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Even through the haze of lost time, Joel knew a couple things even if he didn’t know how many days he had been out. First was that they needed to get as fucking far as possible from Silver Lake as they could. Second, all three of them were in a bad way. A few popped stitches and a little exhaustion wasn’t even on Joel’s radar, but it did impede his ability to kill every motherfucker in that town. He was only human.
Riley was shaking with every step, and it wasn’t just from exhaustion. She was half frozen on top of having fought roughly a handful of men in close combat. She squeezed his shoulder every so often to either ground him or herself. His main concern walked in between the two of them.
Ellie.
The girl moved as if she wasn't conscious. There was no thought, no awareness. His babygirl had taken a beating and then some. The blood and bruising across her face, and undoubtedly underneath her clothes, marked yet more of his failure. Joel couldn’t protect her. She chose him, and he failed her.
That didn’t matter now though.
Ellie had been knocked down. All Joel could do now was pick her up, and hope they’d get to hear a laugh again, and see her smile. Maybe she’d make fun of him.
That’d be nice.
The fog in his mind ebbed and flowed with each step. Joel could see the sun disappearing. Could feel the temperature dropping. Stopping sooner rather than later was what they needed to do. It was their only move, really, but he didn’t want to chance any more surprises.
Not that they couldn’t handle it. Ellie maybe not...or she’d be the best one out of all of them. The important part was that fighting and killing at the moment wasn’t something Joel was interested in.
Starting toward Jackson would probably be the smart, but Joel knew they were going south even in his confusion. It was a problem for later. The houses in front of them had four walls and partially intact roofs for the most part which was all they really needed for the next handful of hours.
“I-i-i-” Riley started. She gripped hard on Joel’s shoulder. Her teeth chattering was easy to hear over the wind. “I clear house.” She said between shakes. Joel wanted to argue, but it would get her out of the wind faster. “Ellie.” The girl in question didn’t move. “El.” Riley said louder, but still soft.
Riley brought them to a full stop. Ellie didn’t seem like she noticed. Riley lowered herself until she was crouched beneath Ellie. It felt deeply personal in a way that Joel didn’t feel he was supposed to see. Riley looked like she was getting cracked open as she took in the damage that had been done. Joel was transfixed as Riley slowly brought up Ellie’s hand as she held it. Joel looked away as Riley placed a soft kiss to the back of Ellie’s hand. “I be back, okay?” She stammered out over a handful of seconds.
FEDRA kids were weird. Trauma bonded or some shit.
The violence she put into shaking her head, made Joel fear for brain damage. “No, no, no.” They were the first words Ellie had said in hours.
Joel kept his eyes firmly planted on a pine tree a little ways down the road. “El. Joel got you” At that he felt something like a vice wrap around his waist. His heart broke. Ellie, even not fully conscious, was still avoiding his wound. She didn’t know that she could never hurt him. Not in any way that he wouldn’t immediately forgive her for.
Then it was just him, and a girl standing in the cold. It was a little surreal to think about. He had more now in the middle of nowhere then he had for twenty years. It had almost been taken from him. More importantly, it had almost been taken from Ellie.
After what could’ve been an hour or just a few seconds, Riley appeared in the doorway. She was in bad shape. Wet clothes, and it looked like she had been run over. “Clear.”
First order of business: getting them away from death’s door.
“Find clothes Riley. Big or small. Get out of those now.” Joel used what Sarah called his Dad voice.
“But-” Did all children sound the same when fighting decisions that were obviously for their own benefit?
“Now.” Joel knew she was going to be laid over for a few days already. No one was that cold for that long without getting sick. The more damage control he could do now the better.
Without a word, Riley sat her rifle by the couch, followed closely by her vest and backpack. She wandered back into the house.
At least Riley could help herself for the most part. Ellie moved when he moved, but telling her to do anything besides breath was going to be met with failure.
There was a nice looking couch that seemed mostly untouched by time. In the low gray light filtering through a boarded up window, Joel guided Ellie to the couch and sat down as a unit. He needed to be doing more, but based on the interaction with Riley it would probably be best to wait until she came back.
