Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This is the right call, Joel tells himself, staring at the ceiling. Ellie would be safer with Tommy than with him. Tommy’s got two functioning ears, Army training, he’s a few years younger. This was the best thing for her, she just needed a little time and distance to see it. And after Tommy took her to the Fireflies and they did their tests and blood draws, they’d come back and then Joel would be proven right. Ellie would be mad, sure, but she’d get over it eventually.

It's the right call, he repeats to himself, rolling over to lay on his side. It's the right call.

–-

The sun is almost fully over the horizon when he wakes up the next morning, just a few hours after he’d finally fallen asleep. Still no idea what he’d dreamed about, but he feels hollowed out inside, like his organs have been replaced with lead.

His bones crack a bit as he rolls out of bed, but that’s nothing new, and out of habit he stops for a moment to wait for Ellie’s joke about it. There’s only silence, and his gaze drifts to the shut door of his room.

It had been weird last night, sleeping with her more than a couple feet away, with two doors between them. Like he was missing a limb. It didn’t bode well for however long they were going to be separated while her and Tommy went to Colorado.

He stares at his door, trying to tell himself again like he had last night that he was making the right choice. That Tommy was the better option to get Ellie safely there and back, that she would be better off without Joel.

Except it hits him, sitting there on his bed in the unnerving quiet, that he might not be better off without her. Maybe Ellie would be safer with Tommy, that part was probably right. But he had told Marlene he would take her, had told Tess he would take her, and they had been through entirely too much between Boston and Jackson for him to just let her go on without him now.

He practically sprints across the room, yanking the door open. “Ellie?”

Her door across from his is wide open, her bed made, no sign of her or her bag.

Shit.

Joel turns around and snags his pack, going down the stairs two at a time. Maybe they’re still at the stables, entirely likely since Ellie drags her feet when she really doesn’t wanna do something. He can probably catch them, get Tommy to stay here, and –

He skids to a stop at the sight of Maria sitting at the small round dining table, and his heart sinks just the smallest amount.

“When did they leave?”

Maria shrugs, staring at him in a manner he could only describe as hostile. “About an hour ago, I’d say.”

“Fuck.” Joel tosses his pack against the wall, bracing his hands on the back of a chair. “Maybe I can still catch them, I’ll send Tommy back and –”

“No.” Maria’s voice is clear as she cuts him off.

“What?”

“No,” she repeats simply. “Tommy told me that I was to sit here and wait for you and make sure you stayed put. He said he’s got it handled, that Ellie’s in good hands.”

“It shouldn’t be him though,” Joel says, running a hand over his face, and Maria inclines her head. “Ellie is my responsibility, I shouldn’t’ve asked him to do this.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Maria agrees. “But he’s a man of his word, he said he’d take her and now he is. So you’re going to stay here in Jackson until he gets back.” She stands, pressing a hand to her lower back. “I’m sure you’ll find ways to make yourself useful around here, but you’re not to leave the walls until my husband comes back safe and sound.”

She makes her way to the front door and Joel sinks into a seat at the table. “I’m sorry,” he calls after her, guilt surging up into his chest. For all that they hadn’t really gotten off on the right foot, she was Tommy’s wife - his pregnant wife - and he’d selfishly sent her husband on a dangerous errand because he couldn’t deal with his own fears.

“You should be,” she acknowledges coldly, one hand on the door handle. “But not as sorry as you’ll be if he doesn’t come back in one piece.”

Joel just nods, watching her open the door and step outside.

“If you need anythin’,” he adds, “just let me know.” It's the least he can do, considering the mess he's made.

He hears anger in Maria’s tone for the first time as she responds, “You’d be the last fucking person I’d call, Joel.” The door slams behind her, and Joel is left alone in a too-silent house.

–-

Tommy had expected, from what he had seen and heard of Ellie so far, that she’d be a chatty little thing, talking his ear off. Joel had made it sound like that’s what their entire trip had been, non-stop questions and puns.

But she just sits behind him on the horse, arms loosely wrapped around him, not saying a word. The few brief attempts he’d made at conversation had been met with one-word answers or silence.

He hadn’t missed the way she kept looking over her shoulder as they rode through and then out of Jackson, as if waiting for Joel to catch up to them and tell them he’d changed his mind. It wasn’t until they were a few miles out from the gates that he stopped feeling her move, that she slumped against him just a little as if giving up.

He’d heard her sniffle a bit at one point, but she’d followed it with a shiver like she was trying to play it off as being cold, and he let her.

“Should be just a couple days ride to the University,” Tommy says, more to try to distract her than anything. “‘S long as the weather stays like this and we don’t run into trouble.”

“Okay,” is the only response he gets, and they lapse into silence again.

He doesn’t say anything else until they’re setting up camp for the night, tucked in amongst a rock outcropping Ellie had spotted. Well sheltered from the wind, bit of an overhang to keep them from getting snowed on, hard for someone else to spot them until they were practically on top of them. She shrugs off his praise though, unrolling her sleeping bag with a practiced air and generally behaving as though he isn’t there with her.

“I’ll take second watch,” she says once she’s tucked in her bag, rolled onto her side with her backpack as a pillow.

“That’s alright,” Tommy replies, more surprised to hear her speaking than anything. “I can do both.”

Ellie rolls over to face him. “I’ll take second watch,” she repeats flatly.

“Joel let you do that?” he asks as she starts to turn away again. If he wasn’t looking at her so closely, he would’ve missed the pain that flashes through her eyes at his brother’s name.

“Didn’t have a choice if he wanted to sleep,” she finally says, “and neither do you.”

“Alright then,” he says to her back, and they don’t speak again until morning.

–-

Tommy had more or less been right when he had said it was a couple days ride to the university; it’s just before noon on the fourth day when they’re riding onto campus, heading towards the building spray-painted with the Fireflies logo.

What he hadn’t planned on was it being deserted, paper strewn about, desks and chairs knocked over. There’s a map on one wall, barely held up by tape, pins and markers leading from various points and centralizing in Salt Lake City.

Tommy sighs, running a hand over his face as he takes it in, Ellie rifling through things behind him. Boulder had been one thing, but Salt Lake? That was at least another week or so away, and that was with perfect travel conditions and no trouble. Then who knew how long it would take for the Fireflies to do whatever they were gonna do, and then at least a couple weeks travel back depending on the toll it took on Ellie. All in all he was looking at a minimum of a month away from his pregnant - and angry - wife, a month of traveling with a kid who wouldn’t speak to him.

He oughta take her back, he thinks, if for no other reason than they’re not supplied for that kind of undertaking. Take her back to Jackson and make Joel deal with her, make him sort his shit out. They’d already gone clear across the country together, already formed some sort of bond or attachment. Ellie had been more or less glued to Joel’s side once they were off their horses, and she’d looked panicked when he told her to go with Maria. He’d noticed too, when it was just him and Joel, how his brother had moved and stood as if expecting there to be another body next to him, how he’d periodically looked around and then shaken his head as if reminding himself that Ellie was elsewhere.

Tommy should’ve told his brother no, should’ve made Joel do this like he was supposed to. He’d just been so damn afraid, when he’d seen Joel crying about failing her - and Tommy hadn’t been quite sure which her he’d meant - and it had been entirely too easy to summon up that image of his big brother, his rock, sprawled across Sarah’s grave, bleeding from the head. Tommy had let his own fear take over, thinking that if he could just take Ellie and bring her back safely, that Joel would see there had been nothing to be worried about and let down the last of those walls he still had up.

He shouldn’t have let Joel’s teenage-girl-related issues pull him away from his wife and unborn child, especially not when said teenage girl was so clearly wounded at his brother’s abandonment of her.

He turns to tell Ellie that they’re going back to Jackson, but she’s already looking at him from the window, eyes wide.

“Jo-Tommy!” she hisses, and he decides to let the name slip slide, stepping quietly over to her. “Look!”

He braces himself against the window frame, rifle in hand, and peers out to see four men walking through the snow below them.

“Think they’ve seen the horse yet?” Ellie asks in a whisper, and Tommy admires the way she tries to bury the fear in her voice, even as it's written all over her face.

“No way to know, unfortunately,” he whispers back, trying to watch the men without making himself visible. They round the corner of the building, towards the entrance he and Ellie used, and he turns back to her. “You still got that pistol?”

She swings her pack around and unzips the front pocket, removing the pistol and checking the safety.

“Stick close to me,” Tommy mutters, starting to pick a path through the mess of the room towards the emergency exit. “And stay as quiet as possible.”

Ellie nods, pistol gripped in a white-knuckled hand, and Tommy tries to give her a reassuring look. It fails, though, judging by the anxious set of her face, and he spares a second to wonder if she would be this afraid if Joel were here instead.

Probably not, he thinks, if the implicit trust he’d seen on her face when Joel was around was any indicator.

They creep down the stairwell, keeping ears peeled for any other footsteps. There are none that they can hear, and Tommy fervently hopes that the men went too high up and are still floors away from them. With any luck they didn't spot the horse and don't know that there's anyone else in the area.

Carefully, Tommy leans out the doorway at the bottom of the stairwell, rifle braced against his shoulder. There’s no sign of movement other than the breeze ruffling tree branches, and he holds the door open while gesturing for Ellie to follow him out. He lowers the rifle just enough to inch the door quietly closed behind them and turns to find that Ellie is already peering around the corner in the direction of the horse.

Her face is alarmed when she looks back at him, mouthing one guy. Tommy nods, and gestures for her to stay put. She looks like she wants to argue, brandishing her pistol ever so slightly, but he just shakes his head and points at her and the ground emphatically. An eye roll, and she nods.

Tommy scoots around her, careful to stay as close to the building as possible in case anyone is looking out a window, and moves the rifle so it’s slung across his back. When he’s close enough to the man - who clearly has no idea how to be a lookout, since he hasn’t bothered to check his six once - he lunges for him, getting an arm around his throat and squeezing until the man passes out.

He can’t even turn around and wave Ellie over, because the man has barely hit the ground before there’s a blood-curdling scream behind him, and a gunshot.

Tommy's heart sinks to his feet, terror slipping down his spine, and he sprints back over to where he’d left Ellie.

She’s still standing, and he would keel over from relief if it weren’t for the fact that her scream has certainly alerted the others. Her pack is hanging off one arm, the strap partially torn, and one of the hunters is coughing up blood on the ground by her, a bullet hole in his chest.

“We gotta go,” Tommy says, reaching forward and wrapping a hand around Ellie’s wrist. It feels a bit like he’s dragging her behind him but she does her best to keep up as he practically sprints to the horse.

The stairwell door slams, and the thirty feet between them and the horse feels like thirty miles. Heavy footsteps are sounding behind them, crunching through the snow, and Tommy yanks Ellie around so he’s between her and them. She makes a distressed noise at the pressure it exerts on her shoulder, but he’ll let her punch him later to make up for it, after they’ve gotten out of this.

“Go, go,” Tommy cups his hands under her boot and practically throws her in the saddle before turning to face their pursuers.

He’s too slow though, as the two remaining men are practically on top of them, entirely too close to use the rifle in his hands.

He ducks a swing from one of them, hitting the guy in the gut, but he doesn’t turn fast enough to see the baseball bat heading his direction.

It connects with his head - he hears Ellie scream - and the world goes black.

–-

When Tommy comes to, it’s with a blinding headache and a fair amount of confusion. There’s a throbbing on the side of his head, a stiffness to his skin that he realizes is dried blood - his dried blood - and he can barely open his eyes. When he does, the world swims a bit and he has to slam them shut again.

Concussed, he thinks groggily, definitely very concussed.

“You’re awake,” a man’s voice says from somewhere in front of him and Tommy winces. Fuck, but it hadn’t even been particularly loud and it had set his head to pounding. “Was starting to wonder if my men had managed to kill you instead of just knocking you out.”

Tommy doesn’t say anything, too busy trying not to throw up while he puts the pieces together, but nothing will connect in his mind.

His hands are bound behind him, around a post and with rope, it feels like. He can’t tell how secure the knot is, but he shifts just a little bit - a groan escaping his lips at the resulting ache - and that’s enough to tell him they hadn’t bothered to tie his legs.

A door opens and closes nearby, the hinges squealing, and there’s a low murmur of voices, just indistinct enough that Tommy can’t pick out anything they’re saying.

“Well,” the voice says again, sounding rather pleased, “if you’ll excuse me I have another guest to check on.”

Unease slithers up Tommy’s spine but he can’t put his finger on why. He tries to make a noise of protest, but nothing comes out besides a soft groan, and then he slips into unconsciousness again.

–-

He wakes up and this time manages to open his eyes without the severe pain of the last attempt. There’s a small window set high in the wall above him - too small for him to crawl through even if he was capable of such a thing at the moment - and a small beam of sunlight pierces through the room. It takes longer than it should, but Tommy finally realizes that the angle of it means he was out for at least one night, if not more, and that it’s now sometime around midday.

Tommy’s legs are still untied and he uses them to maneuver himself into more of an upright position, his shoulders and hips stiff from the awkward angle he’d been slumped in. The movement sends a bolt of pain through the side of his head, and he stops adjusting, breathing through clenched teeth until it passes.

The knot binding his hands feels secure enough, but he still wiggles his wrists experimentally, tugging with his fingers where he can reach, and –

There! A spot where the knot has loosened enough he can get his middle finger in it, try to work it looser, maybe even get a hand free.

It’s almost undone - or at least he fucking hopes it is - when the door in front of him opens again and a lean man with reddish hair steps through.

“You’re awake,” he says, and Tommy puts the voice together with the one he’d heard last time. The man gestures to the side of his own head and then to Tommy's. “Bet you’ve got quite the headache there.”

He sets a tray down in front of Tommy, a bowl of stew and a small piece of bread on it, then stands back. His expression looks genial but that unease from yesterday is back, curdling in Tommy's gut and growing with every second the man stands there and stares at him.

“Now,” he says, sitting on an upturned bucket and clasping his hands together, “what to do about you?” He runs a hand over his chin, looking thoughtful. “Many of my people want your head, since you killed one of our men –”

“They started it,” Tommy cuts in, his throat dry.

“Maybe,” he acknowledges, “but the fact remains you took Joshua’s life, and now others want me to take yours in recompense. However...your life is what's keeping my other guest in line, so I am rather inclined to spare you right now.”

Other guest…other guest? The words poke at Tommy’s brain, nudging him until one of many missing pieces finally clicks into place.

Ellie.

There’s panic rising in him now, a real, bone-chilling terror, at the realization that these people have Ellie too. He doesn’t know where she is or what they’re doing to her - and god, is his imagination only too willing to provide ideas - and it’s acid eating away at his stomach.

Tommy swallows bile and asks, “Where is she?” She’s alive, he knows that much now, and he has to get her out of here, has to keep her that way. If he goes back to Jackson with that girl’s corpse in tow…

Well, the picture of Joel slumped on top of Sarah’s grave, pistol in hand, has never been more fucking clear in Tommy’s mind.

“She’s fine,” the man responds pleasantly, his voice setting Tommy’s teeth on edge. “Behaving as long as we promise not to harm you. I’m confident that with time she’ll accept a place here with us.”

Tommy bites back the disbelieving noise he wants to make. He doesn’t know anything about these people, barely knows Ellie, but he knows for a fact that she wouldn’t even think to accept a place anywhere without Joel. Even when she's as hurt and mad as she has been.

“Let me see her,” he says, but the man is shaking his head before he even finishes the sentence.

“I can’t do that, I’m afraid,” and Tommy has to credit him, he does sound genuinely sorry about it. “You being in this room is what’s keeping you alive. My people listen to me but who knows if that’ll hold if they actually lay eyes on Joshua’s killer.”

All Tommy can feel is relief that they’re unaware it was Ellie who pulled the trigger, and he makes no response. The man braces his hands on his knees for a second before heaving himself off the stool. “I’ll send someone in a few minutes to untie your hands so you can eat,” he says with a gesture to the tray on the ground, the food Tommy had already forgotten about.

Then he’s gone and Tommy resumes pulling at the rope around his wrists with desperation, breathing just a little easier when he feels it give more and he gets one hand free. Now he just has to hope that whoever gets sent in is easily subdued, because he gets the feeling that just standing on his own two feet is gonna be more than he might be able to handle.

His gaze falls to the tray next to him, to the bowl of stew. It’s steaming slightly, and Tommy feels nausea rising in his stomach again - this time not from the concussion.

He’s killed, prepped, and cooked all types of meat, back in his teenage years in Texas and especially in Jackson. Whatever’s in that stew…well, it ain’t venison, it ain’t beef, it ain’t any kind of poultry or fowl.

They’re in deeper shit than he had even conceived of, if those floating bits are what he thinks they are.

He doesn’t have time to dwell on it though, as the door is opening again and this time there’s two men coming through, one holding a rifle. They both look underfed, hollows in their cheekbones, and suddenly the not-beef in the stew makes a bit more sense. Desperate people just trying to survive and not managing it very well. If Tommy was a betting man - and he had been, once upon a time - he’d wager that only a handful of these people actually knew what they were eating.

The man with the rifle stays near the door and the other one approaches slowly, knife in hand. Tommy hasn’t been a praying man in many, many years but he says a silent one now, just to get him through these next few minutes in one piece.

Knife Man steps just close enough and Tommy lunges, using their expectation of his bound hands to catch them off guard. The tray and steaming stew go flying into Knife’s face, and Tommy grabs him by the collar and yanks him down, jerking the knife from his hand and plunging it into his ribs. Rifle Man raises his weapon but hesitates to fire in case he hits his comrade, and Tommy uses the moment to yank the knife out of the first man’s ribs and heave it. His aim is terrible, the effort making black spots appear in his vision, but it still makes Rifle Man duck and gives Tommy a second to scramble towards him on unsteady legs.

There’s a struggle over the gun for a moment - Tommy’s hands nearly slide off the barrel, slick as they are with blood - but then the other man’s lesser weight gives under Tommy’s, and he manages to crack the butt of it against his head, sending him slumping to the ground. Unconscious or dead, he doesn't know, and he doesn't much care.

“Fuck,” he wheezes, bending over to try to catch his breath. Everything’s off-kilter, the ground moving under him like a boat on the Gulf, and he has to lean against the wall to steady himself. His entire body aches in a way that makes him realize he probably got used as a bit of a punching bag while he was unconscious.

Ellie. He’s gotta get to Ellie.

Tommy shoulders open the door and realizes what he hadn’t previously - he’s in some sort of outbuilding, and now he’s stepped right out into the middle of wind and snow, no sign of the sunlight from just an hour ago. His jacket is gone, his backpack too, and he has absolutely no clue where Ellie could be or how many other threats are around. He doesn’t even know where they are or how far from the university those men have taken them.

