Chapter Text
There’s a variety of preparations to work through before they can leave for Wyoming. Bill’s given them a truck which makes things simpler, but planning for a long trip with a small child was enough of a hassle when there were things like gas stations and Walmart. If they forget something now, they’ll either have to stop to pick through wreckage in the hopes of finding it or learn to live without it.
A good deal of preparation involves interrupting Ellie’s gab sessions on the radio with Tommy to get actual information, but the rest of it is making endless checklists and scavenging through the compound. They haven’t been able to convince Bill and Frank to go with them, but they’ve both helped them get supplies together. Sleeping bags, spare clothes, water filters, water jugs, food, a camping stove, maps, flint, tarps, gas canisters, they have an entire little collection of survivalist supplies.
There’s one thing that he’s planned to take care of personally, however.
He knows logically that having Ellie in a car seat for the journey is the safest option–hell, Before, it would have been required by law–but he also can’t stop thinking about recalls and horror stories and trade-in programs, all of the ways a car seat can fail and cause damage. Ellie’s more than happy to be a little shadow on the afternoon he decides to go ahead and bite the bullet about picking one, but she does give him some curious looks each time he lifts her in and out of the truck, trying to decide if she looks safe enough because that’s the only barometer he has now.
“Whatcha doing?” She asks on her fifth round of being lifted back in, this time on a booster seat. She’s not 40 pounds yet, but the booster seat seems to have less ways it could possibly fail.
“Cars are too big for you right now,” he says absently as he studies her, still careful to frame it as the car’s failing, not hers. She hates being reminded that she’s little, and she’d likely take it as a reprimand if he told her it was that she was too small to ride in a car safely, like that’s something she can help.
He eyes her in the booster seat and then buckles her in, making a mental note to find one of those belt cushion things so it won’t rub at her neck. She’s game enough for another round of whatever the fuck he’s doing with her, but she plucks at the belt, studying its texture under little fingers and then wriggles, like she’s trying to work out exactly how she should be sitting. It does make her tall enough to see, he notes when he climbs into the driver’s seat, and he smiles when she waves at him in the mirror, but her tiny neck looks so fucking fragile. He can practically hear the snap, like the wet crunch of celery, as it bre-
He’s out the door and back around the truck in an instant, unbuckling her and picking her up. She makes a surprised noise at the speed of it but doesn’t complain, little trooper that she is.
She just sighs when he reaches for another booster seat.
*
“You two playing musical chairs or something?”
He jumps at Tess’s voice behind them, and the motion bangs Ellie’s head against the car where he’d been lifting her out. He curses and presses his hand over both of hers where they’d flown up to press over the spot.
“Ow,” she says accusingly, glaring at him, looking more than a little betrayed at this reward for her compliance on hour 2 of something she finds boring.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he says, moving her hands enough to kiss the spot and then gently working his fingers through her hair, searching for a bump.
“That hurt,” she says resentfully, and she extends her arms to Tess when she walks closer, jumping ship. He hands her over and rolls his eyes as Tess makes much of the injury.
“Daddy’s trying to knock your brain out, huh?” She soothes, gently touching the spot.
Ellie nods pathetically, eyes big and pitiful.
“Should get you a helmet to go with that booster seat,” Tess says, but she looks to him while she says it, eyebrow raised in a question.
“I think she still needs a carseat,” he says, voice coming out tired. He’d thought this would be a quick job, putting Ellie in a few seats until he found one that was comfortable and secure, but he can’t help eyeing each one of the collection he’s made of them, wondering where they could possibly fail in a way he won’t notice until it’s too late. He’s imagined their kid dying in a dozen car accidents in the hours they’ve been out here, and he can’t deny it’s drained him.
Tess fusses over Ellie until their kid has had enough of it and announces she’s all fixed, and then Tess joins him by the car, Ellie on her hip. Ellie looks a bit wary at proximity to the car again, but she holds her peace on the matter. Tess idly sways in what seems to be a subconscious attempt at soothing and eyes his handiwork, raising an eyebrow at the pile of discards as well as his row of yet-to-be-trieds.
“Not much luck?” She asks, setting Ellie inside the car when she extends her hands for it. He lifts her up over the console so she can sit in the front.