Joel knew they were lucky, that Ellie even considered him safe. He was a big man, and…well he knew only a handful of things could get Ellie to where she was now. He hoped he was wrong, but he wasn’t going anywhere no matter how badly he failed her. She chose him. It was the wrong choice, but he would try his hardest to live up to it.
It would be easier if Ellie went to sleep, but the threat of a severe concussion also meant she shouldn’t. Regardless, she just stared blankly at the wall, nearly catatonic and silent.
Joel hoped the people of Silver Lake knew the mercy that was being gifted to them by virtue of him not going back there. He would tear them limb from limb, piece by piece until they knew a fraction of the pain they caused the world by making his babygirl like this.
Riley returned, swamped in a too big red sweatshirt and gray sweatpants that had the cuffs rolled over three or four times.
“Ellie, Riley’s back.” Joel pointed to her like she could be hard to miss. “Can she hold you while I go get some stuff?”
An imperceptible nod.
Riley put her arm around Ellie, her arm replacing Joel’s, and she transferred Ellie’s head to her shoulder. Riley was still shaking but the clothes were already making a difference. Weighed down by Ellie she might make it out of the whole thing with just a cold.
With Ellie at least stable enough to walk away from, Joel went to work quickly. Finding rags was easy enough as well as a relatively clean bowl. He deadbolted the door behind him after he collected some snow. He wasn’t going to sleep while they stayed here, but the extra security would ease all their minds.
Several pieces of furniture and books were sacrificed to the fireplace and chimney once he had everything he needed. Riley perked up when the fire started.
“It’ll be impossible to see the smoke in this weather,” Joel said. It was probably the truth, but he could handle it if someone did come knocking.
They probably should have seen it coming when the fire truly started going. Ellie slowly came out of her state as the room grew brighter. Her whimpers might as well have been gunshots.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s just me and Joel. You’re safe.” Riley murmured into Ellie’s hairline. She shared a look with him from his spot over by the fire. He knew he reflected the worry right back at her.
He let the snow melt and the water get a little warm. He soaked a rag.
Now came the next big step.
“Ellie, I’m going to need to check on you. Is it alright if I do that?”
A more solid nod.
Joel pulled the wooden coffee table closer to the couch until his shins were touching the fabric. Putting Ellie directly in front of him, Joel sat down so his legs were on the outside of hers. Even though she was so outside her normal range of tells, she visibly relaxed back into Riley as Joel filled her vision.
God, he didn’t deserve her.
“Hold on baby.” Riley whispered into the dim light of the living room. Ellie provided no resistance as Riley moved her leg, so Ellie was completely in between her legs. Riley didn’t mention being uncomfortable as she was smushed back into the cushions, but Joel expected she never would. Riley adjusted and let Ellie rest her head on her shoulder. Riley pushed them forward, so she was the one propping Ellie up as Joel went to work.
A steady stream of assurances came out of both of them as Joel cleaned her face. He moved slowly and methodically. Even in this position he didn’t want to set her off. The blood and gore slowly disappeared, showing a new horror. She had severe bruising along her chin, and her nose had taken a beating. It wasn’t broken, but she’d get some black eyes from it regardless.
Silver Lake was going to be a crater once his stitches were out.
Dark thoughts weren’t going to help them. Ellie and Riley needed him.
The blood and gore were gone, and it was a low bar to say she looked better. Small steps. That’s all they could aim for.
Now the next step in the list of a hundred things they had to take care of. This was going to be difficult, but necessary.
“Babygirl, We have to check your ribs, okay? I can leave if you want Riley to check.” Immediate sounds in the negative. “Okay, I’m right here.” He looked at Riley. “Just listen to her. If she wants us off, we’re done.”
“Of course.” Riley looked so exhausted, and she still had residual tremors. The girl refused to close her eyes, and seemed ready for whatever he asked of her.
The three of them sure made quite the picture.
“You tell me to stop and I stop.” Joel said back to Ellie.
A nod.
His eyes were steady once he got to the hem of her sweater. He lifted it slowly.
He stopped.
With her shirt lifted, the top of her jeans were visible.
The button was gone.
Joel swallowed the rock in his throat, and pressed forward. “You're good, babygirl.” Her body was the worst painting Joel had ever seen. Purples, and yellow bruises already showed that her small body had taken far more abuse than it ever should have. He stopped when the shirt got to her sports bra.