“Fuck,” he says again, stumbling forward blindly. He’s trying to keep an eye out for others, but there’s nobody around that he can see - inside sheltering from the cold probably - and he can barely make out the other buildings around him in the swirling snow. There’s many of them, Tommy can tell, too many for him to search quickly and thoroughly even when he's not beat to shit, and he feels any chance of finding Ellie begin to slip away.

He feels his brother’s life slipping away.

Tommy presses forward, ignoring how cold and tired and aching he is, looking fruitlessly for a sign of Ellie, of the red-haired man. Anything.

He wants to just lay down in the snow and let it bury him; he’s so tired. The second one of his knees starts to buckle, though, he can hear Maria in his head, reading him the riot act for leaving her and their kid alone. Telling him, in that firm way she has when she’s not in the mood for bullshit, that she’ll never forgive him if he doesn’t come back, that she didn’t sign up to be a single mother.

You keep your ass moving, Miller, and you get home.

“Yes ma’am,” he says aloud, laughing weakly, and he takes a few more unsteady steps forward. Up ahead there’s what looks like a barn, sliding door propped open, and Tommy decides the risk of someone else inside is worth the chance at shelter from the wind for just a moment.

It’s no warmer inside though, and one glance around is enough to make him wish he’d just braved the blizzard.

Bodies, missing their heads, hanging from hooks. The horse he and Ellie had been riding, laying on a slab. The concrete, stained and darkened with an amount of blood that Tommy is afraid to contemplate.

Ellie’s backpack, shoved on a shelf with various other random items probably left over from the unfortunate souls surrounding him. Tommy seizes it, slinging the untorn strap over his shoulder, and braces himself to head back out into the storm. He doesn’t look closely enough at the bodies before leaving to see if one of them is small enough to be hers, clinging to the red-headed man’s words about Ellie’s place with them.

She’s alive. She’s gotta be alive.

Tommy sees the largest building yet and presses towards it. Even if Ellie’s not there, he might be able to corner someone who can tell him where to find her. It’s not the best, as plans go, could use some finesse, but it’s taking all his willpower to put one foot in front of the other at the moment, and so he just has to hope he’s able to improvise.

Then he sees the smoke, curling from the side of the building. And then an orange lick of flame.

If he could run, he would, but instead he just staggers forward a little quicker, head pounding and vision blurring.

Tommy’s almost to the building, the flames growing larger, when he sees a door open on the side and a small figure emerge, stumbling towards the treeline. Her hairs half out of her ponytail and her steps are unsteady, but Ellie’s upright and breathing, and that’s all Tommy needs to see right now.

He doesn’t dare shout her name in case there’s people around, and instead tries to catch up to her on his own unsteady legs. When he’s close enough - they’re nearly to the treeline - he reaches out and places a hand on her shoulder –

“No! No! Stop! Get off of me!” She’s whirling around, fists flying uselessly and bouncing off his chest, eyes wide and frantic and unseeing.

“Ellie!” He tries, but she doesn’t seem to hear him and any time one of his hands gets near her it sends up another chilling wail from her chest. “Ellie!”

Still no response though, so Tommy offers up a silent apology before looping an arm around her waist and practically picking her up. It makes his whole body hurt like hell, especially when she flails a bit and he catches an elbow to the stomach, but he doesn't let go until they’re a hundred yards into the trees. Then he sets her down as gently as possible and steps away with his hands raised.

Without him touching her, Ellie calms a bit and her face goes slightly vacant, eyes unfocusing. She leans against a tree and Tommy gets his first real good look at her, dread washing over him. Blood spattered across her face, far too much of it to just be hers. Bruises over her nose and on the side of her face. When she moves it’s awkward, like her ribs are hurting her. She’s missing her jacket too, and now Tommy has to add not freezing to death to his list of concerns while they get back to Jackson. And they will get back to Jackson, he's fucking determined on that count.

Cautiously, Tommy steps over until he’s in her eyeline, not approaching her but just hoping she notices him on her own.

Her gaze lands on him and her whole body stiffens for a moment before she relaxes just a bit. “Tommy?” Ellie’s voice is scratchy, and her gaze skips past him. “Where’s Joel?”

She’s probably concussed too, Tommy realizes, along with whatever the hell else happened to her.

“We’re gonna go find him,” he settles on saying, afraid that telling her he’s not here would just make her shut down or panic. “But we gotta keep moving and get out of this storm. Can you walk?”

Ellie nods and takes a few stumbling steps towards him, reminding him of baby cows when they’re first learning to walk. “Gotta find Joel,” she mumbles when she’s close enough for him to hear. She doesn’t get within more than a few feet of him, and he repeats after her, unsure of which of them he’s trying to reassure.

“We gotta find Joel.”

–-

Joel feels like he hasn’t slept in two weeks, since he was too late to wake up and stop Tommy from leaving with Ellie in his place. The house is still painfully silent, and he spends as little time in it as possible, opting to be at the workshop a block over more often than not. Make himself useful, Maria had said, and that’s what he was trying to do. Jackson hadn’t had a contractor in a couple years since the last one got bit on a patrol, and once word spread about him - fast in a small community like this - he had plenty of people stopping by to ask him for help with porch railings and roofing and whatnot. He was rusty, but the knowledge was still there and coming back more every day.

More importantly, it kept him occupied and exhausted so he didn't dwell every day on where Ellie was and how she was doing and if they were heading back yet.

He's started on some shelves for her room, or what he thinks of as her room anyways. Ellie had liked to accumulate things like a little magpie when they were on the road, no matter how much he’d tried to dissuade her, and he thought that making her a place to keep her trinkets might help nudge her towards forgiveness. Shelves couldn’t cancel out abandonment, he knew that, but if he could wear her down a little, then maybe all hope wasn’t lost.

Raised voices outside the workshop pull his focus from sanding them down, and Joel drops the sandpaper and tugs his gloves off.

“‘S goin' on?” He asks when he steps outside to find three of the regular patrol men hovering there, clearly having a heated discussion.

A shared, loaded glance between them and then the oldest says, “Your brother’s back.” He opens his mouth as if to say more, but Joel is already taking off, jogging to the front gate as fast as his old lungs and bad knees will let him. Your brother, they’d said. Nothing about a kid, and he couldn't let himself think about what that might mean.

Joel rounds the corner and sees the group of people on horseback, and in between them he can make out Tommy’s figure walking slowly.

No Ellie.

There's no air in his lungs, no steady ground under his feet - his chest seizes like it had outside that old couple's cabin, only this time there's no Ellie to yank him out of the panic and -

One of the horses shifts sideways a bit and there she is.

Joel sucks in a deep and starts moving forward, desperate to get a good look at her. It isn’t until he’s only feet away that he understands why the patrol group has those looks on their faces.

Tommy’s got a hell of a bruise across the side of his face and the way he’s squinting indicates he’s got a concussion at the very least. But compared to Ellie he’s whole and healthy.

The panic returns full force at the sight of her, at the dried blood spattered across her face, the bruising he can see, the dazed way she’s looking around and flinching when she catches sight of another person.

Tommy sees him, and there’s something like an apology in his gaze before he turns and looks at Ellie. He has to say her name a few times before she registers it, her eyes floating to him slowly and then following his hand to where it’s pointing to Joel. Ellie hesitates for just a second, like she can't quite believe she’s seeing him. Then she’s practically tripping over her feet to get around the others, dodging a horse, and heading straight his way.

He’s not expecting the hug - for all that she treated his personal space like hers on the road they’d never hugged before - but he’s not complaining when her arms wrap around his middle and her face presses against his shoulder. She starts shaking and it takes a minute for him to realize she’s crying.

“It’s okay,” he says, rubbing a hand between her shoulder blades, not even sure what he’s reassuring her about. His head falls forward until it's pressed to hers - she smells like smoke and copper and snow - and he keeps murmuring into her hair. “It’s okay, I’m right here, baby girl, I’m right here.”

The endearment slips out right as Tommy stops right next to him, and an indecipherable look flickers over his brother’s face before the worried, apologetic expression is back. At Joel’s glare he just mouths long story.

It had better be a hell of a story, Joel thinks but doesn’t say, nudging Ellie to turn and walk in the direction of the clinic. Better be a good fucking explanation for Tommy returning Ellie to him in this...this fucked up condition.

Under his anger though, under his concern, is a searing guilt. Because while he doesn’t know exactly what happened - yet - he can’t help but wonder if he could’ve prevented this by going with Ellie himself. That she's returned in this condition because he pushed her away, that he should’ve been there to protect her.

This is all his fault.

–-

Ellie doesn’t get checked out at the clinic willingly, and it’s only Joel promising he won’t leave the room - he turns around as Maria helps her get changed into a clean long-sleeved shirt and scrub pants - that keeps her on the bed long enough for a doctor to arrive.

But when the doctor walks in - a kindly older man named Carl - Ellie shoves herself against the wall and refuses to let him near her, screaming her head off when his hand reaches towards her.

“Easy, baby, easy,” Joel says, nudging Carl out of the way and placing himself between her and the doctor. “It’s just the doctor, he needs to check you over.”

“No,” Ellie says hoarsely, head shaking frantically. “No.” Her gaze darts over his shoulders, flitting around between the various other people in the room and then she looks at him again, her eyes wide and terrified. “Make them go away.” When Joel hesitates, her voice pitches up closer to a shriek. “Make them go away, Joel, please! Make them go away, make him go away!” She’s squeezed herself into a ball, arms over her head. “Make him go away!”

“Okay, okay,” he replies soothingly. A glance over his shoulder shows him that Tommy and Maria are already ushering the others out, concerned glances passing between them. When there’s nobody left but the four of them, Joel turns back to Ellie.

“They’re gone, Ellie. Just us now, okay? Can you look at me please?”

Gradually she uncurls, peering behind him to make sure. She flinches a little to see Tommy and Maria still there, but doesn’t start screaming again so Joel counts that as progress. Ellie doesn’t say anything else, just sits there staring at Joel as if she looks away for a second he’ll disappear.

“Can I help you get cleaned up?” Joel asks gently. “You might feel better with some of this grime off you.”

She nods, and Joel is relieved when he turns around to find Maria already walking over with a soapy bowl and rag. He mouths thank you at her and gets a brief nod in response. Behind her, Tommy's slumped against the wall, eyes at half-mast.

“You need to go get checked out,” he says, indicating the bruising on his head.

“I will,” Tommy replies without moving an inch, and Maria shoots her husband a displeased look as she rejoins him.

“I’ve been trying to get him seen since they walked through the gates, but he refuses.”

“Need to talk to Joel,” Tommy says simply, even as he slides all the way down the wall until he’s sitting on the floor.

“I’m sure it can wait,” Joel says at the same time that Maria says “It can’t be that urgent,” and under the pressure of both of them Tommy capitulates, letting Maria pull him back to his feet and steadying himself with a hand against the wall.

“Fine,” he grumbles, “but I’ll be back in a bit so I can talk to you.” The last bit is aimed in Joel’s direction before Maria practically hauls him out the door, shutting it quietly behind her. Only once she hears the latch click does Ellie unfold completely.

“Let’s clean you up, okay?” Joel says gently, dipping the cloth in the water.

Ellie is silent the entire time - other than the occasional pained noise - as he tries his best to wipe her free of dirt and dried blood. It’s crusted around her nose and scalp, caked into her knuckles and under her nails. As gently as possible he undoes her ponytail and tries to smooth through some of the tangles and knots before retying it, probing along her skull gently to feel for bumps and breaks. There’s even blood caked around her ears, for chrissake, Joel thinks as he sponges it away.

He’s dying to ask her what happened, find out who did this to her, but she doesn't seem inclined to talk and he’s left just hoping she’ll tell him when she’s up for it. Her reaction to the doctor has put a deep seed of fear in his gut.

The cleaner Ellie gets - the more meaningless reassurances Joel murmurs to her - the more she relaxes, until she’s more or less slumped against him with her forehead pressed to his neck. Carefully he sets the now-dirty bowl of water and rag aside, and resituates them until he’s sitting on the clinic bed with his back against the wall, Ellie cradled in his lap with a blanket draped around her shoulders.

Her deep, even breathing tells him she’s fallen asleep.

–-

Joel must have dozed off himself, because when he opens his eyes again, Tommy and Maria are back in the room, speaking in the corner in low voices. Ellie hasn’t moved from where she lays against him, and he tucks the blanket around her more securely.

Seeing him move, Tommy stops talking to Maria and steps forward.

“How is she?” he asks in a low voice, inclining his head towards Ellie.

“You tell me,” Joel responds evenly, unable to help himself from glaring at his brother. Tommy doesn’t get defensive, just sighs and lets his eyes fall to Ellie again.

“I don’t know what happened to her,” he admits, holding a hand up when Joel opens his mouth to interject. “We made it to the university, no Fireflies around but there were some hunters. We almost evaded them, but she had to shoot one and another got me with a baseball bat to the head. Was out for probably about a day, and when I found her again she was escapin' from a burnin' building. She didn’t tell me what happened, didn’t hardly say a word the entire way back.” Tommy runs a hand over his jaw. “Took us about five or six days to make it back here.”

“And you let her travel the whole way like that, covered in blood?” Joel asks, trying to keep his voice low but unable to keep the edge out of it.

“She wouldn’t let me near her,” Tommy says. “Tried to get her to clean it off herself but it was like she couldn’t even hear me when I was talkin'. Only time she spoke…” he pauses, and his next words are pained, laced with regret. “Only time she spoke was to ask where you were.”

It hits him like a blow, deep and aching, that Ellie had been hurt - traumatized - and looking for him. And he hadn’t been there when she needed him.

Ellie stirs slightly, and without thought his arm readjusts to support her so she can keep leaning against him, tucking her more securely into his side. 

Tommy did the best he could, Joel has to acknowledge, probably better than he would’ve done if he’d been there. And in the end, he’d come back and he’d brought Ellie with him. Even if she wasn't as whole and healthy as he would have preferred.

“How’s the head?” Joel asks gruffly.

“Concussed, which I figured the first time I woke up.” The left side of his forehead and part of his cheek are a dark purple, almost black. “Doc says I gotta take it easy for a week or so, come back in to be reevaluated.”

“You oughta head home then.”

“I’m gonna,” Tommy aims a wry look over his shoulder towards Maria, who doesn’t return it, her gaze fixated on Ellie. “But there’s one more thing you oughta know, about the people that caught us.” His focus dips, as if checking to make sure Ellie is still asleep. “Not sure if she knows, but –”

“They were cannibals,” comes a small, hoarse voice, and Joel ducks his head to see that Ellie’s eyes are open, gazing blankly a few feet in front of her. “Were eating each other. Saw an ear under a table.” Joel feels her shudder. “They were…they were gonna eat me.”

“Jesus fuckin' Christ,” Joel mutters, his hand running slowly up and down her back as if he could just wipe away the horrors she’s been through. She doesn’t seem to hear him.

“Pulled me out of the cage –” a chill spirals up Joel’s spine “– and put me on the table. Said they were gonna make me into tiny little pieces. Bit one of the guys, hit the other guy with a cleaver in the neck.” She falls silent, and Joel just waits in case she wants to say more. She doesn’t, though, and Joel just murmurs you did good, you’re okay in her ear.

“We need to know exactly where they were located, in case there’s a chance they become a problem,” Maria says, her words aimed at Tommy but her eyes still on Ellie.

“I’ll show you on the map when we get home,” Tommy replies, “but I don’t think they’re gonna be an issue really, they were barely survivin’ as it was, they don’t really have the manpower to go on a vengeance quest.”

“Just in case, though,” Maria says, and Tommy nods.

“Don’t wanna be here anymore,” Ellie murmurs, and all three adults focus on her again. Joel starts to ask if she wants him to take her back to the house but then Maria is speaking, and her words hit him in the chest.

“There’s a couple families here that would be able to take you in, Ellie.”

Everyone's gazes turn to hers, visible shock across all three. Joel’s hands tighten on Ellie ever so slightly and she shifts. He makes his hands relax but the rest of him refuses to follow suit.

“What,” Joel’s voice is dangerously soft, “the fuck does that mean, Maria?” She levels him with a hard stare but he doesn’t actually give her a chance to answer. “She’s stayin' with me.”

“I think that it would be best for Ellie to stay with one of these families.” Her tone indicates that it should be obvious, but she really hammers it home with her next words. “For stability.”

“You can’t be serious,” Tommy says in disbelief. Maria’s challenging gaze doesn’t move from Joel’s as she responds.

“I’m completely serious.”

“She’s stayin' with me,” Joel repeats.

“Do you really think the best thing for her is to stay with the man who passed her off on someone else at the first opportunity?” Maria’s hands are on her hips and Ellie flinches in Joel's arms.

“That was a mistake,” he says firmly, and he means it. He knew the moment he woke up that morning - before he even fell asleep the night before, if he’s being honest with himself - that he should have been the one with her, not Tommy. She’d said that being with Joel made her feel safe, that she would be scared with anyone else, but he’d brushed her off and thought only of his own hurts, not hers.

That was changing now. Maria could shove it, and if it weren’t for the fact that he didn’t want to completely salt the earth where his brother’s wife was concerned, he’d say it to her face.

“Maria,” Tommy interjects gently, and Joel appreciates his support even though he knows it’s putting his brother in a tough spot, “the whole way back she just wanted to know where Joel was, and now you want to put her with strangers? After what she just said she went through?”

Maria opens her mouth again - Joel gets the sense the three of them are headed for a nice shouting match, because he'll be damned if he stands by and lets her rehome Ellie away from him - but then Ellie speaks, and they all go quiet.

“ ‘M staying with Joel,” she says, and as far as he’s concerned that settles it.

Maria, though, does not consider the matter settled, and her hands come to rest on her hips. “I saw the marks on your ribs, Ellie,” and Joel at least appreciates the way she gentles her voice, “and…and I saw the state of your clothes.” There’s weight behind her words that Joel can’t decipher, but Ellie tenses against him. “I really think it would be best for you to stay with a family.”

Ellie lifts her head and glares at Maria. “Joel would never hurt me,” she says, and her tone is as angry as he’s ever heard it. “So you can shut the fuck up with that right now.”

“Maybe not physically,” Maria mutters, and Joel swallows down the retort he wants to make. Even if she’s right, it feels like a low blow.

“Look,” Tommy says with a step forward, “Ellie and Joel have both said she’s stayin' with him, so she’s stayin' with him. Let’s just help him get her to the house, let her rest, and if you really want to,” he turns to face Maria, “we can revisit this discussion in a week or so.”

“Nothing to revisit,” Ellie mutters angrily, ducking her head to rest on Joel’s shoulder again and echoing his own thoughts perfectly.

Maria seems to sense she’s lost this round, but the look she sends Joel’s way lets him know she doesn’t think this is over in the slightest. “Fine. Let me talk to the nurse about some pain medication for y’all to take home, and then we’ll go.”

She leaves, and Joel inclines his head toward Tommy. “Thanks.”

