Work Text:
June 2023
Every morning when the first sunlight seeped through the curtains of his bedroom and hit his eyes it was the same. His mind - slowly emerging from the depths of sleep - needed a moment to remember where he was; a moment in which he relived a whole array of emotions he had been through in the last 20 years: horror, loss, grief, anger, panic and finally a deep sense of relief, when he remembered where he was.
Every time he opened his eyes, looking around the room he was in, reassuring himself that it was real, not a dream before falling back onto the pillow, breath flying, heart racing and let out a deep quiet sigh.
Most days he stayed in bed until the old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock on his nightstand started rattling, relishing the calm that overcame him when he listened to the sounds outside his window.
The birds singing in the trees, the roosters crowing in the chicken coop, the horses neighing and the sheep bleating in the nearby stables, the voices of the people of the town on the way to their work.
Joel knew his days of idleness were coming to an end. Soon he would be joining the workforce like the rest of the adults in Jackson and start pulling his weight and he was looking forward to it.
He hated being unproductive, not contributing anything, using up resources that others had provided. It made him feel useless, like a burden and he hated that feeling. And it left him with way too much time alone with his own thoughts. But even if they’d allowed him to go hunting with them or work construction with Tommy, he wouldn’t have been able to.
His body was still weakened from the injury that almost cost him his life months ago and the battle he had fought. He hadn’t realized how weakened he actually still was until he and Ellie had made it to the gates of Jackson. The guard on the tower had recognized him and yelled for the gate to be opened for them, and after Joel had staggered through, Ellie by his side, he’d collapsed onto his knees to the sound of his brother's voice calling out his name.
The rest of the day had gone by in a blur.
A visit to the town’s doctor, a hot meal, the return to the house they had stayed in this past winter, a hot shower and a soft bed. Tommy and Maria had spared him the questions until the following day.
None of them had pressured him into revealing more than he wanted about what had happened to Joel and Ellie since they had seen them last. But Tommy knew his brother well enough to see that they had been through a lot. Since then, they both had been allowed to rest and recuperate at their own speed.
Ellie had taken a liking to the horses quickly and had started going to the stables as soon as she had finished breakfast, returning hours later, dirty, smelling of straw and animals, stalks of hay in her hair and her cheeks red from excitement.
It always made him smile seeing her like this, the weight of her experiences lifted for a short while, like an echo of the lively, carefree child she used to be before the horrors of this world they lived in had dimmed her light. But the echo never lasted, and infallibly the more somber Ellie always re-emerged and with her the painful feeling of distance between them.
Joel had taken things slower, exploring the town when he felt like it, familiarizing himself with the layout of the streets and the buildings that framed them. The school, the clinic, the blacksmith, the tailor's workshop, the sawmill – within a few days he knew where to find them all.
The metallic rattling of his alarm jolted him out of his thoughts, and he sat up, reaching with one arm to turn the noise off. The injury in his side still hurt and he absentmindedly pressed his other hand on the aching spot. His fingers felt the bumpy rugged scar beneath the fabric of his tank top, an unerasable reminder of the events that bonded him and Ellie together.
He dressed himself with slow, measured movements and left the house to get some breakfast himself.
Stepping through the back door of his new home he almost always paused for a moment, taking a couple of deep breaths. The beauty of the scenery still took Joel's breath away on days like this.
Behind the neighboring buildings and the wall surrounding the town loomed the snow capped peaks of the Absaroka Range, drenched in the golden light of the May morning. Despite the month of the year the air was still crisp, and Joel could see his breath as he exhaled. The altitude the city was at made the winters long and grim and the nights cold even in summer. It was a hostile climate that made survival hard, but it also kept them safe.
Joel pulled his jacket closer around his body and turned his collar up against the cold before he shoved his hands into his pockets and set out to find Tommy.
******************************
Jackson's main street was busy when Joel emerged between the building that housed the church and the old bank, pausing for a moment.
He took in the scene in front of him and even after almost two weeks he could hardly believe the normality of life in this place. It seemed almost absurd, after everything he had seen out there, how peaceful, how unremarkable things were here.
Sure, life took place behind eighteen-foot walls, out there were still infected and raiders that needed to be fought off, but the children in this city had the luxury of growing up in a place that was closer to life before the outbreak than the children in the QZs could ever dream of.