“No honking the horn,” he tells her–making her pout because he correctly guessed exactly what her plan was–before he turns to Tess. “I think she’s too l-i-t-t-l-e for the booster seats.”
Ellie pulls a face at them spelling things but returns to fidgeting with knobs and dials with a huff to indicate her displeasure. He keeps half an eye on her as he unbuckles the booster. He’s told her not to touch the e-brake or the gear shift, but her curiosity sometimes gets the better of her obedience. For now, though, she seems content to spin things at random, blessedly.
“Still too s-k-i-n-n-y?” Tess asks.
“Also too s-h-o-r-”
“No spelling!” Ellie declares, giving the horn a touch in warning.
“Well now,” he says, unable to resist, “looks like someone’s g-r-u-m-”
Ellie lays on the horn.
*
After Ellie’s been mollified with promises to stop spelling around her, their eardrums are spared further horn-based tantrums, and she returns to being lifted in and out of the truck. He pulls out a couple of the candidates he’d previously disregarded from the pile and lets Tess weigh in. They try Ellie in a couple booster seats and Tess climbs into the driver’s side to take a look for herself, but she ends up shaking her head.
“Too small,” she says, not clarifying that she’s referring to Ellie, which means their kid doesn’t protest how she’s a big girl and instead just lifts her arms wearily to be taken out again. She doesn’t forgive or forget having her head banged on the car, and he barely resists the urge to roll his eyes each time she lifts her hands for cushion, no matter how careful he is putting her in. He has a new sympathy for how Tess now gets asked, “Not my face, okay mama?” each time she washes Ellie’s hair.
Towards the end of their options, they’ve managed to find two possibilities.
And then they get to a car seat that must have been designed by Satan himself.
"Okay, well I don't fuc-nkning know," Tess says, growling under her breath while she tries to force the belt through the right loop of the car seat.
"No, it's-" He tries to intercede and move the belt, and Tess tries to hip check him and then crowd him out of the way. They're both sweating at this point and he knows it's flaring their tempers, but in the moment, he shoves back, not hard, but enough to get him an elbow to the stomach.
"No, the belt can't fit in that thing. It has to go in whatever the f-Ellie, bug."
Ellie, from her place in the driver's seat watching them, perks up.
"Go see if Grandpa Frank needs help moving his new painting around, okay? You know he never hangs it straight."
"I'm helping you," Ellie says, like they've missed it.
"And you're doing a great job, baby," he says, "but if you don't go help, he'll have to ask Bill, and then it'll be cattywampus."
"Cattywampus," Ellie parrots at once, delighted by the word as ever. She hops down out of the car, and he hears the patter of her bare feet as she jogs around. She was wearing shoes at some point, he's pretty sure, but they appear to have been lost as a casualty of making her try out car safety measures for hours. He’d usually scold her about wearing shoes, but he figures she’s earned a little rule breaking time for being as good a sport as she could have been expected to be. "I'm coming back, okay?"
"Got it, go on now, bug."
They wait until they hear a distant "Grandpa Frank I'm gonna help you not be cattywampus!" followed by a door slamming shut.
There's one moment of silence after the coast is clear.
And then they have free reign on their mutual enemy.
"This goddamn piece of shit-" Tess starts as he joins with "Fucking bullshit instructions, what goddamn belt A-"
After another ten minutes of profanity and in-fighting, they have the stupid thing buckled in. He vents his irritation with some good shoves and yanks under the excuse of testing it out, and he moves back to let Tess do the same.
Panting slightly and sweaty as fuck, they high five for a job well done.
At fucking last.
*
Naturally, Satan’s car seat ends up being the best option. It’s the newest of all of the seats–still in a box when he found it in a garage–so they can be sure it wasn’t involved in an accident, and when they test Ellie out in it, it has the best restraints and supports on it. Ellie makes a face about being buckled in, but she holds her peace about it after Tess points out that there are cupholders on it and Ellie tells her all about all of the things she can fit in them while he takes a look from the driver’s side. She still looks far too little to be in a moving vehicle, but he’s reassured by the padding and supports around her. He smiles slightly when she complains about the head supports blocking her view, but they look like they’ll be able to help keep that delicate neck safe.