–-

Ellie insists she can walk to the house herself, even if it fucking kills her ribs. As nice as being curled up against Joel had been - first feeling of safety since her and Tommy had rode out of Jackson - she wasn’t about to be carried through the town like an infant. Instead she swallows half a pain pill and holds on to Joel’s arm the whole way. It starts to kick in pretty quickly and by the time they’re going up the porch steps for the house they stayed in last time, the world has gone pleasantly blurry around the edges.

Maria leaves without a word, walking next door to her and Tommy’s house, and then Joel ushers her inside and tells her to sit on the couch. Panic starts to claw its way up her throat when he moves to go back outside, her hands grasping for his, and he steps back towards her.

“I just gotta talk to Tommy for a second,” Joel says softly, brushing a stray piece of hair back from her forehead. She leans into the touch, letting it dull the fear she feels at the thought of him being out of her sight again. “I’ll be right outside the front door, baby girl, and I’m comin' right back, okay?”

Ellie nods, unable to speak around the lump in her throat and unable to find the words around the floatiness in her head. Joel steps outside and she lets herself smile just a little, the muscles in her cheeks stiff with the movement.

She likes being baby girl.

Ellie can only sit there for a moment though, before the few feet between her and the door and the door and Joel becomes too much, and she totters unsteadily to her feet. He’s just talking to Tommy, she tries to remind herself, and he’s coming back.

But even through the increasing haze in her mind - the ache of her ribs has finally dulled - she remembers the last time Joel left her to talk to Tommy, when he’d passed her off as easily as…

Well, as easily as cargo.

Ellie leans against the wall, turning her head to better hear their low voices through the cracked door. She shouldn’t eavesdrop, but she also wants to know if she needs to prepare herself for Joel handing her off again, no matter how soft he’s being with her right now.

“...talk to her,” Tommy is saying when Ellie’s brain focuses enough to process words.

“Yeah you do that,” Joel growls in response.

“She’s just tryin' to look out for Ellie.”

There’s a scoff. “Ain't her job, it's mine. I appreciate her concern, but her concern don’t mean she gets to make unilateral decisions about Ellie. Puttin’ her with a strange family, Jesus Christ.”

“Not one of her best ideas.”

“I know she doesn’t fuckin’ like me,” Joel responds, and the thump of his boots on the porch tells Ellie he’s pacing. “But blamin' me for the shit you and I did ten, fifteen years ago doesn’t give her the right to try and take my kid from me.”

My kid. The words almost knock Ellie sideways, and her gaze floats to the stairs. Last time they’d been in this house together he’d said she wasn’t his daughter, he wasn’t her dad, and that had only been two weeks ago, two weeks they’d spent apart.

She doesn’t realize Tommy hasn’t said anything until Joel says, his voice gruff, “Stop lookin’ at me like that.”

“Sorry.” Tommy’s voice is amused and he clearly isn’t sorry at all. “I had just been wonderin’ how long it would take you to get there, is all. Faster than I’d thought.” A pause, and then, “She know that’s how you think of her?”

Joel’s pacing again as he responds, “No, actually, last time we were here I - well, I said some shit to her I shouldn’t have, shit I didn’t mean. And then I made you take her in my place, which I never should have done.”

“Yeah, that hurt her.”

There’s a pained noise from Joel. “I know it did, and I’m gonna have to try to fix that.” His boots stop moving and he sighs. “I need to get back in there before she panics and thinks I’ve taken off on her or somethin’.”

Ellie starts to move away from the wall, but Tommy’s voice stops her and Joel both. “Before you do…l look, I gotta ask, and don’t punch me for it.” Silence, and Ellie almost tips over with how close to the door she tries to lean. “Ellie’s same age as Sarah was –”

“She’s not a replacement,” Joel says sharply. “Nobody could ever replace Sarah, and you know that.”

“Yeah, I know, but –”

“No, no ‘but’, Tommy. Ellie is not Sarah, and I am not tryin’ to use her to fill some Sarah-shaped hole in my life. Ellie is her own person, with her own space. You should…” there’s a sadness in his voice now, and it sinks in Ellie’s gut like lead even as his words soothe a fear she didn't know she had. “You oughta talk to Maria about it, she might be able to explain better than I could. Y’know, another kid after you’ve lost the first one. You’re not tryin’ to replace the one that’s gone, you just…you have another kid.”

“Okay,” Tommy says quietly, and Ellie takes that as her cue to get back to the couch before she gets caught.

There’s too much in there for her to sort through right now, muddled as her brain is, but Ellie lays on the couch feeling calmer than she has since her and Joel first made it to Jackson. The pain pill is making her sleepy too now, and she lets her eyes drift closed, no longer worried that Joel won’t come back.

She’s never been anyone’s kid before, Ellie thinks as she feels Joel pick her up carefully and make his way upstairs, one of her hands curled around his shirt. But she thinks she might like being Joel’s.

She should tell him, she ponders around a yawn, feeling herself set down on a bed and a blanket pulled over her shoulders. The mattress sinks next to her as if someone is sitting nearby, and a hand starts running gently over the top of her head, over and over again. She should tell Joel she would like being his kid.

And she will, just as soon as she wakes up.

–-

Joel's gotta hand it to her, he thinks begrudgingly, watching from the window as Maria makes her way across his yard. She was nothing if not stubborn - Tommy had said maybe they would revisit the idea of Ellie living elsewhere in a week, and here she is exactly a week later, knocking on his door. Much as he doesn’t want to discuss this with her, he opens the door quickly so that her knocking doesn’t wake Ellie, who only fell asleep a couple of hours ago.

“Mornin’,” he says, determined to at least be polite.

“Morning,” she echoes, and follows him into the dining room. “Where’s Ellie?” she asks as they each take a seat at the small round dining table.

“Asleep,” Joel responds shortly, then sighs and tries to soften his tone. “She hasn’t been sleepin’ through the night very well since she got back, so when she does fall asleep I do my best not to wake her.”

“She give you any more information on what happened?” Maria’s gaze is piercing, and Joel has the stray thought that he sympathizes with anyone who’d had to face her in a courtroom Before.

“She did.”

“Anything you can tell me?” She looks like she knows what the answer is, and he confirms it with a shake of his head.

“Not for me to share.”

It had taken a couple days, but after one particularly bad nightmare Ellie had curled up against him and told him - more or less - what had happened. About the man who had wanted to keep her because she was special. How he’d tried to persuade her to stay with him, how she’d broken his finger and he’d smashed her face against the chainlink. The burning building, him on top of her, the cleaver. She had dissolved into hysterics near the end, and Joel had been powerless to do more than rock her back and forth and repeat over and over again that she was okay, that he wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her.

Even if every time he’d said it had been a searing reminder that he had already let too many people hurt her.

Maria nods. “About her living here with you –”

“She’s stayin’,” Joel cuts her off, a warning in his tone. Maria’s eyes narrow slightly.

“Tommy told me about the conversation the two of you had the day they got back,” she replies almost idly, though Joel knows better than to let his guard down. “About how you regret sending Tommy in your place, about how you won’t be separated from her again.” Unconsciously, it seems, a hand comes up to rest on her stomach, just barely showing signs of the baby growing there. “About having another kid when you’ve already lost one.”

This, at least, is common ground for the two of them, the aching loss of a life that should be there alongside yours. The memory of the sweet face looking up at you with all the trust in the world, and feeling it down to the very core of you that there’s no other purpose in your life but to care for this small person with everything you have. The grief that swallows you whole when they’re gone.

Joel rubs the scar on the side of his head absentmindedly. “And?”

“And –”

“Joel?”

He turns at the sound of the small, worried voice behind him, and finds Ellie standing in the doorway, drowning in the flannel he’d left over her like a blanket, her t-shirt and pajama pants peeking out from underneath. She looks tired and confused and so very, very small - so much younger than her fourteen years - that it makes his chest ache.

“I woke up and you weren’t there,” Ellie says, her tone slightly accusatory. He lifts an arm and she walks over slowly to tuck herself against his side, keeping a wary eye on Maria.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Joel murmurs in response, dropping a quick kiss to the top of her head. “I had to come down and let Maria in, I didn’t want the knockin’ to wake you up.”

“Hey Ellie,” Maria says gently, but gets no response. “I just wanted to stop by and check on you, see how you were doing.”

“Are you here to try to put me with one of those stupid families again?” Ellie asks, the hand gripping the front of his shirt tightening the slightest amount.

There’s a long pause - Joel can see Maria taking in the scene before her, eyes raking over them both and missing nothing - and then she shakes her head slowly. “No, you and Joel have both made it clear that the best place for you is here, so I won’t interfere in that.”

“Thank you,” Joel says, meaning it. He may not know the exact power structure of Jackson, but everything he’s seen so far gives him reason to believe Maria is near the top. If she really wanted to separate Ellie from him, she probably could. He’d fight it tooth and nail at every step, but he’d be willing to bet there wouldn't be a whole lot he could do to stop it.

“There is something else I wanted to discuss with you both, while I’m here.”

Joel doesn’t really like the sound of that, or the business-like tone Maria’s voice has taken, and he feels Ellie sway slightly against him. “Let’s move to the livin’ room so Ellie can sit.”

Maria’s eyes drift to the two unoccupied chairs at the table but she says nothing, just following them into the living room and watching as Joel sits on one end of the couch and Ellie makes herself comfortable around him. He lets her shift him how she wants, until she’s finally settled with her back against the arm of the couch and her legs draped over his lap. She reaches across him and grabs his arm, tugging it so it’s wrapped around her, and then she lays her head on his shoulder and goes still.

Maria’s gaze has gone just the slightest bit softer when Joel looks back up at her, but it lasts only a moment and then she’s all business again.

“It’s about the bites on Ellie’s arm.”

Holding Ellie is the only thing that keeps Joel from flying off the couch and at his sister-in-law. Maria must read something in his expression because she holds her hands up in a gesture of peace. “I saw them when helping her change at the clinic, but I made sure nobody else did. I can tell they’re old and healed. Tommy confirmed she’s immune, and I just wanted to make sure that you were aware that I knew.”

Joel relaxes just the slightest amount.

“It’s winter now, which means long sleeves won’t make anyone look twice, but come summer time…well, I thought maybe we should think of a plan, or a cover story in case someone sees them.”

It’s not a half bad idea, Joel acknowledges, thumb rubbing Ellie’s arm absently. Except –

“What makes you think someone seein’ them will wait long enough to hear an explanation?” He hates having to ask this in front of Ellie, but it might help make her extra cautious about keeping her arm covered. “You sure someone won’t just shoot first and ask questions later?” Ellie goes tense and he squeezes her gently, mindful of her still-healing ribs.

“I’m not sure of that,” Maria admits, and even if Joel hates her answer he can at least appreciate the honesty. “But at least this way none of us would have to come up with something on the spot.”

“I’ll think it over and get back to you.”

Maria nods. “Take care, Ellie. Tommy’ll bring over some food from the dining hall later, but let me know if you two need anything else.”

Joel accepts the peace offering for what it is. “Will do, thank you Maria.”

Once she’s left, Joel nudges Ellie up to look at him. “How ya doin’, kiddo?”

“Been better, been worse,” is her response, one that he's gotten pretty regularly over the last few days. “Do you think someone would really shoot me if they saw my bites?”

God he hopes he didn’t just give her more reasons to have nightmares. “I didn’t mean to scare you by askin’ Maria that. I just wanted us to be prepared. And I really hope not, but some people see anything that looks like a bite and they don’t hesitate.”

“What if that happens, though?”

Joel’s not sure what exactly she’s trying to figure out here, but the answer is pretty simple to him. “I’d kill them.” And if you didn’t make it, myself.

Ellie nods, just once, and then drops her head back to rest on his shoulder. “‘M tired.”

“Go back to sleep then, baby.” He threads a hand through the hair at the back of her head and massages lightly.

“You’re not going anywhere?” she asks around a yawn.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere,” he confirms.

–-

Ellie hasn’t said anything about the Fireflies by the time they’ve been in Jackson over a month, and Joel lets himself be lured into a false sense of hope that maybe she’s given up on finding them. They’ve got a good thing going here, getting settled in, enjoying what Tommy calls their ‘codependency’. He means it as a joke most of the time, but Joel can tell Maria is at least a little concerned at the way he and Ellie are never apart for very long. Even on the rare occasions they venture out to mingle with other Jackson residents, they’re never more than ten feet away from each other at a given moment. Any time she looks about to say anything though, Tommy reaches over and squeezes her wrist, and she holds her peace.

They’ve got an okay routine going by the time February rolls around. Joel hasn’t been added to the patrol rotation yet, since Maria suggested he wait three or so months, so most mornings he and Ellie head over to the workshop he’s been using. The shelves he’d started for her are done and hanging in her room, so he either works on something for someone in Jackson or a crib he’s started for Tommy’s baby. Ellie’s a good extra set of hands, but she really doesn’t seem to have much interest in actually learning what it is he’s doing.

She does love the stables though, and Tommy’s there most days so there’s a familiar face to ease Ellie into it when he brings her by. Already Joel can tell that when the two of them do manage to separate for more than thirty minutes at a time, Ellie will be spending all her free time there.

They don’t eat at the dining hall every evening, taking Maria and Tommy up on their offer of having dinner brought to them more often than not. And Joel has started trying to find his way around a kitchen again, seeing what dishes he remembers how to make (the answer is not many). After a couple weeks Ellie tries to sleep in her own room, and some nights she makes it through a full night by herself. More often than not though, Joel wakes up to the sound of a scream and spends the rest of the night sitting on her bed, or to a small body wiggling under his arm and pressing cold toes to his calf.

All in all it’s a weirdly domestic life they’re building in Jackson, with routines and a bed and hot water and his kid at his side. It’s the kind of thing that he never really thought he’d have again, the kind of thing that didn’t even seem possible with the way the entire world - his entire world - fell apart in 2003. And yet here they are, making it happen.

So when Ellie, six weeks after she and Tommy have returned, mentions finding the Fireflies again, it’s all Joel can do to not snap a no at her. Instead he swallows it and sets his coffee down so he can look at her carefully.

“We don’t even know where to begin lookin’ for them,” he starts to say, but Ellie just shakes her head.

“Salt Lake City.” When he arches a brow, she continues, “When Tommy and I were at the university we saw a map on the wall there, and all the markings on it led to Salt Lake City. So we could start there.”

“Or,” and he already knows she’s not going to like what he says, “we could stay here, where it’s safe, where you're safe.”

Sure enough, she’s shaking her head again, chewing on her lip. “I can’t sit here and wonder about this, Joel. I can’t sit here in this nice safe place, and think about all the people that are dead because I’m not trying to help. Every day that I’m in here with you there’s a chance someone out there is losing their Tess or their Sam or their…their Riley.” It’s not a name Joel’s heard before, but he doesn’t ask - she’ll tell him when she’s ready if she chooses to. We keep our histories to ourselves was no longer a hard and fast rule between them, but both of them had pasts that were sometimes just too painful to talk about.

“I just want you to be sure, baby, that’s all.”

“I am,” Ellie replies, her face set. “Maria said eventually you would have to join patrols outside the walls, and if you got bit…” She clears her throat. “You’re all I’ve got.”

“You got Tommy and Maria too,” Joel points out.

“It’s not the same and you know it,” she replies pointedly, and he does know it. He knows perfectly well that Tommy would take Ellie in without a second thought and care for her like she was his own, but he also knows Ellie would never feel safe again, never feel comfortable around them the way she is around Joel. Bonded feral cats, do not separate, Tommy had once teasingly said to them, and he had hit the nail on the head.

“Alright,” he finally replies, and Ellie deflates a bit, like she’d been tense and worried about his reaction. If she’d really thought about it, Joel thinks while covering his smile with a hand, all she would’ve had to do would be to threaten to sneak out and go by herself.

Probably for the best she didn't realize that though.

“When can we leave?”

Joel glances out the window at the snow drifting down slightly. “We’d have to talk to Tommy and Maria about that, since they’re more used to the weather in these parts, but it would probably be best to wait for a bit warmer weather. Less need of a fire at night, less snow to exhaust ourselves trekkin’ through.”

Ellie looks like she doesn’t really want to wait, like she’d get on a horse and go right now given the choice, but she just looks Joel dead in the eye and asks, “You promise we will go at the first opportunity?”

As much as he wants to simply lock her inside her room where she’d be safe, he looks her dead in the eye and says “I swear.”

–-

So, when winter finally seems to be giving way to spring - which takes way longer in Wyoming than it ever did in Texas - Joel and Ellie sit down with Tommy and Maria to start planning. Depending on how long it takes, they’re likely to miss the arrival of the baby, which gives Ellie pause but isn’t enough to deter her.

On a day when there’s only a brisk wind and no frost on the ground, nearly four months after they first set foot in Jackson, they load up a horse and make their way out of the gates. Ellie’s got her arms wrapped around Joel and is trying not to think about how things had gone the last time she’d left Jackson on horseback. She gets the feeling Joel senses how nervous she is, because he keeps up a regular stream of random observations, pointing out trees and birds and plants as they pass by.

Joel falls silent, though, once they’re about an hour away from Jackson, and Ellie can tell he’s thinking really hard about something.

“I never apologized to you,” is what he says, the words almost lost under the sound of Kennedy’s hooves (a dumb name for a horse, in her opinion, but apparently it was some famous dead president or something Before).

“For what?” She keeps her head angled to the left so her words go into his good ear.

There’s a sigh that seems to come from deep within him. “For makin’ you go with Tommy instead of me last time. I just –” he cuts himself off and Ellie waits him out, keeping her cheek pressed to his shoulder. “I got scared and I let my fear be more important than yours, which I shouldn’t have done. I should’ve gone with you, I tried to go with you –”

Now Ellie cuts him off. “You tried to go with me?”

“Woke up that mornin’ and realized I’d made a mistake,” Joel confirms, guiding Kennedy around some boulders. “Was gonna try to catch y’all at the stables, tell Tommy to stay home, but Maria told me I’d missed my chance by about an hour and that I was not to go after y’all.” He lets go of one of the reins and pats her hands where they’re joined over his abdomen. “Regretted it every day, and even more when y’all came back and…well…” He trails off, but she knows what he means without a word being uttered. Tommy has made jokes about them sharing a brain - he’s been in the middle of more than a few silent, glaring arguments between them - and this is one of those times she’s glad they do.

“So I’m sorry,” Joel clears his throat. “For not bein’ there when you needed me.”

Ellie sits with that for a second before she responds. She’d been mad at him, and hurt that he could be rid of her so easily. But that had all gone away after Silver Lake, had seemed so unimportant after Da– after that. All Joel’d had to do was open his arms when she and Tommy had returned to Jackson, and he had been more or less forgiven. And if that hadn’t done it, the way he cared for her every day and night since had.

My kid, he’d called her, and she knew he meant it.

