah was a baby, looking up at a crib mobile Tommy had made her. It had tinkled in the wind and thrown little bursts of light around the room. The similarity is so intense and so unexpected that Joel almost rolls over and howls into the ground.
Over three decades, two different girls, same fucking expression.
Still no idea how he has ended up here.
“What did they name them?”
He’s lost for a second, forgotten where they are and what they’re talking about. “What?”
“The stars.” Ellie gestures upward. “You said people used to buy them and name them. What did they call them?”
“Oh. They – uh – they usually named ‘em after themselves.”
“Whoah, really? So everyone would just know that, like, that star there-” she points to a random space in the sky, “- would be called Joel or whatever?”
“Well not quite,” he allows, hating to spoil the fun. “They obviously don’t come with labels on ‘em.”
“I know that, dumbass,” Ellie interrupts.
“Smartass,” Joel counters. “Anyway, I think that it was a thing that was only for the person getting it and nobody else.” He’s remembered too late that it was never very official, this service that let you name the stars and claim them as your own. How stupid. The stars belong to nobody. Well - and he glances at Ellie again, stars dancing like freckles across her cheeks - maybe just this little girl. He casts around for something to soften the blow, lessen the sting. “You’d get this certificate though, rolled up with a little bow and everything.”
“Huh.” It’s more of a sigh, and Joel can tell she’s not convinced by his paltry offering. He was like this before, too. Never getting the words quite right, ending up causing more disappointment than the comfort he meant so earnestly to give. The spectre of Sarah, who has haunted him every hour of every day for twenty years, has hovered ever closer since Jackson. I’m sorry, he wants to tell her, has told her countless times. I’m sorry I’m still not getting it right.
“It’s not the same, though,” Ellie says now, just when he thought she wouldn’t say anything else. “If everyone knows then it’s more real, isn’t it? Like otherwise you could just be making it up.”
The whole world’s made up. Haven’t you seen that, yet? There’s no way things have to be, no matter what anybody says to you. But he can’t say that to her, not to that little face that he still sees in his sleep, shouting at him, telling him that he was the only person who hadn’t left her yet but was going to do so anyway. It’s to save you, he always tries to say, it’s all to try and save you. But the words never come and he wakes in a cold sweat, reaching over to make sure she’s still here.
He never has to reach too far.
“I reckon,” he begins slowly, a rare show of sentimentality, “it’s all about having somethin’ special that’s only yours. Even if nobody else knows that don’t make it any less special. As long as you know, then that’s the only thing that matters.”
He looks at her then with bated breath, hoping that she hears what he’s not even really sure he’s trying to say, but at least just the sentiment behind it, a half-articulated thought of something that’s too big to name.
“I gotcha,” she says softly, and maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t, but the saying of it is enough.
Joel nods, once, then looks back up. For so many years he’s kept his head looking down at the ground. One step in front of the other. And he hadn’t thought about much else either, other than that next step. Any further forward or backward and the sheer heartache of a past and future gone in the blink of an eye would’ve killed him. He should’ve looked up, though. He should’ve looked at the stars.
“Why don’t you pick one?”
He says it without thinking, and when he feels Ellie’s unique gaze burn the side of his face only then does he realise what he has done.
“What, a star? To name after me?”
“Uh…”
It was stupid. It was the most fucking stupid thing to ever come out of his mouth. She’s a kid but she’s not, not in the way he knows how to be with kids. She’s older than her years, wiser than them, too. She’s done things nobody – but not a kid, never a kid – should ever have to do and that’s on him and that’s something he’ll live with forever and of course she’s not gonna be interested in naming a star why would he even think-”
“Cool,” she says breathily, with a whole lot of feeling. “Which one should I choose ?”
“I dunno,” he says but it’s an effort because his heart is hammering inside of his chest. This thing really matters to you, the little voice says, still on trend with saying nothing useful at all. “There’s a whole sky full of ‘em. Take your pick.”
“Good job you want sheep, ‘cause you’d never make it as a comedian.” Ellie peers up as if the sky has changed in the blink of an eye. “There’s fucking millions of them. How’d I know which one’s mine?”
“Well pick one that’s different from the others, stands a little apart or somethin’ like that. If you close your eyes and open ‘em again and you can still see it, then it’s a good one.”
“Oo, I’ll just pick one of the ones that’s already part of the constellations, like the Big Dipper. Then I’ll never forget it.”