She’s mollified by Tess producing a pair of sunglasses from beneath a seat, and he exchanges a smile with his partner as their kid kicks back in her shades like a mini celebrity ready to be chauffeured around.
*
“Is this all a terrible idea?” He asks that night, running light fingers up and down Tess’s arm across his chest.
“I mean as long as we don’t have to move the demon seat to a new car, I think we’ll be fine,” Tess says lightly, propping herself up from where she’d been right against his back. They’re toeing the line of how long they can go without putting clothes back on before they risk frantic knocking on their locked door from a 4 year old who’s been wound up by impending change, but he lets himself luxuriate in a few more moments of warm skin on his.
“We’re safe here,” he says, ignoring the attempt at a joke. “Ellie’s safe here. We’re about to drag her across the country, and for what? Anything could happen out there.”
“Anything could happen here, too,” Tess says, backing up and pushing at his shoulder until he turns. He obligingly rolls onto his back and props himself up against the pillows as Tess straddles him. There’s nothing sexual about it in the moment, but it’s a warm sort of intimacy that still feels a little surreal, especially as she links their fingers together.
“What if this gets her killed?” He asks plainly. “Or you? Or worse than killed? You and Ellie-” He can’t finish the sentence, can’t actually give words to the way the world is dangerous for her and Ellie in a way it’ll never be for him. “She could grow up here and be safe and fed and happy.”
“In a compound with only her parents and two adopted grandpas?” Tess asks. “She drew chalk friends on the house the other day to play kickball with her. You want more years of that? I’m pretty sure that’s part of the origin story of more than one serial killer.”
It’s a fair point. The rest of them do their best, but Ellie would clearly benefit from being able to play with kids her own age.
Unfortunately, those kids happen to be about 2,000 miles away across a country torn to pieces and full of hundreds of things that could kill her either directly or by killing them first and leaving her alone to fend for herself.
“Hey,” Tess says, pulling her right hand free and using it to tilt his chin up for a kiss, something soft and sweet and gentle. “We’re in this together, alright? We became Boston’s scariest smugglers and established an entire trade network from scratch. We can get our kid across the country.”
“Should we, though?” He persists. He can’t forget that they’re doing this because it’s his brother in Wyoming. At the end of it all, they’re doing this for him more than anyone. “Maybe we should wait until she’s older at least-”
He stops when fingers press over his lips.
“This is the right move,” she tells him. “We’ve discussed this. We’ve planned this. We can do this.” She gives him a mildly exasperated look, though it remains fond. “So stop mindfucking it already.”
He snorts and nips her fingers playfully to make her drop them from his mouth.
“You’re the boss,” he says.
The way that makes a flicker of satisfaction flare to life in her eyes means putting clothes back on gets delayed for a while longer.
*
Finally, the day comes, no more delays or planning or doubts holding them back.
The morning dawns clear and bright, and he tries to convince himself that it’s a good sign. Their house looks strange, even though they haven’t packed much away. It’s an odd thought, the idea that they won’t ever return to this place. The same had been true of the apartment in Boston, but that had never been a home, not really. It was a waystation until they found a new chapter. This house, though, has been where they’ve raised their child for even a little while, where he and Tess have begun to explore the new boundaries of whatever their partnership is these days. It has Ellie’s artwork on the walls. It has the memory of him and Tess making out on the couch like teenagers after their kid went to bed. It has laughter and cuddles and movies and game nights and a million questions from Ellie and them learning to be a family inside.
And now they’re leaving it behind.
He senses Tess approaching, so he doesn’t startle when she presses close to his back, arms going around his waist. He rests a hand over one of her wrists, squeezing lightly.
“Ellie at Bill and Frank’s?” He asks. Frank had offered to let her sleep over last night as a treat, but she’d gone home with them and cuddled close, anxious about the impending change even with the preparation they’ve taken to ease her into it.
“Mhm,” Tess says, squeezing her arms a little tighter around him. “You also feeling some kinda way about leaving this place?”
A decade before a kid in a backpack turned their lives upside down makes him want to deny it, to remind her that they don’t have homes now, not really. All they need is shelter. That’s all they require. This place was a solid set of walls to keep themselves and their kid inside.