“I’m glad you didn’t come with me,” Ellie replies, and she sees his shoulders droop a fraction - whether in relief or disappointment, she’s not sure. “Seeing Tommy get hit with that bat was scary as fuck. I don’t want the image of you like that in my head.”

Joel squeezes her wrist, and they ride on in silence.

–-

He may not want to be on this journey, but Joel’s determined to make the best of it he can. So one day he teaches her to shoot the rifle, more than a bit smug when he hits the target in the middle despite Ellie’s claims that the gun won’t aim right.

“Are you trying to shoot this thing or get it pregnant,” she’d said right before and Jesus, this fucking kid. He never quite knew what was gonna come out of her mouth, swears or snark or an endless stream of information about the night sky.

Another day, when they’d passed by a small stream, he’d shown her how to make a basic trap to catch a fish or two. It had served two purposes: helpful survival skill, and getting them dinner. Fish was less difficult for her to stomach than deer or rabbit since Silver Lake, so now when he had the opportunity to feed her something else, he took it.

On horseback he was thinking it might take them a couple weeks to reach Salt Lake at most, provided they didn’t run into any issues. Maybe they could’ve made it faster, but Joel didn’t want to push the horse too hard when they still had a return journey to make.

And if he was enjoying the time on the road again, just him and his kid, well that was between him and the road.

Surprisingly, Ellie seemed more relaxed out in the middle of nowhere than she ever had behind the walls of Jackson. Joel wasn’t sure if it was because there were no other people around, because it was just the two of them in what felt like their natural habitat, or if because she’d felt cooped up in Jackson. But she had fewer nightmares, made more jokes, laughed a little more freely, and Joel didn’t even try to hide his smile at it all.

They had one near miss with some raiders not long after crossing into Utah, and it made Joel curse his shitty hearing yet again. If Ellie hadn’t taken to keeping an eye on their right side for him - walking on that side of him when they weren’t on the horse - it might have been too late. As it was she had to shoot at least one guy before Joel could get to him, and she wound up with a decent sized laceration down one arm, a knife having sliced through her long-sleeve.

In the end, the three men who’d tried - and nearly succeeded - to sneak up on them were dead, and Joel was wrapping a piece of bandaging around Ellie’s forearm, right over her bite scars. The cut wasn’t deep enough to need stitches, thankfully, but even with the padding of the bandage Joel could tell how gingerly she was moving her arm.

“Hey,” he cupped his hands over her cheeks once they’d led Kennedy away from the smell of blood and looped his reins over a branch, “are you okay?”

Ellie shrugged, glancing over her shoulder in the direction of the bodies they’d left. “I mean they only sliced me, so yeah I think I’m good.”

“Not what I mean.”

She looked back at him but didn’t answer, so he pressed. “Ellie, you had to shoot a man.” Again, he thinks but doesn’t say.

“Yeah.” She picked at her cuticles a bit. “But if I hadn’t he would’ve shot you. And nobody gets to fucking kill you, especially not in front of me.”

He can appreciate the sentiment - it’s the same way he feels, after all - but he still responded with, “Still wish you wouldn’t’ve had to though.”

There’s nothing for it now though, so they mounted up again and continued on.

–-

Joel tries one more time to talk her out of it, even though they’re already in Salt Lake City and it’s probably fruitless. But they’ve just seen giraffes - fucking giraffes - and she looks so happy, and he can’t help himself. He just wants her to stay that happy, and he knows that whatever the Fireflies have to do to figure out a cure is probably going to be time-consuming and painful for her. They can go home, he says, back to Jackson and a warm house and his brother’s family - their family, he tells her - next door.

But Ellie’s insistent - stubborn as shit, his kid, so much so that sometimes it’s like looking in a mirror - so he just nods his head and they make their way through the Army medical camp outside the hospital marked with the Firefly logo. Joel thinks, for a second, about telling her about the last time he was in one, about the gun and the flinch and the bullet that missed. But she’s already scampering off to look at something and he can’t find it in himself to wreck this last moment of peace for her with his ugliness.

Joel keeps an eye out for a patrol or a lookout - surely the Fireflies would have one - but there’s nobody around, and there’s only silence to greet them when they enter the hospital. All that can be heard as they pick their way carefully through is the occasional echo of their footsteps. Ellie has her pistol out too, following Joel carefully and watching his right side like she always does. But each floor is just as empty as the others, until they get to the sixth floor.

There, it’s carnage, and Joel is too slow to shove Ellie back in the stairwell so she doesn’t see it.

She does see it though, the blood spattered on the walls, the bodies slumped over each other, glass shattered and spent casings everywhere they step. The smell indicates that it’s been at least a day or two, but Joel gestures for Ellie to keep quiet anyways as they pick their way around.

“What do you think happened?” She whispers to him after a quick glance through a few rooms reveals only more bodies.

“Raiders happened.”

They each spin around at the voice, rifle and pistol raised.

–-

Marlene had watched from a window as Joel and Ellie made their way through the camp below, poking at things before heading inside the building. She’d mused over the way they moved naturally around each other, words inaudible to her bouncing back and forth between them. Joel Miller, one of the hardest, most unfeeling men she’d encountered back in Boston, throwing his head back in laughter at something a teenager had said to him. What the fuck.

The two of them lower their weapons slightly when Marlene holds her hands up, leaning against a doorframe. “I’m unarmed.”

Ellie tucks her pistol into the waistband of her pants but Joel keeps his rifle braced against his shoulder.

“You said raiders?” He asks.

Marlene nods. “Came through about three days ago when I was out with a couple others, scavenging other buildings. Caught us by surprise, tore the place apart. We got a couple of them too but not enough and, well…” she gestures around them at everything. “You can see the end result.” She sighs. “I sent the last couple of my people away, told them to find another outpost if they could. Stayed behind to see what I could salvage from here.”

“And?”

“Not much,” Marlene admits. “They more or less wiped out our medicines, our supplies, weapons, a fuck ton of our people. Fireflies are more or less extinct at this point.”

“What about the cure?” Ellie asks, and Marlene doesn’t miss the way Joel tenses, eyeing her warily.

She can’t help it - she snorts. “Well the man behind the cure is currently down that way,” she points behind them, “with one bullet in his head and another in his diaphragm, so I think it’s safe to say that’s not happening.”

Ellie's face falls, her shoulders curly inward in a way that immediately has Joel turning towards her. “That’s…that’s it?” she asks, looking over at Joel forlornly. With a sigh, he slings the rifle over his back and steps to her, cupping a hand over her cheek in a display of tenderness Marlene would never have thought him capable of. “We came all this way…and that’s it?”

“I’m sorry, baby.”

Abruptly, Ellie shoves away from Joel. “No you’re fucking not,” she spits. “You didn’t want to do this at all, you wanted to stay in - stay with Tommy,” Ellie’s gaze flashes to Marlene for a second and then back again. “Just thirty minutes ago you were still trying to convince me to turn around, that we didn’t have to do this. But if we had gotten here sooner -”

“If we had gotten here sooner,” Joel interrupts, “we would probably be as dead as all these fuckers.”

“You don’t know that,” Ellie insists. “You don’t fucking know that, Joel! We could’ve gotten here months ago and they could’ve started on the cure and maybe it would have made a fucking difference! Instead of just sitting on our asses at home!”

“Baby girl,” Joel tries again, and Marlene fights to keep the surprise off her face. Joel Miller, a user of soft pet names.

Ellie doesn’t want to hear whatever he’s about to say though, and just spins around and stomps off with a “Fuck you!”

“Stay on this floor, Ellie,” Joel calls after her, a warning in his tone. Ellie makes a gesture over her shoulder and then she’s around the corner and they can hear a door slam.

Joel turns back to face Marlene. “There’s really no hope, then? Her immunity can’t be used?” She doesn't think she's imagining the hopeful tint to his voice, which amuses her as much as it irritates her.

Marlene shakes her head. “Whatever it was Anderson thought he was gonna do, he kept it in his own head. I went through his notes after, not that I could make heads or tails of it, and I couldn’t find anything for what he had planned. I knew the rough idea he had, but without him I don’t see how it’s possible.”

Joel looks down the way that Ellie had disappeared. “She really wanted this,” he says. “She - we went through a lot, getting here. She needed it to be worth somethin’.”

“Where’s Tess?” Marlene asks after a pause, not really expecting him to answer. Probably keeping an eye out somewhere, waiting for a signal of some sort.

Joel exhales, his gaze not leaving the hallway as though he could will Ellie to reappear in front of them. “State House.” His whole body has gone rigid, hands clenched so tightly into fists it pulls the skin of his knuckles white.

Marlene can’t hide her shock - she wouldn’t have expected a woman as smart and capable as Tess to have not even made it out of the state. She almost wants to offer Joel condolences, even though she’s not the type to give them and he’s not the type to accept. There’s rarely a place for condolences in their world - you just have to pick up and keep going. “So you got Ellie across the country by yourself?”

“Was all her. She fought like hell to get here,” Joel replies, and doesn’t say anything else until Ellie reappears a bit later.

Ellie doesn’t speak at first, but she and Joel exchange a long look - leaving Marlene feeling like they’re having an entire conversation without her - before she tucks herself against his side and he drapes an arm over her shoulders in a familiar gesture. There’s another murmured I’m sorry from Joel, but Ellie’s attention has shifted to Marlene.

“You’re completely sure that there’s no other way?” she asks, still a tinge of hopefulness in her voice. “It had to be that guy, there’s nobody else that could do it?”

Marlene uncrosses her arms, bracing herself on the table behind her, considering the question. “I mean, any doctor could have done the surgery, sure. But he was the only one I'm aware of that thought he knew what to do after.”

Joel is looking at her in a way she doesn’t much care for. “Surgery?” Next to him, Ellie’s brow furrows.

“Anderson thought if he could remove the cordyceps from Ellie, he could replicate the way it communicates. His theory was that since it’s been in Ellie since birth, it kind of gives off a false signal when she’s bit. No new infection grows because it thinks she’s already cordyceps.” Marlene doesn’t miss the way Joel has tucked Ellie behind him now, his hands gripping his rifle again. The barrel of it points at her, his finger just outside the trigger guard, and Marlene forces herself to remain as still as possible. One flinch, and Joel would probably blow her head off without a shred of regret.

“Cordyceps grows in the brain,” he growls.

“Wait, you guys were gonna cut my brain out?” Ellie asks from behind him. All Marlene can see of her at this point is a hand gripping the fabric at Joel’s side. “What the fuck, that’s not what you made it sound like in Boston.”

“We’re leavin’,” Joel says, nudging Ellie to start walking backwards. “And if you think about followin’, if you even think about coming after her, I’ll rip you apart.” There’s a threat, a promise in his voice that almost makes Marlene glad they got here too late to make a cure. She doesn’t know what happened to bond Joel and Ellie to each other, but she gets the distinct feeling he would’ve ripped the building apart with his bare hands before he let anyone near her with so much as a paperclip.

Sending Ellie with Joel was supposed to be a way to safeguard their chance at a cure; instead it seems like that choice doomed it.

“Wouldn’t be a point,” Marlene replies, holding her hands up.

Ellie must do something behind Joel because he stops moving and her head appears around his side. “If you figure out a way, though, that doesn’t involve my brain leaving my skull, I’d like to be a part of that.”

Marlene would like that too, but she’s not holding her breath because even if they did find a way she’d be willing to bet Joel is gonna do his damnedest to keep Ellie hidden from her.

She watches them leave, moving back over to the window once they’re in the stairwell. After a few minutes they appear below her, weaving through the Army camp just like they had on their way in.

“Well, Anna, you wanted me to find someone to take care of her and protect her. Looks like I gave her to the most protective fucker on the planet, so you're welcome.”

–-

They make camp that night several miles east of Salt Lake near an abandoned (and structurally unsound) farmhouse, Joel taking a slightly different route out of the city in case Marlene did decide to try to follow them.

“Hey Joel?” Ellie rolls over from where she lays on her side, head pillowed on his thigh. Not the most comfortable, but it’s one of those nights that she needs to be as close to Joel as possible so she doesn’t crawl out of her skin, as she put it. Now she’s staring up at him, picking at her cuticles. “If we had gotten there in time…if Marlene had told us what they were gonna do…what would you have done?”

The answer comes to Joel too easily. Killed them all, Marlene included. Left not a single Firefly alive in case they tried to come back and take you from me.

He doesn’t say that out loud, though, instead opting for, “I wouldn’t have let them hurt you.”

“Even if it meant a cure?”

There’s a lot he could say about that - about failed attempts to find cures before, about the sheer logistical impossibility of it all, about how FEDRA and the Fireflies would rather go to war over control of the vaccine rather than make sure it actually helped people - but he knows that’s not what Ellie wants to hear right now. “Cure wouldn’t have meant shit to me if you had to die for it.”

“Because I’m your kid,” Ellie replies matter-of-factly, and the hand that had been stroking the top of her head pauses for a moment. She’d said it like it was something she knew, had known for awhile, and when he doesn’t answer right away, she continues, “Heard you and Tommy talking on the porch when he and I first got back to Jackson.”

“Shouldn’t eavesdrop on people,” Joel says lightly, flicking her on the nose. She just shrugs, a little awkwardly since she’s laying down, and watches him. “That okay with you, if I say you’re my kid?”

Ellie nods, chewing her lower lip. Joel waits her out.

“I’ve never been anyone’s kid before,” she says slowly. “Not sure I know how to do it.”

“Well for starters,” Joel teases, “you fuckin’ listen when your parent tells you to do somethin’.”

Ellie rolls her eyes dramatically. “Great, I’m doomed.”

Joel pinches her side. “Nah, you’ll be fine. Been managin’ alright this whole time, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess I have.” She falls silent and Joel leaves her be, content to watch their small fire and listen to the hooting of a nearby owl. He looks down again though when she lifts her arm, eyes on the bandage wrapped around it. “Can’t believe this was all for nothing.”

“I know, baby girl, and I really am sorry. I know how much this meant to you.”

“I just thought…” Ellie clears her throat. “I just thought that it would make everything else less awful, if I could fix it. Even if I couldn’t save them then, I could save others.” She tells him then, about slicing her hand to save Sam. About her friend Riley - though Joel thinks there’s a bit more than friendship in her voice - who got bit alongside Ellie and who Ellie had to kill when Riley turned and she didn’t. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t want to disrupt this catharsis she’s going through, just sits and wipes the stray tears that leak out of her eyes occasionally. “It was supposed to mean something. My life was supposed to fucking matter,” she says finally, and her words carve themselves in Joel’s chest.

Maybe it’s not the best time for it, Joel thinks, but he also doesn’t want her thinking that the only thing her life was worth was a cure that would have killed her.

He nudges her to sit up, tucking her against his side as he tells her about the day after he lost Sarah, how Tommy dragged him to an Army camp to get his head patched up after he tried to put a bullet in it.

“Tommy wouldn’t let me around a weapon for a good year or two after,” Joel says, unseeing gaze on the fire. “Kept tellin’ me I wasn’t allowed to leave him behind, that you go on for family. So I did, even when he left for the Fireflies. Just…kept goin’.”

“Time heals all wounds, I guess,” Ellie murmurs from next to him, her head on his shoulder.

“Wasn’t time that did it,” he replies, dropping a kiss to the crown of her head. “Was some smartass little shit who came lunging out of a door with a knife in her hand.”

“You threw me against a wall, motherfucker!” Ellie pulls away from him, an affronted look on her face.

“Yeah, but you’re fine.” She whaps him on the arm in response and he can’t help the laugh that escapes him. “Anyway, the reason I’m tellin’ you all this –”

“I know why you’re telling me all this.”

“Yeah,” Joel says with a long look at her, “yeah, I reckon you do.” Ellie scoots back over so she’s under his arm again. “You need to get to sleep. I’ll take both watches.”

“What, so you can fall asleep on the horse tomorrow?” Ellie scoffs as she readjusts, pulling her sleeping bag closed around her again. “I don’t think so, wake me up in a few hours.” When he opens his mouth to protest, her eyes take on a challenging glint. “Or I’ll stay awake the whole night with you.”

“Ellie I-Wish-You-Had-A-Middle-Name Williams, I swear –” When she starts to sit up again, hand going to the zipper of her sleeping bag, Joel relents. “Fine. Now go to sleep.”

Looking rather pleased with herself, Ellie lays back down, using her backpack as a pillow instead of his leg this time. Her eyes close and she’s quiet for several minutes, letting Joel think she’s actually fallen asleep, before –

“Hey, Joel?”

“Hmm?”

“When we were in Jackson…well, there were a lot of people who thought my last name was Miller, like yours and Tommy’s. Like the librarian called me Ms Miller.”

“Okay.”

She peers up at him. “Well, since I’m your kid and all, I figure it’s okay right? If people think I’m Ellie Miller instead of Ellie Williams?”

Joel smiles a bit, unable to help himself. “Yeah, baby, as long as it’s okay with you.”

“It is,” she says hurriedly. “I just wanted to make sure it was okay with you too.”

“I’ve got no problem with it,” Joel assures her.

“Okay,” Ellie says, blinking up at him. “Good.” She burrows back down into her sleeping bag again, more to hide her face than due to any actual chill in the air, Joel thinks. He lets her though, so that he can have his own moment to gather himself.

Ellie stirs again ten or so minutes later, her hand poking out of her sleeping bag and extending in his direction. He scoots just a little closer to her and wraps it in his own, rubbing a thumb across the back of her knuckles until her deep, even breathing tells him she’s finally fallen asleep.

Chapter Text

Summer

They’re doing okay, Joel thinks, watching Ellie nudge a horse into a canter in the small arena by the stables. All things considered, they’re doing okay.

Her face is a picture of focus as she puts Truman (“You guys have got to stop naming the horses after your dumb dead presidents” she’d told Tommy vehemently) through his paces, making several loops around the arena. Just like Joel had thought, she spent most of her free time at the stables, helping train and care for the horses when she wasn’t glued to his side. And by all accounts she was a natural at it.

There’s movement to his left and he turns his head to see Yvonne, the woman who oversees the stables, standing next to him, foot propped up on the bottom rung of the fence. He tips his head in greeting and turns back to watch Ellie dismount and lead Truman over to a waiting stablehand.

“You’ve got a good one there, Joel,” Yvonne says, her eyes tracking Ellie as well. “Haven’t had many kids pick up riding as naturally as she has, and she’s very good with the horses.” She turns to look at him. “You teach her?”

Joel shrugs, careful with his answer. Jackson has been welcoming to them - thanks in large part to Tommy and Maria - but they don’t get new arrivals very often and he and Ellie are still a bit of a curiosity to many. “Not really. She hadn’t even been on a horse till the first time we came here, and she only rode by herself a couple times that I’m aware of.”

“Well she’s fantastic,” Yvonne says softly, and her words have pride swelling in Joel's chest, “and we’re lucky to have her.”

