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They were just outside of some little town in western Colorado when they found the house with the basement.
They’d found houses with basements before, of course, but nothing like this. Joel didn’t know if it was the house’s construction or if the in-floor door was just particularly well sealed (and hidden to boot; he’d walked over it twice before realizing it was there) but below it was a treasure trove of mostly intact boxes that hadn’t seen the light of day in twenty years.
After finding new-to-them socks and a single-burner stove with a propane cylinder (actually four of them; too many to carry, to Joel’s regret), they’d had a lunch of blessedly hot canned soup from a brand neither of them had seen before, and he decided they’d spend the rest of the day seeing what else they could find. They’d been walking nonstop for days–-mostly uphill through mountain passes–-and they were both tired. At his insistence and later regret, they’d avoided the freeway and started taking the back roads to Utah instead. “Fewer people?” Ellie had asked quietly, and he nodded in reply. They didn’t need to run into anyone else after what had happened a few weeks prior. Ellie had just started engaging with him again, just a little bit–-giving him more than just yes or no answers, looking him in the eye and such. He wanted to give them both something to do that wasn’t putting one foot in front of the other for yet another afternoon.
Downstairs, Ellie used her knife to open as many of the boxes as she’d wanted. They’d spent the hours in companionable silence, occasionally showing each other something interesting or weird (or in Ellie’s case, an entire taxidermized rabbit that she’d taken a liking to and started carrying around under her arm. “His name is Tommy”, she’d informed him.).
"Oh, will you look at that." He held up a cardboard square he’d dug out from the bottom of a trunk. It was dusty as hell, but otherwise undamaged. The climate was drier here, he'd noticed, and not as much fell victim to the ever-present humidity of the east.
Ellie looked up from her box, dropping whatever useless kitchen item she'd been inspecting. "Huh?"
Joel dusted off the cardboard with his arm and revealed the faded image of four men in a room full of musical instruments. Sliding out the black round vinyl, he cradled it delicately between his fingers as if it would shatter if he looked at it too hard. Hell, it was fifty years old—it just might. "It's a record—it uh, plays music. It was something they used before tapes. You ever seen a record before?"
Ellie shook her head, eyes wide, and he could see she was fascinated. Good. It took a lot to pique her interest these days.
"How though? How does it play music?"
"Well see, you need a record player. You lay it on something called a turntable and there's a needle that runs through the grooves, from the edge to the middle, as the turntable spins the record around. The needle picks up vibrations in the record, turns them into electrical signals, which go to something called an amp, and that converts to sound." There were a lot of things that Joel couldn't explain about the world before, but he knew how a record player worked, more or less. "You need power to run it though."
"Huh. Okay…" She squinted at the title. "Cosmo's Factory? Creedence Clear--what's that? I can't see the last word."
"Creedence Clearwater Revival. CCR. Was a band, back when I was a kid. They wrote a lot of famous songs."
She looked from the record back to him, and back to the record again. "Name’s weird as shit. Those guys kinda look like you, if you were younger and your hair was longer and your clothes were...” she trailed off. “Well anyway, that’s your only shirt without a bloodstain on it." She shrugged. "Nevermind. I guess it's just the mustaches."
Joel grimaced, and was grateful for the twilight shadows that hid it. He never knew when she'd throw out a random reference to Silver Lake. He was never ready for it, although it was always in the back of his mind, a specter hanging over his days. He hoped that wasn't the case for her. Hoped, but knew different. "I'm barely a product of the seventies, kid. I was only three years old when this record came out." Not that it mattered. Only Joel and anyone older than about twenty-five cared much about what had happened before outbreak day.
"Well, dinosaurs have to come from somewhere. The seventies sound about right." A ghost of a smirk at her own joke, and his throat went tight, and he had to look away.
It's you, he thought. I knew you were still in there. She hadn't really smiled like that, or given him any shit really, for weeks. It felt like a victory-–one that he hadn't done enough to earn.
He looked back just in time to see her smirk fade away. Like the sun sliding behind the clouds, she was gone. Staring off into space again.
No. Come on Ellie. You were right there. And he’d let it slip through his fingers.
"Dinosaurs my ass," he retorted, controlling his expression into nonchalance. "I still remember all the words to these songs. Everyone knew them. My dad-–"
Ellie perked up immediately, something like curiosity lighting her eyes. "Your dad?"
Shit. You idiot. His desperation had careened him off a cliff. He'd gone too far, was too excited to see her smile. Was still too thrilled to see the way she looked at him now–like she cared about anything at all, the way she wore anything on her face but that blank look she'd been sporting most of the time. She’d been silent as the grave unless she needed something from him. But now he'd shown his hand and it held a godforsaken reference to his family, to someone she'd never heard him mention before. Not Tommy and not Sarah, as much as he'd learned she liked hearing about Sarah. As much as he could manage, anyway—which wasn't a lot.