He’s glad to have her back. He really is. “Sure, sounds like a plan.”
“Wait, can I do that though? Can I pick one of those ones?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“It’s just…” She worries her bottom lip. “Well like it’s part of something else, something bigger. Can I make it mine?”
Her little voice… that loaded question. He doesn’t want to think about it and so he doesn’t. “Why not? Who’s here to tell you no?”
She grins. “Well you are.”
“Yeah, since when do you ever fucking listen to me anyway?” There’s no real bite in it though.
“I am angel, Joel. A fucking angel.” She laughs and the sound floats away to where it truly belongs. “But yeah. Sometimes it feels like we’re the last people in the world out here.”
It’s disconcerting how often he wishes that were true.
He says nothing and she reaches over, tugging on his sleeve. “Joel,” she whines plaintively. “Which one should I pick?”
“It’s your star. I can’t pick it for you. What if I pick the wrong one?”
(But really he craves it, this being asked for his help, his opinion. Simply being needed. Good or bad, right or wrong, Joel Miller needs to be needed).
“Ugh, dude, come on! You can’t just leave me with all these options.”
“Funny, 'cause I am.” Tiredness has overtaken him in the best kind of way. It reminds him of lazy Sunday afternoons that haven’t existed in twenty years. He settles down in his sleeping bag, rolling over, good ear facing the world. “You picked one yet?”
“Hold on, hold on! I’m tryna make sure I pick the right one.”
“Well.” He doesn’t stifle his yawn. “You can just get back to me in the mornin’.”
“The stars will be gone by then!”
“Tomorrow night then,” he mumbles, and the world falls quiet.
But not for long.
Earlier he was worried, in a pinch-in-the-heart-pain-in-the-head-is-everything-alright-what-can-I-do kind of worried that had made him nauseous. Now he’s tired, and he wants to go to bed, but a father is never off duty, and so, when, not even two minutes later, a little voice says, “Joel?” his eyes flash open, he turns back up to the sky, he says, “Yeah?” and he waits anxiously for whatever comes next.
It’s a hesitation. A long one. But then: “Do you miss Tess?”
The last unbroken rule. The mention of her name causes a seizing pain in his chest that he doesn’t want to think about. Instead of getting angry about it, he simply asks, “Why?”
“Cause – cause I miss her.” Was this the true reason behind Ellie’s silence all along? He’ll never ask but he suspects so. “And I didn’t really know her, and not for very long. Figured it must be worse for you.”
Is it worse? Yeah, probably. But it’s not the worst. So he survives. All he manages is, “Mm.”
“How long were you guys, like, together?”
He doesn’t correct her. Figures he owes Tess that much. “Long time.”
Ellie gasps. “Like from ‘before’?”
Unable to help himself, he gives a small half-chuckle. “Nah, not that long.” Not before but not longer after the ‘after’ came into being. Grief had changed form by then; no longer a raw, tangible thing he could hold in his lap. “Probably about as long as you’ve been alive. Maybe a bit more.”
“Oh shit.”
Oh shit indeed. “Yeah.”
“Did you, like, well, you know…”
Love is a foreign country. (They’re residents only they don’t know it yet). Joel feels honesty bubbling in the back of his throat. Something to do with the goddamn stars. “Not like she wanted me to.”
Ellie makes a noise that’s something like a sigh. “That’s kinda sad.”
“Yeah, it is kinda sad.” But he never found it so.
“You must miss her, though.”
“Yeah.” And he does, but not like he should.
They are silent again for a second, but the stars demand more of him. It’s easier like this. He’s never been very good at baring his soul whilst looking people in the eye.
“She gave me a reason to keep goin’,” he says at last. “After everything that happened.”
Let’s keep our histories to ourselves, had been his rule, but months later Ellie has met his brother and learned about his daughter and now knows, almost, the things that his ‘everything’ entails.
“And now?” There’s a careful note in Ellie’s voice. “That she’s gone?”
Don’t make me say it, kid. “I’ve got you.”
“What about, like, after me?”
There’s a funny feeling in his heart at that thought. Certain thoughts he’s had as of late that make him want to weep. Even after Jackson, after talking to Tommy, it’s something he doesn’t dare name, lest the world decides he’s unworthy and takes her away. Sheep ranches on the fucking moon. He can’t say it any other way.