“Don’t tell her that,” he says wryly as Ellie makes her way over to them. “There’ll be no livin’ with her if you do.”

“Joel!” Ellie shouts, picking up the pace as she crosses the arena. Once she’s close enough she launches herself at the fence, clambering over it with all the grace of an uncoordinated cat.

“Easy, kid,” he says around a laugh, arms extended in case she slips in her haste.

“One of the mares is pregnant, and Shawn said I could name the foal when it’s born!”

“Oh he did, did he?” Yvonne asks from next to him, her tone teasing.

“He did!” She tucks herself against Joel’s side like she always does, his arm falling across her shoulders. “Which is a good thing for you guys because I’m ending the dead presidents naming streak.”

Joel pretends to think. “You mean you don’t wanna name it Clinton? What about Reagan? Or Taft? Quincy?” Ellie’s scowl grows fiercer with each name he rattles off until she elbows him in the stomach to get him to shut up.

“No,” Yvonne says, playing along with a mischievous grin, “We already have a Reagan. But we haven’t used Lincoln yet, or,” she snaps her fingers, “Polk. Polk’s a good name for a horse I think.”

“You guys are the worst,” Ellie says with an eye roll. “I don’t know what I’m naming the foal, but no more dead people names from before I was even alive.” She starts to walk away, a hand wrapped around Joel’s wrist so she can tug him along behind her. “Now let’s get to the dining hall before they run out of pie.”

Joel throws a wave over his shoulder at Yvonne, who is watching them go with an amused grin on her face.

“How’s the arm?” He asks her when they’re far enough away from anyone else to be out of earshot.

Ellie rolls her eyes but pulls up her sleeve to show him the bandage, still secure and with no blood leaking through. “It’s fine.”

“Hmm,” Joel wraps a hand around her wrist and rotates it one way and then the other. “I’ll determine that for myself when we get home later.” Ellie tugs her arm back but doesn’t respond, hunching her shoulders slightly.

–-

“Ellie?” Joel calls as he walks through the front door, kicking off his shoes. “Grabbed you an extra bit of apple crumble, but I’m gonna eat it if you don’t get your skinny behind down here soon.”

There’s no sound from the rest of the house, but Ellie’s boots are right where she always abandons them by the door, left one fallen over, and Joel sets the covered plate down on the dining table.

“Ellie?”

Still no answer, and a prickle of fear lodges in Joel’s gut. She’d said she wasn’t feeling up to the dining hall tonight, not an uncommon occurrence, and he’d gone to get food for her. Couldn’t have been gone more than fifteen or twenty minutes, which meant it was unlikely she’d fallen asleep already. So she should be answering him, should be thumping noisily down the stairs towards him to protect her precious apple crumble.

“Ellie?” Joel takes the stairs two at a time, pushing the door of her bedroom open. Bed unmade, papers scattered across her desk. Nothing out of place anywhere except the fact that his teenager wasn’t in there.

There’s a noise from behind him, a whimper or something, and he whirls to face the bathroom door. It’s shut, but he listens and...there it is again.

“Ellie?” Joel says softly, knocking on the door. “Baby, are you okay? I need you to answer me, or I’m comin’ in there.”

There’s just a sniffle in response, which he doesn’t count as an answer, so he turns the knob and sticks his head inside.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ.”

Ellie’s half-leaned over the bathtub, her right arm a bloody mess, rivulets of it running over her hand and onto the porcelain. Her switchblade rests on the floor next to her with a small pile of gauze bandages next to it.

He snags one and presses it firmly to her arm, ignoring the cry of pain she lets out. “I know, baby girl, I know, but I gotta put pressure on it to stop the bleedin’. Here, lift it for me.” He coaxes her arm up so it’s elevated, and then pulls a washcloth from under the sink. Once it’s damp he starts wiping gently at the parts of her arm he can reach around the bandage.

Ellie twitches against him as if she wants to pull her arm away, but he holds fast and shifts so her back is leaning against his chest. “Easy, baby, you’re okay,” Joel says when she whimpers again, even as he doubts the words coming out of his mouth. Clearly she’s not okay if he left her alone for a short period of time and came home to find her bleeding all over the bathroom from a self-inflicted wound.

He holds the bandage against her arm tightly for ten minutes or so, shushing her any time she attempts to talk.

Finally, when it seems the bleeding has stopped, Joel lowers her arm and turns her so she’s sideways, cradled between his legs. “This is probably gonna hurt, baby, but I gotta take this bandage off so I can make sure to clean it properly. It might bleed again too.”

Ellie just nods, her face pale and tear-stained, and leans into his chest. A hiss escapes through her teeth when he peels the bandage off, and sure enough it sticks a bit in places where the blood had started clotting. Joel murmurs apologies again as he sets to cleaning it properly, knowing the alcohol is stinging by the way she tenses against him and her hand grips his wrist tightly.

With the blood wiped away in most spots, Joel can see more clearly the two new long gashes running haphazardly across her forearm and a couple other smaller cuts scattered throughout as well. “Fuck,” he can’t help but say, staring down at her marred skin, the blood still clinging in some spots.

“Joel –”

“Not now, Ellie,” he says tightly. She shrinks from him a little but he can’t find the words to reassure her at the moment, not when her arm is still bleeding slightly and he can see her knife out of the corner of his eye, lurking there like a taunt.

Joel cleans and bandages her arm as best he can, wondering the whole time how he could have missed that she wanted to hurt herself. She still had bad days where the depression about the lack of a cure overwhelmed her, bad nights where she woke up screaming for someone to get off her. But in both instances she always, always, came to find him.

So how the hell did he miss this?

When her arm is wrapped, Joel stands carefully and helps Ellie do the same, guiding her down the hall to his room with a soft hand on her back. He leaves her sitting on his bed with a quiet “stay here” and then goes to her room to find her clean pajamas. The latest shirt she swiped from him is still draped over the back of her chair so he snags it for her along with some flannel pants and socks.

Ellie looks up when he reenters the room, her eyes red and puffy from crying. “Joel –”

“Not yet,” he cuts her off gently, setting the clothes next to her and dropping a kiss to the top of her head. “Get changed, leave your dirty clothes in my hamper. I’m gonna go clean the bathroom and I’ll be right back.”

“Okay.” Her voice is small and unsteady, and he can feel her watching him as he leaves the room again.

The bathroom is such a mess and Joel has to swallow bile at the sight of the bloody knife on the floor, the blood spattered inside the tub. He’d haphazardly thrown the used bandage and washcloth aside and he picks those up first, tossing them in the trash bin.

Joel turns to wet a fresh washcloth in the sink and stops at the sight of himself in the mirror. Ellie’s blood is smeared across the front of his shirt and the sleeves, and at some point one of them must have touched his face because there’s even a bit of it on his cheek. He can see it on his palms too and suddenly he’s in a field, a different daughter’s blood on his skin, a small unmoving body cradled in his arms.

He stumbles backwards until his legs meet porcelain and he sinks down onto the lid of the toilet, staring at his hands. Between one blink and the next he’s seeing the tile of the bathroom floor and Ellie’s blood, grass and dirt and Sarah’s blood. Ellie’s blood. Sarah’s blood. Ellie’s. Sarah’s. How does he keep ending up here, with his kids’ blood on his hands?

There’s a sob fighting its way out of his throat and he kicks the door shut with his foot so it doesn’t carry down the hall.

He doesn’t even know what to do in this situation, Joel thinks. Sarah had never tried to hurt herself that he knew of, but she had also never been through the kind of things Ellie’d had to survive. He ain't equipped for this, doesn't know how to find the right words to handle this with Ellie.

The knife and the tub both seem to be staring at him, shoving his failures with his kids down his throat, and Joel finally makes himself get up to finish cleaning. The blood in the tub hasn’t dried, so he turns the faucet on and rinses it away, watching the water turn pink as it swirls around the drain. How, Joel wonders, does such a small person have so much blood? And how much more could she have lost before he got home? Would he have found her up here, unconscious - or worse - if he’d been five or ten minutes later?

He forces the thought away, focusing on cleaning the rest of the bathroom. He wipes Ellie's knife and tucks it in his pocket, scrubs at the stray flecks of blood on the floor, fights desperately to keep from keeling over and throwing up.

He's just started wiping his arms off, skin pink where he'd scrubbed frantically at Ellie's blood on him, when he hears a knock at the front door downstairs. He'd forgotten Tommy was supposed to stop by with the guitar he'd found on a recent patrol, a surprise for Ellie since he'd promised to teach her to play.

Fuck. If he doesn’t go down and answer it, Tommy will assume something is wrong - which it very much is - and potentially break down the door to get in and check on him and Ellie. But he doesn’t think Ellie would want anyone else knowing about this if they could avoid it, not even their family.

Tommy knocks again, and Joel calls down the hall to Ellie that he’ll be right back, making for the stairs. Too late, he realizes there's still blood streaking across his shirt and hands, caked under his nails. There's no time to do anything about it though, because Tommy's knock has turned more insistent, and Joel knows he's five seconds from getting in the house.

Sure enough, he’s just made it down the stairs to the living room when Tommy opens the door and looks around, clearly on the verge of a panic. His face pales when he sees Joel, and he damn near drops the guitar on the floor.

“What the –”

“I’m okay, Ellie’s okay,” Joel interrupts him, holding his hands up and then realizing that probably makes it seem worse, crusted as they are with blood. “Ellie…she sliced herself with her knife, and I was cleanin’ her up. Didn’t get a chance to change before you got here.”

Tommy looks him up and down, taking in the stripes of dried blood. “How bad did she slice herself?”

Joel sighs, blinking away the image of the gashes in Ellie's arm. “Pretty badly,” he admits. “But she’s gonna be fine. I gotta get back upstairs to her.”

Tommy doesn’t look reassured - he looks like he has about a million more questions - but he nods and sets the guitar gently on the couch. “Let me know if y’all need anythin’.”

“Will do.”

Tommy lets himself out and Joel heads back upstairs. The bathroom’s clean, but he steps back inside it for just a second more to try to gather himself, a little afraid to face Ellie. He doesn’t know how to talk about this with her, doesn’t know how to go about asking her if her nightmares and her life up until they settled with Jackson had pushed her to the point of wanting to –

God, he can’t even think it.

When he goes back in his room, Ellie’s changed into her clean clothes and situated herself close to the wall on his bed, back propped against the headboard. She’s staring at the bandage on her forearm but looks up when he enters and opens her mouth to talk. Joel just shakes his head and ducks into his own bathroom to clean up and change.

“Was that Tommy downstairs?” Ellie asks through the door, her voice hoarse.

“Yeah, he was bringin’ somethin’ by he found on patrol a couple days ago,” Joel calls back, scrubbing his hands under the faucet until they’re cleaner than they’ve ever been, until there’s not a speck of red to be found. “I’ll show you in a bit.”

Joel comes back out of the bathroom when he’s certain he’s gotten every last bit of blood from his skin, Ellie’s knife stashed in a drawer under his sink. He doesn’t want to keep it from her - he knows how much it means to her - but he also can’t bring himself to put a sharp object within her reach until he knows what the fuck pushed her to do this.

Silently, he situates himself on the bed next to her. He’s still not sure how to discuss this with her, but Ellie speaks first and this time Joel doesn't stop her.

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself. Or hurt myself,” Ellie says, and at his arched eyebrow she sighs, scooting slightly closer to him. “I wasn’t! The cuts were intentional but I – I just…” she trails off, looking down at her hands.

“I need you to be honest with me about this, Ellie,” Joel says gently. “I can’t – I’m not…” now he’s the one trailing off, unsure of how to continue. God why are both of them so bad at basic communication sometimes?

“I promise, Joel, I wasn’t like…suicidal or something, or trying to hurt myself. I’m not.” Ellie turns so she’s cross-legged facing him, her knees pressing to the outside of his thigh. “I wanted to get rid of my bite scars.”

“What?” Joel asks incredulously. “You were trying to, what, slice them off?”

“Not exactly.”

“Baby,” Joel says with a patience he doesn’t really feel, “I need you to tell me what the hell you were doin’, what you were thinkin’, all of it. Please stop dancin’ around it, I’m tryin’ very hard to not freak out over here.”

Ellie takes a deep breath, her gaze falling back to the bandage on her arm. “When we got attacked by hunters on the way to Salt Lake City and my arm got sliced, I noticed as it healed that it kind of made my bites look…less like bites. So I thought that with another cut or two they wouldn’t look like bites at all, and then we wouldn’t have to worry about someone shooting me if they saw my arm.”

“Son of a –” Joel can’t help but glare at her a little, this ridiculous teenager of his that decided the best way to avoid potentially getting shot was to cut through her own skin repeatedly. He takes a deep breath. “Ellie, I get what you were tryin’ to accomplish, but that was not the way. Do you know how deep you have to cut in order to make scars like that?”

“I didn’t,” she says sheepishly. “Which is where it went wrong. I did the smaller cuts first and then I realized that wouldn’t work.”

“No shit,” Joel mutters. “So you decided, instead of abandonin’ this ridiculous plan of yours, to then try some bigger ones? And nearly fuckin’ bled out in the bathroom?”

“Okay look,” Ellie replies, sounding more than a little irritated, which is fucking rich to Joel considering this was all her dumbass mess. “I know it wasn’t the best idea, but it was this or bleach, and –”

“Bleach?” He can’t help it, he’s yelling now, up off the bed and pacing around. “Your backup plan was to pour bleach on your arm as opposed to slicin’ it open?”

“This is why I didn’t tell you! I knew you would react like this.” Ellie tries to cross her arms until it puts pressure on the injured one and she uncrosses them with a wince.

“React like what, exactly, Ellie? Like a man who doesn’t particularly fuckin’ like the thought of his daughter slicing her arm open or pourin’ chemicals on herself? Like a regular fuckin’ person would react?”

“You don’t get it, Joel!” She flops back on the bed with all the drama he remembers Sarah having. Her voice drops to nearly a whisper. “You don’t fucking get it.”

Carefully, he sits back down on the bed next to her, running a hand over the top of her head. His anger dissipates a bit at the sight of tears on her cheeks. “Then help me understand it, baby girl, please.”

Ellie stares at the ceiling. “Every time I look down at my arm when it’s uncovered, all I see is how I failed. How the one thing I was supposed to be able to do, I couldn’t.” She glances at him and then away again. “Me being immune was supposed to help other people, supposed to be used to protect other people, and it ended up being worthless.”

“Oh, baby,” Joel sighs, using his thumb to wipe away a stray tear from her cheek. “That ain’t your fault though. You did your part, you got all the way across the country, you made it to the Fireflies. There was nothing you could have done to keep them and the doctor from being wiped out by raiders.” Not that it would’ve mattered, he thinks, since their plan was to slice her head open and there was no way in hell Joel was gonna let them. From the look on her face, Ellie knows what’s running through his head.

“You protected me all the way from Boston to here,” she whispers. “You’ve taken care of me. I was supposed to get to protect you back, just from this one thing.”

“C’mere.” Joel nudges her to sit up and tugs her against him until her head is resting on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her. “I appreciate you wantin’ to protect me, I do. But –”

“It wasn’t just cordyceps I was thinking about,” Ellie interrupts. “It – you and Maria said that if someone saw my bites they might try to kill me.”

Joel closes his eyes briefly, cursing himself for ever having that conversation in front of her. He’d wanted her to be prepared, to understand how serious it was for her to keep her arm covered, but instead he’d just made her fear walking around the town where she should be safe. “Ellie –”

“And as much as I worry about getting shot, because that would really fucking suck for me, I…” she pauses, looking up at him for a second before tucking her chin back down. “Tommy told me how Sarah died.” Joel can’t help it - his whole body tenses. “I didn’t want you to have to deal with the same thing happening to me.”

Joel swears under his breath. “That wasn’t for him to tell you –”

“No, he thought I already knew,” Ellie hurries to say. “I mentioned that you’d told me about the scar on your head, and he thought that meant you’d told me everything else too. It wasn’t his fault, he didn’t mean to.”

He exhales slowly. “None of this has been fair to you,” he murmurs. “Been havin’ to carry the weight of savin’ the world on your shoulders, and here I am addin’ more. That was never my intention, I hope you know that.”

“I do.” She presses closer to his side, careful to keep her injured arm out of the way. “But I’m still gonna try to take care of you, same as you take care of me. It’s what family does, I’ve been told.”

“It’s what family does,” Joel repeats with a kiss to the crown of her head.

–-

Carefully, Joel lifts the bandage from Ellie’s arm, propped on their dining table. The cuts are healing nicely, no signs of infection almost two weeks out. And - not that he would say it to her - the little shit was right: with the two new scarred lines running across them, her bites look distinctly less like bites at first glance. Probably wouldn’t hold up to careful examination, but anyone who caught a glimpse of her arm would just see a patchwork of scars of different shapes and sizes that could have been earned a variety of ways. Most of Jackson knows he and Ellie crossed damn near the whole country - hard to keep something like that quiet in a town like this - and it buys them a bit of leeway since nobody expects a journey like that to be without dangers.

“Comin’ along nicely,” Joel says, tossing the old bandage in the trash and unraveling a new one.

Ellie doesn’t reply, but he can tell by the pleased smile on her face that she knows her dumbass idea worked. She wouldn’t say it to him though, she knows better than that.

“Do I get my surprise now?” she asks, once he’s finished cleaning and reapplying the fresh bandage. “You said I had to wait till my arm healed, and it’s more or less healed.”

“I did say that, didn’t I?” Joel rubs a hand over his jaw, thinking. “Alright, I guess. Go sit on the couch.” She scampers off, and Joel goes upstairs to her room. He’d had to get a bit creative hiding the guitar Tommy had brought over, knowing Ellie was a nosy and determined little gremlin, and that she’d do her best to tear the house apart once he told her he had something for her. And sure enough - she’d tried to be subtle, but there were only so many reasons the couch could be moved two inches from the wall, or for his drawers to be slightly open.

Far as he knew though, she hadn’t thought he would hide it in her room, and that was what made him do it. There were a couple loose panels in her wall that he’d found when hanging the shelves he’d built her. He hadn’t gotten around to fixing them yet, so the small space behind them in the framing made the perfect stash spot for the guitar, wrapped in a couple blankets to protect it.

“Close your eyes,” he calls into the living room as he comes back down the stairs. “No peekin’.” He peers around the corner of the wall, and sees that Ellie’s got her eyes shut tightly. “Okay,” he says once he’s in front of her, guitar still behind his back in case she’s too eager. “Keep your eyes closed, and put your hands out. Further apart,” he adds when she cups them in front of her. Carefully, he sets the guitar into her hands, chuckling a little at the excited wiggle she does because she can tell immediately what it is.

“Open.”

Her eyes snap open immediately, hands already roving over the surface of it. “Holy shit!” Ellie strums it experimentally. “Tommy found this on patrol?”