Being as clinical as possible, Joel’s inspection still elicited a great deal of rage that made his hands shake. Best he could tell, she only had bruised ribs.
Small mercies.
“Take it off.” Ellie murmured. When neither of them made a move she started frantically pulling at the sweater herself. “Take it off!”
Joel turned away as Riley with shaking hands removed her brown sweater. “Joel’s gonna go get you a new one okay?”
No answer as the sweater was summarily tossed into his lap. There was no protest as he chucked the whole thing into the fire.
If he let himself cry for a few moments in the master bedroom as he searched for something remotely close enough to her size, well that was between him and the four walls.
The sweater he settled on had a cartoon Ram on it and was emblazoned with the crest of Eastern Colorado University. Maybe they could laugh about it now that they had survived.
Joel replaced the sweater with a blank gray one. It was as big as Riley’s but that’d be okay.
*
Sleeping arrangements were decided in Joel’s mind at the first sign Ellie couldn’t handle being out of sight of either of them. When Ellie was dressed, Joel moved the coffee table, and placed the couch cushions to the floor with some pilfered blankets on top. No snide comment, about his senile tendencies or being too old for a pillow fort.
God, he had failed.
Riley was too busy fighting sleep to comment either. She was aware enough to move down to the floor and bring Ellie with her. With unseeing eyes, Ellie latched onto his arm when he began to raise.
“Stay.” Ellie said.
Joel closed his eyes as the clear pleading washed over him. “Of course, babygirl.”
Riley was already passed out, sitting up her back against the couch, Ellie was pressed into her side, her head even with the older girl’s hip. Joel settled on the outside of the nest, and Joel took it as a good sign when Ellie grabbed his shirt and tried to pull him closer. He went willingly, and soon Ellie had no space left. Joel copied Riley by having his back against the couch. Ellie hunkered down and rested her head on his thigh.
It was a move that Sarah had done hundreds if not thousands of times. A simple sign that showed she felt comfortable and safe with him.
The first real sentence Ellie said after an hour of silence broke his heart.
“He tried to rape me.” Her voice was emotionless. A simple statement of fact. “I killed him. Badly. You couldn’t even tell he was a person.”
A fear that had been present for Sarah reared its ugly head. Evil existed long before cordyceps, and as the father with anxiety issues, of a daughter, Joel was all too familiar with it.
The world was fucked up forcing any of them to have this conversation, but Joel know one thing and that was how to justify survival. And Ellie would never have to justify this. Ever.
“He said I had a violent heart.”
Joel clenched his hand. “He was a lying sack of shit. Not a word out of his mouth meant anything.” Joel rubbed his chin so he had something to do with his hands. “Ellie, what you did wouldn’t even compare to what me and Riley would’ve done.” It was a fact. Joel knew in his bones Riley would’ve been right behind him for whatever he did to that living piece of human shit. “Is Riley bad?”
“No.”
“Then you aren’t either.”
Obviously Ellie was processing a lot, and needed comfort. Joel looked down at his left hand, where it rested just an inch from Ellie’s head.
It was a rusty skill, but Joel slowly and methodically began to move his fingers through her hair, free of its usual ponytail, and watched as Ellie slowly eased the tension free of her shoulders. His hands had been used for violence for so long, he thought this part of himself was gone forever.
But it wasn’t.
Joel had questioned why he got to live when Sarah didn’t…
Joel cleared his throat. He wiped away some sweat from around his eyes.
The answer had her head in his lap. The world needed someone to protect this girl. He had stumbled, and he had failed her, but never again. It was a lot for a fourteen year old, and he doubted he would ever tell her how much she meant to him, but he would show her. Every day until he died or she sent him away.
A weight landed on his shoulder. Riley had slumped over, and her head rested against arm. Whatever boundaries or lines they had were gone. They had forged something in that blizzard, and the fight through the town. He had shared it with Tommy and then with Tess. She was a kid, but Joel could trust her with his life, and with Ellie’s.
Whatever happened with the Fireflies he wanted both of them in his life, and he dared to let himself hope they felt the same.