He sighed. "My dad played guitar."
She nodded, waited for him to continue. He shifted on his feet, debating how to play this, how much he could tell her. How much he wanted to dredge up.
"Well, some of the first songs I remember him playing were from this album."
Ellie narrowed her eyes at him. She knew when he was being cagey. "And? That's it? That's your whole–thing–with this?" She scowled, gesturing to the record, the prospect of coveted Joel lore fading away. "That's the story here?"
"No. Jesus." He was bickering with a teenager again, and wasn't about to tell her that his interest in music was the only thing his dad gave him, ever, except the occasional black eye. Time to pivot. "Actually yeah. That is it. And—" he looked at her pointedly, "he taught me how to play. I remember the songs and the words and probably the tabs from most of this album." He slid the record back into the sleeve and held it out to her. They'd had a record just like this in their house, the one they'd lived in before his dad left. Before everything went to shit. "Wish we had something to play it on, it's in good condition. Maybe they have a record player in...Jackson," he finished, hating the hesitation in his own voice, if only because he wasn't sure Ellie still wanted to go back to Jackson with him after this was all over.
He'd been trying and failing to make it up to her ever since they left, and they’d had a few really good days before the hell of Silver Lake. He gotten himself hurt, couldn't help her, failed to save her from David. She saved herself–-because of course she did-–but she never should have had to.
Joel wondered if she even thought about what happened in Jackson anymore, what they'd said to each other that night, when so many other worse things had happened since. But he did. He thought about it all the time.
You're not my daughter, and I sure as hell ain't your dad.
He'd take it back if he could, and every day since then he'd tried. Or at least, wanted to try—he had no idea how to go about it, how to even broach the topic. If she’d even want to talk about it. He kept waiting around for the right moment that somehow never came. The truth was, Joel was a coward about these things, and he knew it.
He eyed the record again and knew it was too wide to fit inside his pack. Ellie knew it too, and her brow was furrowed as she looked up at him. "I know this is dumb, and we don’t have room for it, but I want to take it. I want to hear it after the Fireflies do their thing. When we–-when we go back."
Joel stared at her. This wasn't just her telling him. She was asking him if they could take it with them. She wanted to listen to it together.
"It's not dumb. Here," he said, helping her sling her pack over her shoulders. He slid the sleeve between the straps so it rested behind her back. "My straps are too far apart for this, but if you don't mind carrying it I don't see why we can't try to bring it. Let's try to keep it dry."
She gave him a small, pleased smile. "Sure."
- - - - - - - - - - -
Ellie stared at the back of the record that night after they’d gone back upstairs, picking at her can of peaches, while Joel silently willed her to eat more. Clenched his hand in frustration behind his own can of whatever and tried not to stare at her, tried instead to push through another night of helplessly watching her fade away.
It was hard to watch her do this to herself, though he knew she couldn’t help it. “Not hungry”, she’d shrug once or twice a day, despite the fact that her clothes hung off her like she was some forlorn mannequin. She’d also adamantly refused to wear a belt to hold up her pants until he found one that was cloth, not leather, and didn’t have a real buckle. He didn’t need to ask why, just rummaged through house after house, growing increasingly frustrated every time he came up empty—you weren’t there for her and if you had been she wouldn’t even be in this goddamn situation–until he found one that worked. A woven rainbow belt with two little rings you’d weave the end through. One meant for a kid much smaller, but it fit.
“Hey Joel?”
“Yeah?”
“Which one did you like the best?” she asked. “Out of all the songs on this record thing. Ramble Tamble? Before You Accuse Me? Travelin’ Band?” She read them off in order. “Ooby Dooby?” That got a little laugh. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“No idea. But my favorite is Long As I Can See the Light.”
“Mmmm.” Ellie pursed her lips together, that thing she did when she wanted him to know she heard him but she didn’t want to actually speak.
“That was Tess’ favorite too,” he said quietly. He wasn’t sure she heard him until her eyes snapped up and it was clear he had her attention.
He sighed. If this is what he had to do to distract her from the dark thoughts he knew ran like a freight train through her head most of the time, then fine. So be it.
Put a candle in the window
'Cause I feel I've got to move
The words echoed in his head. Tess’ voice. John Fogherty on his mother’s record player. His mother’s voice over the top, somehow. A mixture of the all three: the pitch, the melody, the words that were stuck there forever. He wasn’t mad about it. Hell, he’d forgotten so much about the last twenty years; it was nice to have something he didn’t have to think hard about to remember.