Joel nods, reaching over to twist one of the pegs gently, tuning the string just a bit. “Yup, couldn’t believe the condition it was in, just needed a good wipe down. Some of the strings probably ain’t gonna last very long, but we’ll keep an eye out for more whenever we go out.”

Ellie strums the chords again, then looks up at Joel pensively. “Here,” she says, thrusting the guitar in his direction, “play something for me.” When he hesitates, she shakes it in his direction. “Come on man, how can I know you can teach me guitar if I don’t hear you play it first? Maybe you’ve been lying about knowing how to play it.”

“Alright, fine.” Joel takes the guitar from her, tuning it a bit while searching his mind for something he might know how to play. It’s been so many years since he’s touched a guitar, what feels like an age since he last listened to music, with Ellie in Bill’s truck.

“No laughin’,” he says warningly, strumming a bit to get a feel for it again. “I haven’t done this since probably before you were alive, so it might not be any good, but let’s see.” Ellie nods, cross-legged with her chin propped in her hands, watching him intently.

He starts and stops a bit, struggling to remember how it goes, but he manages a slowed down version of Ben E King’s “Stand By Me”. His singing voice ain’t much, but he does his best, looking at the guitar instead of at Ellie. To her credit she doesn’t laugh, and when he finishes and looks up her eyes are even a bit glassy.

“Been holding out on me, man,” she says after a moment, blinking rapidly.

“Think I’ll be a suitable teacher then?”

“Yeah, I think you’ll do.” The words are teasing, but Ellie’s face has what he would almost call a soft look on it, something he almost never sees from her.

“You okay?” He asks gently, reaching forward to cup her cheek. He didn’t think it would be a song she knew, so hopefully it wouldn’t bring anything bad up for her, but sometimes the strangest things seemed to set something off in her.

“Yeah,” she takes a deep breath. “Just a really good song, is all. Teach me that?”

“Of course.” Joel sets the guitar gently on the coffee table. “Gotta wait for your arm to heal just a couple more days though, so you’re not pressing it on the top of the guitar.”

“Okay.” With the guitar out of the way Ellie scoots closer to him, lifting his arm and tucking herself underneath it with a contented sigh.

Fall

She can handle this. She’s not a fucking baby, she can handle this. She and Joel aren’t glued to each other’s sides anymore (most days, anyways) so she can deal with this. It’s barely twenty-four hours, and that’s nothing, in the grand scheme of things, really.

So why does Ellie feel like her heart is about to beat out of her chest, watching Joel double check his supplies before he leaves on his first overnight patrol?

He’s gone on patrol before, for ten to twelve hours even, being gone sunup to sundown. This isn’t that much different, Ellie tells herself, chewing on her nail and watching him tighten the girth on his saddle just a hair. This is just overnight instead of a whole day.

Just one whole, entire, dark night. Away from her.

As if he can sense her - and sometimes she’s not entirely sure he can’t, honestly - Joel’s head lifts and turns in her direction. There’s a knowing and almost equally anxious look on his face, and Ellie gives up trying to seem like she’s not bothered by this pending separation, striding over and wrapping her arms around his middle.

“It’s gonna be fine, baby girl,” Joel murmurs into the top of her head, but he doesn’t move away either, and Ellie is a little comforted by the fact that she’s not the only one feeling this anxiety. “It’s just one night, you’ll be with Maria and the baby, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” There’s a press to the top of her head that she's certain is a kiss, and then Tommy is walking over to join them. He looks loath to interrupt this, but Ellie can hear the sounds of the others mounting up and knows he’s been selected to gently pry Joel away from his needy child since he’s the one who can manage it without getting punched.

“I gotta go, baby, I’ll be back tomorrow.”

It’s childish, and beneath her, but she can’t help the “Do you have to?” that slips out. Joel glances at Tommy and opens his mouth to answer, but Ellie just shakes her head. “I know you have to, I’m sorry. I just…”

“I know.” Joel gives her a sad smile, and she knows he does in fact know.

“Okay, I’m gonna let go of you now.” She really is, she just can’t seem to get her arms to obey. Tommy at least looks amused by this, not irritated by the potential delay, but Ellie knows the others in the group might not feel the same way and that’s what pushes her to finally release Joel after one last squeeze.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says firmly, trying to reassure both of them. “And if he comes back with so much as a scratch I will personally slit your throat,” she adds to Tommy.

“Ellie,” Joel groans, but Tommy just nods and reaches forward to squeeze her shoulder. She’s still not the best with touches from people who aren’t Joel most days, but she’s been working on it with Tommy and as long as she can see it coming it’s manageable.

“I won’t let anything happen to him,” he says seriously. “And you take care of Maria and TJ while I’m gone, alright?”

“I can do that.”

One more shoulder squeeze and then he’s headed back to his horse.

Ellie desperately wants to give Joel one more hug, but she’s pretty sure if she does she’ll never let him leave so she makes herself take a step back. “Be fucking careful out there, okay?”

There’s a wry smile on Joel’s face as he mounts up. “Yes ma’am.”

She lets herself step close enough to squeeze his hand, and then the patrol - Joel, Tommy, and three others - is heading out. Ellie watches until they’re out of sight, the gates closing behind them. Joel throws one last wave over his shoulder at her, and then he’s gone.

This is fine, Ellie tells herself as she turns and starts home. This is totally fine, completely manageable. She can do one night without Joel - everyone has to do overnights at some point, it was inevitable he would - she just has to take it minute by minute, hour by hour.

She’s totally not about to have a panic attack, and if she ends up sprinting the last stretch of their street until she’s inside their house, then anyone who saw it can mind their own fucking business.

Being in the house doesn’t bring the calm that Ellie thought it would, and her lungs still don’t seem to be working properly.

Upstairs. She can go upstairs to Joel’s room. Joel’s room is a good safe place, full of things that smell like him, things she can surround herself in.

He’s going to be fine, Ellie tells herself as she sits on his bed, wrapping a flannel around herself. He’s going to be fine and she’s going to be fine. It’s a temporary separation, and Tommy will make sure he comes back safe and sound.

It’s all going to be okay.

–-

Ellie stays on Joel’s bed, face pressed to his pillow, until she feels more in control of herself, and remembers that Maria is expecting her. She’s supposed to sleep in their guest room tonight - Joel hadn’t wanted her to be alone with him gone - but she doesn’t think she can do that. This brief spell of calm she’s fooled herself into isn’t going to last through the night, Ellie knows, and she doesn’t want to risk waking TJ - and by extension, Maria - up. But she should at least go by the house at some point so Maria doesn’t worry.

With a groan, Ellie pushes herself up and off the bed, heading downstairs. She’s out the door before she realizes she still has Joel’s flannel wrapped around her like a cape. There’s a brief moment where she thinks about turning around and leaving it on the couch, but then Maria’s face appears in the window. Ellie shoves her arms in the sleeves properly and then heads up onto their porch and into their house.

“Was starting to wonder about you,” Maria calls from the kitchen, setting a plate down on the table for her, TJ cradled in one arm. “Everything go okay with seeing Joel and Tommy off earlier?”

Ellie sits slowly, picking up her fork more for something to do than out of actual hunger. “Yeah, just…you know, worried.”

Maria’s smile is kind as she sits down across from her, her eyes raking over the too-large shirt that clearly doesn’t belong to Ellie. “I know what you mean. Tommy’s been patrolling for years now and yet every time…it’s easier when I can go with him, but I don’t know when that’ll happen again.” Her gaze floats down to her new baby, rocking him slightly and getting a happy burble in response. “Tommy knows what he’s doing though,” she continues as she looks back up at Ellie. “He’ll make sure Joel gets back to you safely.”

Ellie hesitates. It would be nice to talk about this just a little, get some of this weight off her chest. But for all she’s grown to like and even trust Maria, she still can’t forget how she used to carry such a dislike of Joel, how she once tried to place Ellie with a strange family, how she has sometimes viewed the reliance Ellie and Joel have on each other as a negative thing. It makes it hard to want to tell her how afraid, how anxious, she is to be from Joel overnight, like it’s just going to prove her right.

“I know,” she finally replies, taking a bite of carrot just to have an excuse to not elaborate.

Maria seems to sense there won’t be more, and she shifts TJ a bit in her arms. “The guest bedroom is all made up for you.”

“About that,” Ellie replies slowly, trying to decide how to tell her she won’t be staying over without letting on just how unstable she’s feeling right now. “I’m going to stay at home tonight, I think.”

Maria’s eyes narrow just the slightest amount. “Joel said you were going to stay here.”

“I was. But…I think I just need to be in a familiar environment tonight.” Because an unfamiliar one, combined with the anxiety I’m already full to the brim of, is just a nightmare scenario waiting to happen. Call it consideration for their sleep, call it reasonable, call it pride - Ellie does not want someone else to be around if she has a nightmare and wakes up screaming like she fully expects she will.

Someone that’s not Joel, anyways.

“Are you sure?” Maria asks, and when Ellie nods she does as well. “Alright then. I’m right over here if you need me though. Door will be unlocked.”

“Thanks.”

She stays for a little bit longer, taking her turn at holding her baby cousin - and what a novel sentence that still is - tickling his tummy and just generally trying to entertain her while Maria does the dishes. But once a foul smell emanates from TJ’s diaper, Ellie hands him back.

“This was not in the cousin job description,” she says, trying to fan the smell away when Maria is holding TJ again. “Above my paygrade.”

“Do you even know what a paygrade is?”

Ellie shrugs a bit sheepishly. “Nope, but I hear Joel say that all the time.”

Maria just rolls her eyes affectionately. “I’m gonna go take care of this, you be careful getting home and come back over here if you need to.”

“Will do, goodnight Maria.”

Ellie tugs the door shut behind her softly and crosses the yard back to her and Joel’s house. It’s quiet when she lets herself back in, too quiet for Ellie’s liking. Even when Joel is asleep or reading or just there she can hear his breathing, the random little noises he makes, how he talks to himself.

Now there’s just her.

His boots aren’t by the door next to where she toes her shoes off, his jacket is missing from its hook. This is what it would be like if he died is the unbidden thought that crosses her mind. Just you alone in this house forever.

Goddamnit, she thinks when a tear rolls down her cheek, she hasn’t even been back in here five minutes. Joel’s barely been gone a handful of hours and she’s already disintegrating.

“Nope, not gonna do this,” she tells herself firmly, wiping the tear off and reaching down to snag the guitar on her way upstairs. “Not gonna have these shitty thoughts. Joel’s gonna be back tomorrow and he’s gonna be fine. Gonna come back here and yell at me for using his room and leaving my shit everywhere.”

That last part’s not true: Joel wouldn’t yell at her for this, Ellie is certain. He would want her to do whatever it takes for her to feel okay with him gone, even if that meant pulling all his flannel off their hangers and burying herself in a mountain of them.

Tempting, that is, but not worth the hassle of hanging them back up

She sets the guitar gently on the bed and then goes into her room for pajamas, wrapping the flannel back around her and then resituating herself on his bed again. He’d been teaching her the song he’d sang - “Stand By Me” he’d said it was called - and this seemed like as good a time as any to practice it, when she could fuck up the words and chords without him here to laugh. He’d written the lyrics down for her but his shitty chickenscratch was difficult to decipher on a good day, when she didn’t have tears constantly invading her eyes.

Strumming on the guitar keeps her occupied for a couple more hours, until her eyes start to feel heavy. Maybe, she thinks, burrowing under the blankets, the guitar propped on the end of the bed. Maybe I’ll be tired enough tonight to not dream, and then I’ll wake up and then Joel will be home, and everything will be fine again. It’s just one night and I’ll see him tomorrow.

–-

There’s smoke, choking her lungs, burning her throat, heat scraping along her arms. There’s a big ominous shadow in front of the door, blocking her way out.

“Ellieeeee,” a voice says, turning her name into a singsongy taunt. “Come out, come out…”

She looks down at her hand where only a minute ago there had been a knife, but it’s gone, and then the counter she’d been hiding behind is gone too and he’s there, staring at her with his hacked apart face, an eye dangling from its socket, brain oozing down the side of his face and he opens his half-mouth and

“Ellieeeee...”

She scrambles backwards, unable to get to her feet, just pushing herself away from him but it’s never far enough and the room is so hot and there’s so many flames and then she’s bumped into something and he’s not in front of her anymore so she turns around and

It’s Joel, laying face down in the snow, bleeding from his chest and his head, his face swollen, tendrils of infection working through his face and out of his mouth and then

“Ellieeeee…”

And then he’s there in front of her again, picking up Joel’s head with a fistful of hair and shaking it before dropping it with a thud back into the snow and stepping over him towards her and

“See what happens to the people you love? He can’t protect you now just like he couldn’t protect you then, he will never be able to save you from me…”

She crawls over to Joel, shaking him but he won’t open his eyes he won’t answer her she can’t hear him saying baby girl he’s not moving why isn’t he moving he has to get up so they can get out of here and now there’s a pain on her head like someone’s dragging her by her ponytail and Joel is getting further away and there’s so much snow and fire and it doesn’t make sense he has to get up

“JOEL!” she’s screaming at him but he’s not hurrying towards her like he normally does he’s not trying to hold her and tell her everything will be okay he’s still not moving he has to get up why won’t he get up he has to get up why won’t he

–-

Ellie sits bolt upright, drenched in sweat, before curling in on herself, unable to help the tears streaming down her face.

“Just a dream,” she mutters to herself, “just a dream, it’s okay, I’m okay, Joel’s okay, it was just a dream.”

It doesn’t have the same reassurance as it does when Joel says it though, and she has to kick the covers off her legs so she can pull her knees to her chest, wrapping the flannel around her as much as possible so she’s enveloped in it. Even though she’s been wearing it for hours - sweating in it now - it still smells like him and it’s enough to bring her heart rate down just a bit.

It takes a minute to find the energy and the willpower, but she turns her head slightly to look out the window and is relieved to see the lightening of the sky in the distance. Patrol was supposed to be back not long after sunrise, so Joel should be home soon.

If he survived and didn’t die out in the woods because you weren’t there with him, the nasty little voice in her head mutters. Because everyone you love dies.

“No,” Ellie says loudly, the word echoing around the empty room. “Joel’s not dead. He’s going to be home soon and everything will be fine.”

She can’t sit here and wait though, alone with her thoughts, so she plods downstairs and into the kitchen, pulling out the stuff Joel uses to make his nasty ass coffee. She’d make it for him but she doesn’t want it going cold before he gets here, so instead she just sets everything neatly on the counter. Waiting for him, like she is.

That done, Ellie slips her feet into her shoes and goes out onto the porch to wait on the swing. She’d thought about going all the way to the gates to see Joel as soon as he came in but figured that wouldn’t really help her argument that she could handle being on her own for a single night.

But, as the sun creeps higher, Ellie starts to wish she had gone to the front to wait, because this sitting here staring down the street isn’t cutting it. Loathe as she is to give any credence to the nightmare, she knows she won’t fully be able to shake it off her until she has set eyes on him.

Mind made up - never mind that she’s still in pajama pants and Joel’s flannel, but the people of Jackson are already aware of how glued to each other she and Joel are so it’s not like they’ll think her appearance is strange - she starts down the steps. She only makes it to the edge of the yard before she hears the rumble of voices and laughter, picking out the chuckle that belongs distinctly to one person. It’s a little absurd, Ellie thinks, the way that her legs immediately go weak with relief and she almost falls to the ground with it.

Joel is nearby and he’s laughing so he’s okay.

He comes around the corner, pack slung over his shoulder, and waves goodbye to Tommy as the other Miller makes his way up his own steps. Maria comes out with the baby to greet him, so they’re both standing there watching as Ellie launches herself at Joel, arms around his neck and feet dangling off the ground.

She can tell he’d been expecting something like this since he catches her immediately, one arm around her middle to hold her up and the other hand coming up to cup the back of her head.

“Hi there baby girl,” Joel murmurs against her temple, squeezing her slightly before setting her down. She doesn’t let go, simply readjusting so her arms around his middle instead.

“Hi.”

Ellie hears the sound of a closing door - Tommy and Maria going inside - and then Joel asks, “You okay?”

“‘M fine. Threw a party last night, totally didn’t miss you at all.” It might be undercutting her words a bit that they’re muffled into his shoulder where her face is pressed, but she thinks she still sounds believable.

Joel keeps an arm around her to steady her as they walk awkwardly up to the porch. “Yeah, I can tell."

“Shut up, old man.”

He guides her up the steps and through the front door, depositing her on the couch. Ellie makes a noise of protest when he pulls away, but he tells her he’s just gonna put his bag away and change and he’ll be right back. Too late she remembers that she didn’t make his bed, the guitar still up there too.

Sure enough, when he comes back down the stairs Joel has a knowing look on his face, edges of a smile disappearing into his facial hair, but Ellie can’t bring herself to feel embarrassed in the slightest.

“Thought you were gonna sleep at Maria’s,” he says gently when he joins her on the couch, coffee mug in hand.

Ellie shrugs. “Too anxious.”

Joel takes a sip and sets the mug down to really look at her. Concern etches itself between his brows, and Ellie figures she must look pretty rough when he tugs her over so her legs are draped across his lap.

“You didn’t really sleep, did you?” Joel asks, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

Ellie shrugs again. “A bit. Had a bad dream though, and I didn’t bother trying to sleep again after that.”

“Wanna talk about it?” When she shakes her head, really not wanting to discuss how it felt to see him dead in front of her, he just holds her a little tighter for a moment. “Okay.” There’s a pause and then he adds, “I didn’t really sleep either.”

“Well yeah,” Ellie rolls her eyes, “you were on patrol, you’re not supposed to sleep.”

“We take shifts, smartass,” Joel replies, tugging on a strand of her hair. “But when it was my turn off watch I just laid there and stared at the roof of the station.” Ellie waits quietly. “Kept worrying about you having a nightmare or somethin’, wakin’ up scared and how I wouldn’t be there. Although I felt better thinkin’ you were at Maria’s,” he adds with a little shake to her shoulders. “You sure you wouldn’t have felt better sleeping there?”

Ellie shakes her head. “I was too anxious, knew it would make it more likely that I’d have a nightmare. Thought if I was home at least it would help, and I didn’t want to risk waking the baby up.” She can tell Joel wants to argue it a little, knowing he puts her wellbeing above everything else including the ability of others to sleep a full night, and she cuts him off. “Tell me about the overnight patrol.”

Joel doesn’t look pleased about the change of topic, but he gives in anyways, hand playing with the end of her ponytail, and she lets his voice - probably her favorite sound in the world - lull her into a dreamless sleep.

Winter

Blood. So much blood. Caked on his hands, in the lines of his knuckles, under his nails, streaked up his arms. All on the ground around him, coming from the bodies laying in the dirt in front of him.