He didn’t realize he had been staring until his met the gaze of a woman and her young daughter who both unabashedly stared back at him. Everyone here recognized him by now, even if he didn’t know their names just yet - or they his. They knew him as Tommy’s brother, the one who walked all the way across America with that girl.
Joel returned the nod a bearded man with a rifle slung over his shoulder gave him and joined the ranks of people in the street going about their daily business.
He kept his head low and hid his face behind the high collar of his jacket as he made his way down the main street towards the assembly building. Usually someone there knew where he would be able to find Tommy if he wasn’t out of town hunting or on patrol.
To avoid the looks of the others he kept his eyes on the ground in front of him, avoiding the potholes in which the water from the melting snow gathered. The pavement was the only thing in Jackson that was hard to keep up. Tar wasn’t something they could come by easily, Tommy had told him, and every year after the months of frost and snow the roads seemed to get a little bit worse. All they could do about it was patch them the best they could with the tools and materials they had.
Joel stopped in his tracks, when a group of children crossed his path on their way to the schoolhouse down the road a bit further. A smile flashed across his face as one of the children turned around and made a face at him before running after the others.
Maria had offered Ellie the chance to go to school with the other children here for a while. They didn’t have a formal High School like before the outbreak, but they taught the kids of Jackson until they were at least sixteen.
But Ellie had declined.
“I have nothing in common with them,” were her words and that was the last thing she had to say about that.
Joel entered the large assembly hall, thoroughly wiping his dirty boots on the doormat before crossing the room. The older lady from the house next to him was on breakfast duty this week and she usually knew where to find Tommy.
“Good morning, Joel!”
She saw him before he could approach her and waved him over to her, past the line of people waiting for their turn at the serving counter. A few of them gave him the side eye as he walked past them to the front of the line, but Joel ignored them.
“Morning, Gloria!”
“Do you want some coffee?”
Joel shook his head no. It wasn’t real Coffee she was offering him. Real coffee was hard to come by. A lucky find sometimes when they went out hunting for supplies and happened upon a place that wasn’t picked clean already. Then - for a few glorious days - the community got to enjoy real coffee with the real taste and the invigorating effect of the caffeine.
But most days the brown brew served for breakfast was a lousy substitute, made from plants and roots - roasted and ground up - that could maybe fool the taste-buds but never the nerves.
“Have you seen Tommy, Gloria?”
The older woman absentmindedly shoveled some scrambled eggs on a plate and handed it to the person next to Joel.
“He spoke about framing the new greenhouse near the east wall today,” she said then. Joel nodded, trying to remember which way to take there and was about to turn and leave when he unexpectedly felt a hand touch his arm.
“Joel.”
When he looked up Gloria handed him a little package, wrapped in a white fabric napkin.
“Take a sandwich. You need to eat.”
Nodding he accepted the food and left the building the way he had entered it.
******************************
By the time he arrived at the construction site for the new greenhouse he had finished his sandwich. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he had started eating. He was so used to ignoring hunger on this journey
Tommy and three other men were in the process of assembling and then raising the last of the frames for the greenhouse. A pulley system replaced the crane, that would have done the lifting before the outbreak and the four men were clearly struggling with holding the weight of the frame and anchoring it down at the same time.
Without giving it a second thought Joel stepped next to the two men holding the frame up and grabbed on to the rough rope himself. He put his whole weight into it, ignoring the stabbing pain in his side that flared up under the tension, but together they held the frame long enough for Tommy and the fourth man in their team to anchor the wooden beams to the foundation.
One of the men slapped Joel on the back and uttered words of appreciation but Joel only nodded while he tried to steady himself against the now stable frame, hand firmly pressed against the aching spot on his abdomen.
When Tommy walked over to him, he straightened up and tried to hide the pain but the look on his brother’s face told Joel that he had been unsuccessful.
“Just like old times, right?”
Joel did his best to make his voice sound steady and ignored the side eye that Tommy gave him.
“Gloria said I would find you here,” he added after he didn't get a reply. Tommy gave the men he had been working with a brief hand signal to continue without him and then motioned for Joel to follow him a little out of the way.
The brothers stopped by the fence surrounding the now empty horse pen and Joel leaned against a fencepost while Tommy put one foot up on one of the crossbeams.
“What’s up?”
Joel shrugged.
“I think it’s time for me to start pulling my weight around this place,” he said, “do my part. I can help with construction. Would be nice to get back in the trade.”