“What, you plannin’ on there being an after?”
Ellie laughs again and it’s like bubbles popping in the air. God, he’s missed that sound. He’s missed it his whole life. “No,” she says, and he can hear the smile in her voice. “Guess I’m not.”
“Good.” And it is good. It’s the best thing he’s ever heard. It makes him feel actually fucking unadulteratedly happy for the first time in only God knows how long. “Now get some sleep. Not dragging your tired ass around tomorrow.”
She scoffs. “Isn’t that what the horse is for?”
“Not having him do it either. You stay awake, you’re walkin’.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Yeah, so are you,” he mumbles, sleep tugging at his eyelids.
(In the months to come a little voice will ask in the dead of night, aren’t you disappointed about the cure, Joel? And he’ll answer honestly and a little too quickly, not a bit, because it wasn’t the fungus that killed his daughter and there’s no cure for what did. And as for the supposed cure that Marlene was trying to sell him, well that would just have taken another one away. He wouldn’t even risk it. He’ll damn the world for her, sure. The world is damned anyway. But he won’t, could never, damn her for the world).
He’s almost gone, lost to the land of dreams that might not end in the same way they always end tonight when that little voice pipes up again.
“Joel?”
“Yeah?”
“Did Sarah like the stars?”
It’s strange, but the mention of her name doesn’t make him recoil like it usually does. Everyone talks around Sarah, and yes, so does he. It’s how he’s been able to survive it. But Ellie’s boldness makes her real once again. It means she was here.
His daughter never really thought much about the stars except in terms of astrology or celebrities. She liked to draw and play soccer even though by that September she was thinking of quitting and it made him sad in a way he couldn’t explain. Sarah liked music and buying new accessories for her hair and making ridiculous concoctions in the kitchen on the nights he was working late. She was funny and kind in an unassuming way and yeah she was growing up but she was still his babygirl and her smile at fourteen was still the same smile she gave him when she was four weeks old. It was her and Joel, and sometimes Tommy, and they were a team, and no matter how much their lives changed, that fact always remained the same.
These are things he cannot say. It would kill him to even try.
“She liked pancakes,” is all he manages in reply.
Ellie hmms. “I’ve never had pancakes.”
He’s honestly never understood the hype. “You’re not missin’ out.” He risks a glance at her. Turns away before she notices. “They suck.”
She nods, even though he can’t see it, like they’re marching into battle together in the war of the breakfast foods. “They fucking suck.”
That’s my girl, he thinks before he can stop himself, eyes fluttering closed. The spectre of Sarah smiles at him from beyond. It feels like he might somehow be getting it right.
“Hey, Joel?”
He doesn’t even bother opening his eyes this time. It’ll be morning before they fucking know it. “Third strike and you’re out.”
Ellie chooses to ignore him. “Did you hear what happened when the pancake got angry?”
A deep breath because they’ve had a nice couple of moments and he doesn’t want to ruin it. “What?”
“He just flipped.”
Joel only groans.
“Dude, come on! It’s good.”
“It’s a 1/10.” And that’s him being kind.
“A one?!” She’s scandalised. “I thought it was pretty fucking good considering I just came up with it on the spot.”
“I guarantee you at least a hundred other people have thought that one up.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Yuh-uh.”
“Well where are they, Joel, huh? Where are all the hundreds of people lining up to take credit for the pun that I came up with all on my own-”
“Ellie,” he says, and it’s with finality but it’s the kind of finality that says I love you but shut up and not come morning you and I are going our separate ways. “I’m gonna flip in a minute if you don’t just shut up and get some damn sleep.”
“Aye aye, Captain!” She says, and he can just imagine the mock salute. There’s a rustle that sounds suspiciously like a kid hunkering down in a sleeping bag that has moved ever so slightly closer to him. There’s a contented sigh and the little voice he has come to so dearly love says, “Night, Joel.”
He waits a few seconds before opening his eyes to make sure hers are truly closed. There’s something about kids in their sleep, there’s something fierce in his chest. Something something something. He just flipped. Isn’t that what his heart does when she laughs? Maybe he’d really give it a three.
“Night,” he whispers, knowing she hasn’t heard but the world has, the stars have, and he hopes it’s enough.
The stars (including one newly christened Ellie, that sits slightly below and to the right of a steadily shining Joel) blink down their approval, and just keep shining on.