“No, no, no, no, no.” He scrambles over on hands and knees, pressing fruitlessly on the wound in Sarah’s side, his other hand reaching out to where Ellie lays. Sarah whimpers, one hand around his wrist like a vice.

“Dad.”

“I know it hurts, baby girl, I know, it’s gonna be okay.”

“Liar,” Ellie says on his other side, coughing up more blood, her switchblade protruding from her stomach. “Fucking liar.”

“Baby I’m sorry,” he cries, tears streaking down his cheeks. He still can’t quite reach her but he doesn’t want to let up on the pressure from where Sarah is bleeding.

“You’re always sorry,” Ellie says viciously, brown eyes full of hatred. “Always sorry, never able to save us. Just going to let your daughters suffer and die.”

“No!” He rips his arm away from Sarah, and she screams, but he has to reach Ellie too even though she’s moving further and further away and now Sarah is sinking into the grass. “No, come back,” he turns back and pulls Sarah from the dirt, cradling her against him and then turning to find Ellie standing in front of him, knife in hand and blood pouring from her stomach.

“You let Sarah die,” she says. “You abandoned me and let me get abducted and almost raped. You’re never there when we need you.”

“You weren’t –” He’s crying harder now, Sarah unmoving in his arms.

“Not this time,” Ellie says, lifting her hand and plunging the knife back into her stomach. “But you probably won’t be there next time either.” Her hand keeps moving, the knife going in and out and in and out again.

“Ellie, stop, please, baby, stop –”

–-

“Joel!”

His eyes snap open and he sits up, nearly headbutting Ellie from where she’d been leaning over him, her eyes wide. “Are you okay?”

Joel can’t seem to catch his breath, and he cups his hands on either side of Ellie’s face. “You’re okay,” he says. There’s no blood on her, no knife in her hands, no hatred glaring out at him from her face. “You’re okay,” he repeats.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Ellie says, hands on his shoulders shaking him lightly. “You’re not okay though, you’re not breathing right.”

She’s right, Joel knows, since he’s light-headed, but he can’t seem to make the hyperventilating stop, can’t shake the images of Sarah and Ellie covered in their own blood. He’s had nightmares about one or both of them before, more times than he could possibly count, but that was…that was a new level of terror.

“Joel. Joel.”

Ellie’s face swims before him, worried and afraid. “Should I go get Tommy?” She moves to get off the bed and he reaches forward to grab her wrist. She flinches and he immediately lets go. He shouldn’t have grabbed her suddenly, he didn’t mean to scare her, but he’s afraid if she leaves his sight right now he’ll fall apart even worse.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he chokes out, forcing himself to take a deep breath. “Just…just please stay here.”

“Okay,” Ellie replies, clambering over his legs until she’s between him and the wall, wrapping her arms around his stomach and squeezing slightly. It helps, the pressure and the contact help, and Joel takes another deep breath, dropping a kiss to the crown of her head for no other reason than to reassure himself that she’s here and whole and unharmed.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Ellie asks after a few minutes, when Joel’s grip has lessened and his breathing is normal again. “You were…you said my name.”

The image of her plunging her knife repeatedly into her own stomach flashes before him again, and Joel squeezes his eyes shut. “You were hurt. You and Sarah both were hurt, and I couldn’t do anything to help you.” It’s a sanitized version for sure, but he’s not about to detail it out for her, not when it still feels so real to him.

“Oh.” Her voice is small, her body pressed more firmly into his side as though she can make him feel that she’s okay.

She can’t reassure him about Sarah though.

“I’m sorry if I woke you,” he says, his voice a bit rough.

“You didn’t,” Ellie replies, turning her face into his shoulder. “I…well, I had a nightmare too, actually. Was gonna try to tough it out and then I heard you moving around so I thought maybe you were already awake, and then I came in here and tried to wake you up.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Joel asks, an echo of her words, a question he poses every time he comforts her after a bad dream.

Ellie hesitates, and he knows that she wants to say no - which is fine with him, he knows how hard it is to talk about these things - but something about having woken him from his own nightmare seems to have unlocked something for her.

“It was…I was in the resort,” she says slowly, and almost automatically Joel starts running a hand up and down her spine. “And it was on fire and there were no doors or windows. And Da- he was there, I couldn’t see him but I could feel him watching me. It was pretty much just that, but it was just…you can’t fight what you can’t see.” Ellie peers up at him. “It wasn’t really one of the worst ones I’ve had, which is why I thought I could get myself back to sleep.”

“Don’t ever feel like you have to ‘tough it out’ after a nightmare,” Joel tells her firmly. “You get scared, you need me, come get me. Okay?”

Ellie sighs, her gaze shifting down to the bedspread. “I know, but…sometimes you look so tired and I feel like it’s because of me always waking you up.”

“Hey,” Joel says, nudging her till she looks at him again, “you’re my kid. You need to wake me up, you wake me up. I would rather be tired and you feel safe, than sleep soundly while you’re suffering. Plus,” he adds a bit wryly, “as you can see I’m not always sleepin’ the best myself anyways, so the tiredness is not just because of you.”

“How long have you been having nightmares?” she asks.

Since 2003 is the immediate answer, but honestly it probably really started the moment he found out he was gonna have a kid. Used to dream he’d left Sarah in the car, that she got taken from him at the supermarket, that her mother decided she did want to be in their lives after all and that she took Sarah away from him. The nightmares about Ellie started somewhere after Kansas City - he’d wake up in a cold sweat wherever they were camping, images of Sam clawing her face off, of Henry aiming at his brother, missing, and shooting her by accident. He’d look over to wherever she was curled up in her sleeping bag and the tension would leave his body.

Probably should have figured out back then what Ellie was to him, but he’d let himself deny it until that morning she’d left with Tommy.

“Joel?” Ellie prompts, and he realizes he’s been thinking for awhile instead of answering her. Outside his window the sky is fading from black to an inky blue.

“Used to have them now and again since Sarah was a baby,” he says finally, “and then after…well they were there all the time. Didn’t sleep a full night for I don’t know how many years. It’s been better since we got here.”

Ellie’s brow furrows. “Did you have them when we were traveling?” Joel nods slowly, and something in her loosens a bit. “So…I’m not like, gonna go fuckin’ crazy because of them, right? Because that’s what it feels like sometimes, like they’re gonna make me lose my mind. But if you’ve been having them this whole time, then it means I’m gonna be okay. Because you’re okay.”

He’s the furthest thing from okay most days, Joel thinks, but he can recognize that Ellie needs the reassurance, and he wonders if maybe he should’ve been more up front about his own nightmares sooner so that she didn’t think she was abnormal.

“Baby, I’d be more worried if you weren’t having nightmares,” Joel settles on saying, “after everything you’ve been through. It’s how your brain deals with everything. And they suck, but they eventually get better, happen less often.”

“They’re happening almost every night lately,” Ellie admits, and Joel shifts them both so they’re reclining a bit more. He notices too, how he hadn’t at first in his post-sleep haze, that she’s wearing yet another one of his flannels. Little thief, he thinks affectionately, not about to be mad when he knows she does it out of affection and because having something of his makes her feel safe.

The sky has lightened just enough outside so that Joel can see the flurries of snow drifting down. “I’m not surprised.” He’d hoped that after nearly a year settled in Jackson, the coming winter would have been easier on her but he’d still woken up the morning of the first snowfall to find Ellie curled up next to him. She hadn’t been sleeping, but instead staring out the window with a frozen look on her face that took him straight back to when she and Tommy had returned to Jackson. Joel hadn’t been able to convince her to leave the house for nearly a week, barely gotten her to leave his room unless he did. She’d followed him around silently whenever he went anywhere that wasn’t the bathroom, holding on to his hand or his shirt. She hadn’t spoken until she woke up screaming from a nightmare, begging Joel to make it all go away.

God he wished he could.

“What do you do after a really bad nightmare?”

Joel turns his gaze away from the window, Ellie looking at him inquisitively. “Well,” he thinks for a moment. “After the outbreak I would just…drink myself back to sleep. Don’t do that,” he adds unnecessarily, because Ellie still can’t stand the smell of whiskey, let alone the taste of it. “And nowadays I do the same thing I used to when I’d have one Before.”

“What’s that?”

He smiles down at her, his first since waking up. “I go down the hall and watch my kid sleep, remind myself that she’s home and safe.”

“You watch me sleep?” Ellie’s got a funny look on her face, like she wants to smile but is trying hard not to, her forehead wrinkling a bit. “Fucking weirdo.”

“It’s a normal parent thing,” he counters.

“Mmhmm sure.”

“It is,” Joel insists, and Ellie rolls her eyes but she’s definitely smiling now. “And you can make fun of me all you want, but I ain’t gonna quit doing it unless you really have a problem with it.”

“I don’t,” she says quickly. “I – it’s nice, knowing that there’s something I can do to help you, since you’re always helping me. Even if I didn’t know I was doing it.”

It’s not the first time she’s said something like that, something that hints at her feeling like she doesn’t do enough in return for all he’s done for her. And Joel doesn’t know how to tell her that that’s not how it works - they don’t have to do things in equal measure, they shouldn’t do things in equal measure. He’s the parent, she’s the kid. He’s supposed to take care of her more than she takes care of him.

But Ellie won’t accept that, Joel knows perfectly well. She’s just like him in that regard, needing to feel useful in a situation, to use actions and not words to fix something if she can. Probably part of what bonded them, really.

So instead Joel just replies, “You have no idea how much you do to help me, baby girl,” and tucks her closer against him as the sun rises.

Spring

Ellie can’t believe it when Joel and Tommy say they’re going to take her hunting. She’s been pestering them to let her join patrols and hunts pretty much the entire time they’ve been in Jackson but it’s always been you’re not old enough or you need to be in school (which, fuck that) or don’t worry, we’ll go eventually.

So when Joel wakes her up at what feels like the asscrack of dawn one morning, tells her to dress for a hunt and be downstairs in ten minutes or she’s getting left behind, she’s out of bed and ready to go faster than she’s ever been. Tommy’s laughing at the way she almost falls down the stairs and goes sliding across the floor in socks to put her boots on.

“Joel tell you we would leave without you if you didn’t get down here quick enough?” he asks knowingly, and she nods, tripping a bit over her own feet. “Well since you’re down here and ready to go before he is, how about you and I start walking towards the stables without him then?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” and she’s out the front door before Tommy can even pick up his pack and rifle.

“I really get to come hunting with you guys?” Ellie asks excitedly as she and Tommy start down the road. There’s a disgruntled shout of “Assholes!” behind them and they both turn and walk backwards to watch Joel flip them off and start their way.

“You really do,” Tommy replies, flipping his brother off in turn. “Joel’s been thinking about it for a bit, and he decided that since you’re fifteen and gonna start patrol training in the fall, we might as well start getting you familiar with shit now.”

Joel catches up to them finally, ducking to put his shoulder into Ellie’s gut and hoist her up in what she thinks is called a fireman’s carry.

“Hey what the fuck, man?” Ellie asks around a laugh, hands fisting in the back of his shirt to help her keep her balance. “You’re gonna hurt yourself, your old bones can’t be doing this shit.”

“You weigh like five pounds,” he replies with a pinch to her calf. Tommy slows down so he’s walking behind her, tweaking her nose. “And this is what you get for tryin’ to ditch me after I woke you up so you could join us. Shoulda just let you sleep and told you about it when I got back.”

“Rude.” Ellie twists awkwardly to flick him in the back of the head. That earns her another calf pinch, and then Joel is bending to gently set her down. If she was nicer, she would pretend she doesn’t see the way he stretches a little after, rubbing his back. But she’s not nicer, so she just arches an eyebrow at him and says, “Old. Man.” She has to dodge the incoming cuff to the top of her head, and since they’re practically at the stables, she darts inside, ducking behind a rather confused Yvonne.

“Mornin’,” Joel says. “Please ignore my manner-less child, she’s just very excited to go hunting.” Ellie sticks her tongue out at him.

“No worries,” Yvonne replies easily, shaking his and Tommy’s hands. “I’ve got the horses saddled and ready for you. Truman threw a shoe last night,” she adds apologetically, “so I can only spare two for you this morning instead of three, but you’ve got Kennedy and Jefferson. Yes,” she holds up a hand to forestall Ellie, who has opened her mouth, “we all know your opinions on our naming selections.”

Ellie closes her mouth sheepishly, following Joel over to Kennedy and mounting up behind him. He passes her the rifle so she can sling it over her back, and they follow Tommy out.

–-

They ride about half an hour west of Jackson, mostly in companionable silence but periodically pointing things out here and there to each other. But it’s nice, Ellie thinks contentedly, her arms wrapped around Joel, Tommy riding along their right side. A nice Miller family hunting trip.

At least, until it all goes horrendously, nightmarishly wrong.

They stop along a ridge, dismounting and tying their horses up. Ellie hands the rifle back to Joel when he gestures for it, and follows him and Tommy through the trees a little ways until the two of them - using metrics known only to them - decide this is the place to stop and wait, see what wildlife ambles through.

They’ve barely gotten situated, haven’t been off the horses for more than ten minutes maybe, when there’s the sound of a branch cracking nearby, and Ellie reads the immediate alarm on Joel and Tommy’s faces that tells her it’s probably not a wild critter coming their way.

Joel waves her behind them and, much as she’d like to argue it, she obliges, pulling out her switchblade and flicking it open. Joel and Tommy raise their rifles in the direction of the noise, standing so closely together Ellie can’t see between them. Whether it’s to keep her from seeing or keep her from being seen, she doesn’t know, and she doesn’t even get to appreciate the protectiveness because it just feels like coddling. She’s proved herself more than capable, she thinks.

“Hey there, don’t want no trouble,” comes a strange voice, his drawl slow and unconcerned and much thicker than what she’s used to hearing from Joel and Tommy. “Just passin’ through. Saw the horses and wondered if I could bother y’all for a spot of food.”

A quick glance between Joel and Tommy, exchanged with barely a turn of their heads, and then Tommy says, “Just keep on goin’. We don’t have any food with us.”

“Thought you might say that,” and the voice is significantly less pleasant now. “But no matter, we can find something else to eat.” Dread snakes up Ellie’s spine at the we, and she sees Tommy and Joel tense. “We do need something to entertain us though, so I think we’ll just take the girl off your hands instead.”

There’s more branches cracking, this time behind them, and then Ellie can’t help but shriek “Joel!” as a hand latches on to her ponytail and pulls, yanking her backwards with a sharp pain in her scalp. Someone is dragging her, her head is on fire, her feet can’t get a purchase, it’s all she can do to keep a grip on her knife –

There’s a gunshot, and then something warm spatters across Ellie’s face as the hand holding her hair slackens and her upper body hits the ground with a thump, her head bouncing off the ground. The headache is instantaneous, spots dancing before her eyes.

“Fuck,” she groans, barely aware of the sound of another gunshot nearby and what sounds like a fist connecting with flesh.

“Ellie, RUN!” Joel shouts and her eyes snap open. The man who had been pulling her is dead nearby, half his face missing, another body on the ground not far away, but there’s three more guys now, too close for either Miller to use their rifle. Ellie curses leaving her pistol at home, and she sees one guy tackle Joel, hands around his throat.

Run, Joel had told her, and she scrambles to her feet. Fat fucking chance.

Ellie launches herself at the man on top of Joel, knife out and sinking in between his ribs before she even has time to register her actions. The stranger is so stunned he relaxes his hands from around Joel’s throat, and he’s able to shove him off, clocking him in the face. Ellie yanks her knife out and pulls Joel up.

“I told you to run,” he growls before turning back to help Tommy with the last two men.

Ellie starts to follow. “You know goddamn well –”

Whatever else she was going to say is cut off by another gunshot, by Joel’s weight landing on her as he turns and practically tackles her, her head hitting the ground for the second time in five minutes. There’s a snapping sound from nearby - not unlike the bones in someone’s neck being broken - followed by the crack that usually means someone has taken the butt of a rifle to the head.

Ellie wishes she wasn’t so goddamn familiar with those noises.

She can’t hold onto that thought, because Joel is still laying partially on top of her, and he’s heavy, and she can feel her brain going fuzzy, panic seeping into her insides and up her throat with bile.

There is no fear in love.

“Joel,” Ellie gasps, her breath shallow. “Joel you’ve gotta get off me, I can’t - you’ve gotta get off me, get off me!” He doesn’t move and she has to fight the urge to shove him, to claw at him until he does.

The fighting’s the part I like the most.

“Joel, please.”

It seems like it takes him a lot of effort but Joel heaves himself off, rolling to his back next to her, and Ellie sucks in a deep breath.

“Fuck.”

Tommy sounds panicked, and Ellie pushes herself up to a seated position, her head pounding from two rough impacts on the ground. It’s not until she looks down and sees the blood all over the side of her shirt that she understands.

“Ellie! Ellie, are you okay?” Tommy’s crouching in front of her, face pale, looking like he wants to physically check her but unsure if it’s okay to touch her. It’s very much not, and she appreciates his hesitance. She doesn’t feel any pain, though, so what –

“Not…not her blood,” Joel wheezes from next to them, and they both turn.

“No!” Ellie scrambles over on her hands and knees, ripping off her overshirt and pressing it to Joel’s side, where blood is gushing from under his hand. “No no no no no no…”

“Fuck,” Tommy says again, standing and bolting back to where they’d left the horses and their supplies.

“You okay?” Joel asks unsteadily, groaning when Ellie leans more of her weight onto his side.

“I’m fine, you’re the one with a goddamn bullet in you!”

Tommy’s back, bandages in hand, and he nudges Ellie aside to lift up Joel’s shirt and assess the damage. “Gotta move you to your side,” he says apologetically, and then he’s pushing, repeating I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry when Joel lets out a hoarse cry of pain. “Looks like the bullet went clean through actually, so I’m gonna have to pack it so we can get you back.”

“Do it,” Joel grunts, clenching his teeth, face screwed up with the pain.

Ellie’s never felt so useless as she sits there, holding Joel’s hands in her own and watching him grimace as Tommy works efficiently. Joel’s gaze is a little unfocused but he’s looking at her, eyes tracing over her face.

“Were gonna shoot you,” he mutters, letting out another groan as Tommy starts taping bandages over the wound in his back.

Horror dawns on Ellie, her stomach in her throat, and her grip on his hand tightens. “Joel, do not - do not - tell me you jumped in front of a bullet for me.”

“‘Course I did,” Joel grunts. Tommy looks up at her, eyes wide and terrified, and Ellie’s stomach sinks. Nothing that makes either of the Millers look scared ever bodes well.

“That was a dumb fuckin’ thing to do, you stupid old man!” Ellie’s yelling now. “Why in the fuck would you do that?”

“Not gonna lose another kid.” Tommy makes a pained noise behind him at the words and Ellie spares a split second to remember that he’d been there when Sarah had died too. Joel’s eyes start fluttering shut, and Ellie reaches forward, shaking his shoulder.