But he’s spent too many days rocking Ellie in the nursery and too many stolen moments participating in what has started to feel perilously close to lovemaking with Tess and too many evenings with his girls pressed close watching a movie and too many mornings trailing a sleepy 4 year old to do chores and too many nights falling asleep with the surreal nature of having his family close and warm and safe to call it anything other than what it’s been for them.
A home.
“I’ll miss it,” he tells her softly, more honest than he thinks he’s been in quite a while.
“Me, too,” Tess says, and for a long moment they just stand together, soaking in what’s ending for the sake of a new beginning.
*
Ellie, carried by Bill, is teary-eyed when they all meet up beside the truck, already packed and repacked and packed again and double-checked and repacked once more for good measure. Bill is usually reserved in group settings, and the most affection he’s ever seen from him has been him carrying Ellie around, but now he doesn’t miss the faint dampness of his eyes, or the hand he’s rubbing softly along Ellie’s back.
Frank hasn’t bothered to hide any crying, and he and Tess hug for a long moment when they meet up.
“Sure you won’t come with us?” Tess asks, swaying slightly in the hug, not letting go.
“This is home,” Bill says gruffly. “Not some yuppie commune in the middle of nowhere.”
“I’ll work on it,” Frank says, voice amused but still a little choked. “Pick out a good house for us, alright?”
“You got it,” Tess says, as they both ignore Bill grumbling.
“I don’t wanna go,” Ellie sniffles, throwing her arms around Bill’s neck and tucking her face down. “I don’t wanna go! I wanna stay!”
Tess’s expression looks as pained as he imagines his must.
“We gotta go, bug,” Tess says softly, trying and failing to peel Ellie off gently. “Your radio man’s waiting for us, remember?”
“Make him come here,” Ellie commands plaintively. “He can live in the yellow house.”
“He can’t come here, baby,” he says, and it’s only Bill actually participating this time that lets him pull Ellie away. He graciously pretends not to notice the way the man subtly wipes a hand across his eyes, clearing his throat. “We gotta go to him. Remember? We talked about it. There’s a house waiting for us and a bunch of books and new friends and all kinds of new stuff to see.”
Ellie sniffles, tucking her face against his neck.
He and Bill do a final check of their supplies with Ellie still in his arms. Tess double checks Ellie’s backpack, carrying only some food, a water bottle and filter, Anna’s picture packed in some cardboard and a plastic bag, an emergency foil blanket, her stuffed t-rex, and the smaller fleece blanket they’ve switched to using during baby time for the sake of something easier to pack. It’s still pretty big compared to her, but it’s light, and it carries all the essentials she’ll need if they get separated. They’ve quizzed her on using her filter and foil blanket as another part of their preparations for the trip, and her knife will have its ziptie cut off for the duration of the journey. If anything happens to them, she’s still not going to be able to make it all on her own, but it’ll buy her time. It’s little enough against his anxiety about her being orphaned on the road, but it’s something, at least.
After triple checking that there are crayons and some books in the truck to entertain her on the trip, there’s no further delaying to be done. The sun’s coming out in truth now, and they need to get going to get some good distance. From talking to Tommy and checking maps, it looks like it’s going to take about 36 hours of driving total to get there. They’ve decided to leave as close to mid-summer as possible to maximize how much daylight they’ll have, but it’s still a longer stretch of time than he likes to not have fortified walls to put his kid inside.
“Alright, bug,” Tess says softly, taking her from him. “Time to go.”
Ellie hugs Bill and Frank one more time, and gets a kiss on the head from both–Bill’s a brusque peck before he looks away, clearing his throat–before Tess buckles her in, digging out a bandana to wipe her face. He shakes hands with Bill and accepts a hug from Frank before he makes his way to the driver’s side, climbing in. Tess hugs both Bill and Frank, though only Frank gets a kiss on the cheek before she gets in the passenger seat, Frank shutting the door for her.
“Don’t di-” Bill starts before he casts a quick look to Ellie, still sniffling in the backseat. “Don’t get k-i-l-l-e-d,” he corrects. To Ellie he says, “Listen to these two, alright? They’re taking you into a den of communist nonsense, but other than that, they know what they’re doing. You remember what I taught you?”
“Liber-tearin’ or die,” Ellie says obediently. “Comm’nism is for sheeple.”
Bill nods.
“Very good.”