“Are you sure about this?” Tommy asked with an insinuating hand motion towards Joel's insured side. Joel let out a frustrated sigh.
“I’ve been sitting around doing nothing long enough! I want to help,” he protested.
“You’re not helping anyone if you hurt yourself again trying to prove a point here.” Tommy seemed to get equally frustrated with his brother. He ran his gloved hand across his forehead and sighed
“Alright I will talk to` the council that you want to help us here, but Joel - just take this slow alright? You got nothing to prove to us!”
“JOEL!”
Ellie’s voice interrupted the brothers and both of them turned their heads to see Maria and Ellie come through the open gate of the horse enclosure. Maria leading a brown mare by the reins and Ellie sitting on horseback, a wide grin on her face.
“Maria let me go out on patrol today!” Ellie exclaimed, followed by an excited giggle.
For a moment Joel thought his heart stopped when he heard those words, like all the blood in his body dropped to his feet that moment.
“She did what?” He hissed and was about to go off on Maria when he felt Tommy’s hand on his arm.
“She went with our six best men, and it was just a short patrol to the dam and back,” Tommy tried to talk his brother down, but Joel whipped his head around to him looking even angrier than before.
“You knew about this?”
Tommy knew that Joel was barely containing his rage just from the way the veins on his neck started to stand out. He had seen Joel angry enough times to know the signs.
“Joel,” he said sternly and put his hand on Joel's shoulder with a firm grip, “she was safe with my guys. I would never put her in danger.”
Joel looked up at him and Tommy reinforced his words with a firm nod. Joel hesitated a moment but then exhaled a long, slow breath and nodded in return.
Ellie slid off the horse, while Maria watched, correcting her where needed. Once firmly on the ground Ellie immediately looked to the other woman for affirmation. Maria smiled and nodded and Ellie beamed with pride.
Holding on to the reins she stepped up to the head of her horse and gently rubbed the mare’s nose. The horse snorted and blew her breath into Ellies face which made the girl giggle.
“Alright, take to her box, and take care of her like I showed you. Don will help you if you need,” Maria said, and Ellie nodded before leading the horse towards the stables, after quickly waving at Joel.
Maria watched her as she walked away and then joined Joel and Tommy at the fence.
“It was about time she learned how to properly ride a horse. I have been teaching her.” Maria added, putting emphasis on the word properly. Yes, Joel had taught Ellie the basics of riding on their journey to Colorado, but she had never received proper training.
Joel knew that what he taught Ellie was probably not good enough and he was thankful for Maria taking the time to give Ellie lessons, especially in her condition.
The baby could be coming any day now, but she was still out and about, working and even making time for Ellie.
“Thank you for that,” Joel mumbled to which Maria replied only with a quiet nod.
Their relationship had started off on the wrong foot when they first met and they both were working on mending the rift between them, even if it would take a long time still. But he knew, even if neither of them said it out loud, that they would keep trying.
“I just – I...” Joel interrupted himself, struggling for the words to express his feelings and then, after a long pause continued: “It is my job to protect her.”
“You will not be around to protect her forever.” Maria’s words were cold and austere, but they were not spoken without warmth in her voice. Joel caught Tommy shoot his wife a look, then Tommy turned back to Joel.
“Maria is right. Let Ellie learn what she needs to survive - in here and out there. One day she will have to do so without you.” Tommy said.
Joel hung his head and let out a sigh. Part of him knew Tommy was right. He would not be around forever to protect Ellie. One day she would have to survive on her own, without him. And the thought terrified him.
The idea that his watch would one day end, that he would not be there one day, and she would be on her own - maybe she would be the one to take care of others even.
“Plenty time still ‘til then. But let her learn now, so she has all the experience she needs when she needs it.” Maria interjected gently, obviously picking up on the distress the idea brought him. Maybe it was their shared experience of losing a child that connected them in this moment but without even knowing why Joel could tell that her attitude towards him had softened a little and for the first time he was grateful to her.
“Yeah” Joel mumbled quietly. He knew she was right. Being well prepared would give Ellie the best chances, but he still didn’t like it. He didn’t like that thought one bit.
“Come on,” Tommy finally interrupted Joel's pondering, putting a hand on his brother's shoulder. “No need to worry about that right now. Let's see if we can find you a job.”