“No, open your eyes, asshole, I am still yelling at you!”

“We gotta get him up and to the horses, Ellie,” Tommy interrupts gently, trying to push Joel into a seated position. “I need you to help me with him.”

“Get Ellie back home,” Joel groans, his face ashen. “Make sure she’s safe, Tommy.”

“Shut the fuck up, Joel,” Tommy says in response, his tone almost angry, propping Joel up. “Shut the fuck up right now.”

“Get Ellie home,” he repeats, and Ellie feels her chest cracking in two, splintering right in between her life before Joel and her life with Joel. If there’s an After…she can’t comprehend it beyond the way the thought makes her feel hollowed out inside.

“Listen to me, Joel Miller, right fucking now.” Ellie crouches in front of him, a hand on either side of his face. Fuck, her vision is blurry and she doesn’t know if it’s from the probable concussion or the tears she can feel running down her cheeks. “Open your eyes. Open them.” Joel obliges though it seems to cost him, and Ellie takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m your kid, right? That’s what you said, I’m your kid.” Joel nods, head lolling back against Tommy a bit. “That means you can’t die. You’re not allowed to die, Joel, because you’ll make me an orphan again and I can’t do that. I will not do that, do you fucking hear me?” She’s fully sobbing now, and she can’t even be embarrassed about it happening in front of Tommy, because she’s just so goddamned scared. When she’s afraid, Joel makes it better, makes her feel safe, but what if…

She can’t do this. Not without Joel.

“Help me get him up,” Tommy repeats, holding Joel up with arms under his armpits, and Ellie pretends she doesn’t see the way his face is also streaked with tears. “Come on, darlin’, I know you wanna check out right now, but he isn’t gonna make it if we don’t get him back immediately and he can’t do it without you.”

Frantically Ellie swipes at her face. Tommy’s right, she knows he is, but everything in her body feels paralyzed by fear. Even in Silver Lake, even when Sam was scratching at her face, even when she was waiting to turn into a monster, she’s never been so goddamn afraid in her life.

But Joel needs her. He can’t do it without you.

Ellie readjusts herself, blinking fresh tears away, helping Joel stagger uneasily to his feet, her and Tommy each supporting his weight from one side. She keeps a hand pressed to the front of his wound as if she can will the blood to stay inside.

“Come on, you stubborn old man,” she says through gritted teeth. “Stay with us, please.”

–-

It takes too long and too much effort to get Joel on Kennedy, and then the twenty minute ride back - going as fast as they dare - feels like an eternity. They’re nearly to the gates, Tommy waving the signal flag for injured party frantically, when Joel slumps forward and falls off the horse to the side, landing awkwardly on the ground and nearly being trampled by Kennedy’s hooves.

“Joel!” Ellie yanks on the reins and practically launches herself off the horse, not even caring if it spooks and runs away. “Joel get up, you’ve gotta get up. Joel get up, please.” She’s got a hand on either side of his head, shaking him as if she can force him to open his eyes. “Wake up, you can’t do this to me, I’ll never fucking forgive you if you leave me.”

Someone shoves her out of the way, sets of hands getting to work on Joel right there in the dirt, and then Tommy is holding her, keeping her from getting in the way and then there’s a stretcher and they’re carrying him off and her legs won’t move why won’t they fucking work why can’t she follow –

“–lie, darlin’, can you hear me?” Tommy’s in front of her, she doesn’t know how long he’s been in front of her trying to get her attention, but it snaps her out of it and she takes off like a shot, leaving him behind. She has to get to the clinic, she has to watch them take care of Joel, he has to know she’s there with him, she –

She’s bursting through the doors, startling a couple of nurses and it occurs to her she probably looks like a horror show, covered as she is in Joel’s blood, God how did he lose so much blood, how does one person have so much blood, how –

“Where’s Joel?” she croaks, and one nurse points down the hall and she’s running again. She’s almost to the doors when an arm snags hers and spins her around and Tommy’s there again.

“You can’t go in there Ellie,” and he sounds hoarse, like it’s paining him to not also go in there. “They have to work on him, we have to stay out of the way, we have to stay out here.”

“No,” Ellie shakes her head, turning to go back, but Tommy’s still holding her arm, “no, Tommy, I have to go in there, he needs me in there with him.”

“I know, I know you wanna go in there, but we need to –”

The door swings open behind Ellie and she whirls around to face the doctor, the nice older man she’d once screamed at, what feels like a lifetime ago. She can’t see Joel behind him, can only see the frantic movements of other people, and suddenly her throat is closed, she can’t get the words out to ask the doctor why he’s out here when Joel is in there and needs help –

“Joel needs a blood transfusion,” the doctor is saying, and suddenly Tommy is rolling up his sleeves and pulling Ellie down the hall to the nurses desks with him.

“No, I need to go –”

“Ellie, please,” Tommy sounds wrecked and it shocks her out of her panic just the smallest amount. “I need you to come with me, okay? I know you want to be with Joel, but he wanted me to stay with you, and you need to let me do that.”

She feels split in two, not wanting to leave Tommy alone when he’s so clearly scared for his brother, but desperately needing to see Joel for herself, needing to watch his chest move so she knows he’s still breathing. She meant what she said to him.

She can’t be an orphan again.

And she doesn’t know if she’d ever forgive him for leaving her, especially not since he did it by saving her. She can’t live with that.

And god, Ellie thinks as she watches a nurse insert a needle into Tommy’s arm and the blood starts flowing, hasn’t Joel saved her enough by now? Hasn’t he killed enough people for her, held her after enough nightmares, chased away enough of her fears? Did he really have to go jumping in front of a fucking bullet for her too?

“If that bullet had hit me –” Ellie can’t bring herself to finish the sentence, but Tommy just looks at her sadly.

“It probably would’ve gotten you in the chest, and you wouldn’t have made it out of the woods.” Tommy looks down at his unoccupied hand. “And then neither would Joel.” His eyes are back on her, and there’s no blame in them; she feels like there should be. “Him taking that bullet for you was the only way you both stay alive.”

“But what if –” she can’t finish that sentence either, like if she says it aloud it’ll be true, Joel won’t survive.

“He’s going to be fine,” Tommy says forcefully. “Your dad’s a stubborn, tough old shit, and he’s going to be fine.”

Your dad.

The words are like a punch to the gut, Tommy saying out loud what Ellie has felt since somewhere around Kansas City and even sometimes thought, but never actually said to Joel in case it was stepping over some invisible line. He calls her his kid, sure, had even referred to her as his daughter once when she’d sliced her arm open, but does that give her the right to call him dad in return? Would it seem like she was trying to take Sarah’s place - his real daughter’s place - if she said it? And if she said it, and he didn’t like it or didn’t want it…Ellie’s not sure she could handle that.

Tommy’s eyes have gone wide, like he’s just realized what he said. “Ellie –”

The nurse comes over and takes the needle from Tommy’s arm, wrapping it quickly and walking away with the blood, and Ellie doesn’t want to let Tommy finish what he was saying in case he tries to walk it back.

“Are you giving blood because Joel’s your brother?”

Tommy swallows, looking down at the bandage on his arm. “They teach you about blood typing at FEDRA school?” Ellie shakes her head. “Well there’s a few different types of blood, I don’t remember how many. And when someone needs blood you have to find the right type to give them, depending on what type they are.”

Ellie frowns. “What happens if you give them the wrong type?”

“Not sure, honestly,” Tommy admits. “I’m guessing it sends your body into shock, messes with your organs or something, but couldn’t really tell you. But anyways, there’s some types that are universal donors - can give to anyone - and universal recipients - can receive any type. I’m a universal donor, so when they said Joel needed blood…” he gestures to his arm.

Ellie feels even more useless, sitting there covered in Joel’s blood and unable to give him any of her own. She has no idea what her blood type would be, how you would go about determining that, but it’s just another reminder that she can’t save Joel the way he’s saved her over and over again.

Maria comes into the clinic then, a small bag over her shoulder that she says is clean clothes for Ellie and Tommy to change into. She lets Tommy go first, unwilling to look away from the door to Joel’s room for even a second.

But Tommy comes back and then he and Maria are ushering her into the bathroom, both of them promising not to move, not to even think about going into Joel’s room without her.

She does look like a horror show, Ellie thinks dully, when she sees herself in the mirror. Joel’s blood is smeared across her shirt and arms, some of it on her face from where she’d been wiping away tears. She’s a mess.

Everything’s a mess.

There’s a big hiccuping sob fighting its way out of her chest as she washes her hands, piles the bloodstained clothes in the corner, but she refuses to let it out. If she lets it out it’ll never stop, and she’ll just be a useless puddle here in the bathroom when Joel is down the hall and he needs her.

Ellie balls the clothes back up, keeping the bloody parts in the middle so she doesn’t have to look at it anymore, and makes her way back down the hall. She stops when she hears her name, peering around the corner to see Maria crouched in front of Tommy, holding his hands as he sits there looking lost.

“...Ellie?”

“She’s a mess,” Tommy says hoarsely, and any other time the description might piss her off, but she is a mess right now, there’s no other word for it. “You should’ve heard her, Maria, out there in the woods, yelling at Joel about how he wasn’t allowed to d-die because she w-would be an or-orphan again.” He tugs a hand away from his wife and wipes it down his face. “If he doesn’t make it –” Ellie’s chest seizes “– it’ll break her. She…she’s been through so much and even through the worst of it she only ever wanted Joel there with her, and if she doesn’t have him…” Tommy trails off, hunched over, and Maria reaches forward to rub his back.

“She’s got us,” Maria murmurs soothingly, but Tommy shakes his head.

“It’s not the same,” he says, echoing Ellie’s own thoughts. “We’d give her a home and a family, of course, she is family, but she…without Joel…” He makes a noise that any other time Ellie would’ve considered a laugh. “God, what does it say about how glued together they are that I don’t even know how to think of them separately anymore?”

“I know, babe, I know.”

Ellie can’t hear anymore, any of this talk about what will become of her if Joel doesn’t make it. Joel’s going to make it, he’s going to be fine, because if he isn’t…

Tommy’s right. It’ll break her, destroy some piece of her she hadn’t even known she had until somewhere in the middle of the country, sometime around when she looked at Joel and didn’t think asshole with venom.

Sometime around when she looked at Joel and her first thought was safety and then it became family.

She won’t ever get that piece back if Joel dies.

–-

They sit in the waiting room for what feels like days, her and Tommy, both of them staring silently at the door between them and Joel as if they could will it to open. Maria’s gone home to pick up TJ from the neighbor, said she’d be back later on to check on them.

Neither of them had uttered a word since she’d left.

All Ellie can do is sit and stare at the door, sit and think you’re not allowed to die, you’re not allowed to leave me as if Joel will hear her if she thinks it hard enough.

It’s really only been about two hours, judging by Tommy’s watch, when the doctor comes out and walks over to them. He doesn’t look relieved, but he also doesn’t look like he’s about to give Ellie the worst news of her short life, and a bit of the weight lifts off her chest. She sees Tommy’s hand rotate ever so slightly, as if he’s offering it for her to hold, and she takes it. It’s not unlike Joel’s hand, large and calloused and safe, but it’s just different enough to make her wish desperately for the real thing.

“We got him stitched up,” the doctor is saying, looking between the two of them. “The bullet mostly went through soft tissue, missed all the major organs by centimeters. The blood transfusion helped. He’s probably gonna be unconscious for the rest of the day, likely into tomorrow as well. But if he makes it through the night with no complications, he should be just fine.”

“Can we go see him?” Ellie asks, standing up now that she feels like her legs won’t give out anymore. Tommy follows, squeezing her hand gently.

“Right this way,” the doctor replies gently, turning and gesturing for them to follow.

It knocks the air out of her, seeing Joel laying still on a bed, hooked up to wires and tubes and machines. Ever since she’s known him he’s seemed invincible and unbeatable, and now he looks…frail, almost.

Ellie sits on one side of the bed, Tommy on the other, and almost in unison they each take one of his hands.

“He’s gonna be okay,” Tommy says quietly with a glance at her. “He’s gonna be okay.”

She’s not sure if he’s trying to reassure her or himself or even Joel, but right now Ellie thinks she might believe him.

–-

Joel doesn’t wake up until around noon the next day, and despite the best efforts of Maria and the clinic staff, neither she or Tommy budge from his bedside. Tommy sleeps on a cot dragged in, letting Ellie have the slightly more comfortable recliner, and he even pulls it closer so that Ellie can keep hold of Joel’s hand while she dozes.

There’s more color in his cheeks, Ellie thinks while Tommy steps out to speak with the doctor for a moment. That has to be a good sign.

Her thumb brushes over his knuckles, back and forth, the touch for her just as much as to let Joel know she’s still here. She’ll be here as long as it takes, Ellie thinks, until he wakes up. There’s not a person on this earth who could –

Joel shifts, his hand gripping hers for the first time in almost twenty-four hours, and a pained groan escapes his lips.

“Joel?”

His head turns towards her voice, and out of the corner of her eye she can see Tommy step back into the room.

“Ellie?” His voice is hoarse, and he still hasn’t fully opened his eyes, but his grasp on her hand has tightened.

“Yeah, it’s me, I’m right here.” She leans forward a bit, her other hand coming to wrap around his wrist. “I’m right here.”

One of his eyes cracks open briefly and then closes again as if it was too much effort. “Y’okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she whispers, her throat tight. This stupid, stubborn old man, asking her if she’s okay when he just spent a day unconscious because he jumped in front of a bullet for her. “You saved my life.”

“Course I did.” Joel tries to smile but it’s pained.

“Don’t do it again,” Ellie orders, the strength of it undercut by the way she’s speaking around a lump in her throat.

“C’mon Ellie,” Tommy says as he walks up to Joel’s other side, his tone clearly trying - and failing - to sound light, “you know he would do it over and over again.”

“Absolutely,” Joel mutters, turning his head back in her direction. This time he manages to get both eyes open, smiling gently at her. “Hey, baby girl.”

Goddamnit, of all the things to break her, of course it’s his rough drawl saying baby girl. She can’t help it - the tears start running down her cheeks for what feels like the hundredth time recently, and she leans forward to press her forehead to the back of his hand. For all that Ellie had told herself that Joel was gonna be just fine, there was a pit in her stomach, a voice in her head telling her she would never hear that baby girl again.

It feels stupid, honestly, all the time she’d spent worrying about what to say to him, what to call him, whether or not to just tell him how much he matters to her instead of relying on their current system of touch and gestures. It all feels so small and ridiculous when she was faced with the very real possibility of never getting the chance to tell him anything ever again, and it all feels like nearly wasted time.

Fuck it, Ellie thinks, sitting back up and squeezing Joel’s hand.

“I love you…Dad.”

She hears Tommy inhale but she can’t not look at Joel for this, can’t not absorb the way his entire face softens and his eyes fill with tears, the way he squeezes her hand so hard she thinks for a second he could break it and she wouldn’t even care if he did so long as he keeps looking at her like that.

“I love you too, baby.”

–-

Joel fights it, but he has to stay in the clinic for three more days at least, and then he’s ordered to be on bedrest for at least a couple weeks after. The only way Ellie can get him to stay put is by promising him a surprise at the end of his bedrest, not unlike the way he promised her one when she cut her arm open.

Tommy comes over pretty regularly, helping Joel do the things Ellie can’t like walk to the bathroom and shower. He brings them both food, and occasionally totes TJ along with him, his happy baby giggles echoing off the walls as Joel holds him carefully, tickling the bottoms of his feet with a finger.

Ellie sleeps on a pallet on the floor of his room, waking up in the middle of the night frequently to make sure he’s still breathing. He’d tried to offer her her normal spot, curled up against his side, but Ellie had refused in case it put pressure on his still healing gunshot wound. She couldn’t sleep in her room either though, too far away in case he needed her, so stiff muscles from a pile of blankets on the floor it was.

It was the least she could do, Ellie thinks. The very least.

–-

“I can get down to the back porch by myself,” Joel says flatly, two and a half weeks after coming home. “I don’t want you hurting yourself trying to help me.”

Ellie’s hands are on her hips, eyeballing him as he leans against the wall at the top of the stairs. “And I don’t want you falling down the stairs and breaking your fucking neck because you’re a stubborn ass.”

“Ellie.”

“Joel.”

“Ellie.”

“Dad.”

That does it, like she knew it would. Ellie doesn’t call him that often, the word still foreign on her tongue, but when she does it has a way of shutting him up, making his eyes a bit misty. If she saves it for when she’s feeling sentimental or - like now - when she wants to get her way, so that it has more impact, well that’s her business.

“Fine,” Joel sighs, lifting his arm on his uninjured side. Ellie scoots under it, bracing herself against him, and they hobble awkwardly down the stairs. Could Joel have done this by himself? Most likely, yes. But Ellie could be just as stubborn as him when she chose to - and she chose to frequently - and she would rather him get annoyed at her overprotectiveness than risk another injury while he’s recovering.

(And she’s not even going to start on the raging hypocrisy of him thinking that she is overprotective.)

They make it down to the back porch in one piece, and Joel sits carefully on the bench he’d built them. The gunshot wound has pretty much healed but she can tell it still pulls and aches sometimes, based on the way he moves gingerly, readjusting himself occasionally with a grimace.

“Wait here,” Ellie says, pointing at him like she’s seen people do to their dogs when telling them to stay. “I’ll be right back.”

Joel just rolls his eyes a bit and kicks his leg in her direction, and Ellie wonders, as she heads back into the house, when he started behaving like her just as much as she behaves like him.

She reemerges with the guitar in hand, settling herself on the other side of the bench. You can do this, Ellie thinks to herself, strumming a little experimentally to get rid of the shakiness in her hands. It’s just Joel, you could fuck this up astronomically and he would still tell you that it was perfect.

That doesn’t make her want to get it right any less though.

Joel doesn’t say anything while she tunes the guitar a bit and adjusts herself, waiting quietly and patiently. When she strums the opening chords to “Stand By Me” his face goes soft, eyes crinkling a bit at the corners as he smiles.

Ellie’s voice isn’t as good as his, and she still fumbles the words and some of the chords a bit, but when she finishes the song and looks back up at him - okay so maybe she was a little chicken and looked at the guitar the whole time - Joel’s smiling bigger than she’s ever seen, pride practically radiating from his pores.

He lifts his arm and Ellie sets the guitar down carefully before scooting over and leaning gently against him with a sigh.

“Did you like your surprise?” she asks, a little embarrassed by how much she needs the words. There’s a press to the top of her head that she knows is a kiss.

“I loved it,” Joel replies quietly, his voice hoarse and his arm squeezing her shoulders a little more tightly.

“Worth all the time stuck in bed?” It’s meant to be a light question, ease the mood because Ellie is only capable of feeling her feelings for so long, but Joel’s answer is completely serious.

“You have no idea how worth it, baby girl.”