"She would sing it, sometimes—" Joel stopped short, flooded by the sensation of Tess singing softly in the dark, her arms around him. The words muffled in his shirt, the heat of her breath on his back. A soundtrack for the haze of pills and booze he found himself in every year for the three or so days surrounding his birthday. Outbreak day. The day Sarah left. "Sometimes. If the mood hit."
Ellie hummed again in response. He noticed how careful she'd become when she wanted to hear more, tamping down her enthusiasm and the endless, endless questions, because from experience she knew the more she pressed the less he gave. It was shameful, the way he’d shut her out for so long, when he knew she’d probably had no closer friend than him-–at least no adult that cared for her like he knew he did.
He stared into the fire, willing himself to answer the question when it inevitably came, whatever it was. This is how it’s done. He could barely remember this thing about relationships, the give and the take. With Tommy and Sarah he never needed to try, it just was. With Tess it had happened so slowly, and so much against his will that he’d barely noticed. He’d barely noticed anything for so long; actively slamming the door on anything that wasn’t rage or cynicism or the two people left on this godforsaken planet that he still gave a damn about.
But this was different. Ellie was different. You can’t frame before you pour the foundation, and he’d been pouring the foundation in fits and starts, tearing it down as much as he was building it up. If he wanted to do right by her he’d have to be honest, have to stifle the knee-jerk reaction to close himself up, to tell her to back off. He’d have to open up to her as much as he wanted her to open up to him.
Finally, a full minute later, she couldn't hold it in anymore: "Was she a good singer?"
He nodded. "She was great. Better than me."
A sly grin spread across Ellie's face. "And you were supposed to be the singer! Joel, you two should have joined forces. Sung on the streetcorner in the Boston QZ. What did they used to call it? Bussing?"
"Busking. And only if we wanted to get shot, probably."
"Hmm, yeah. Probably." She poked at an ember in the fireplace, watching it glow brighter as she rolled it around with a stick. "Still though."
Though I'm going, going
I'll be coming home soon
Long as I can see the light
Joel closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose and willed himself under control. It's okay. It's okay. Tess was gone, and though neither of them talked about their kids much, he knew she wouldn't have minded sharing some of this memory with Ellie. He wasn’t doing wrong by her.
"She said she used to sing that song to her son, sometimes. He was–-he was real little, when the outbreak happened. Six or seven, maybe," he said.
Ellie stopped messing with the fire, her eyes on him.
Though I'm gone, gone
You don't have to worry, no
Long as I can see the light
He'd clean it up for her, leave out the part where Tess had to lock her infected boy in the basement before she fled their Detroit home, his screams intertwined with her sobs, echoing in her ears long after she’d gone hoarse.
Tess had told Joel once, after they'd both had too much to drink, how she’d tried talking to him through the basement door for a while, because he wasn't all the way gone just yet. How he wouldn't stop banging his tiny fists on the wood, trying the handle, begging her to let him out. Mama, please, please let me out. I'm scared. Please. She’d panicked once she’d realized he was turning, had run up the stairs so fast she forgot to turn on the light. But the sun was setting now, and he was scared of the dark.
A few hours later there was nothing but silence, though she called his name for hours. I couldn’t make myself open the door, she whispered to Joel. I couldn’t make myself shoot him, but I couldn’t just leave him, either. I had to stay until the end, until I knew he was gone.
Once she’d passed out that night he’d gone to the bathroom and vomited up all the booze still left in his stomach. Dry heaved until he saw stars. Put his fist through the drywall. Tess never asked about the new hole next to the towel rack, just tacked some cardboard over it.
Ben had died, it was true, or was certainly dead by now. Had to be. He could imagine the alternative but refused to, the faded picture Tess had of her little boy fused in his brain till the end of time. Blond hair, and her smile.
"Anyway-–" he cleared his throat, forcing the words out, “--he didn't make it, obviously. She missed singing to someone, I guess, and I was around."
But I won't, won't
Be losing my way, no, no
Long as I can see the light
Joel could tell Ellie was trying real hard not to stare at him, just peeking at him from the corner of her eye. She knew when he wasn’t okay, just the same as when he knew she wasn’t. When she was having a moment. He was definitely having a moment right now, despite his best efforts.
“I, uh, I didn’t know her for very long. Tess, I mean,” Ellie said. “But she was a badass. I liked her. She sounds like a good mom.”
Joel nodded in agreement, ran his hand over his face and tried to work the tension out of his jaw. “She was. Both of those things, I mean.”
“She was the reason you took me with you.” Ellie said, messing with a loose thread on the worn carpet by her feet. “I mean, you said it was because Tess asked you to, and Tess was like family.”
Joel narrowed his eyes, looked anywhere but her. This was dangerous ground, if only because he remembered what he’d called Ellie in Bill’s truck that day. It wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever said to her-–hell, it was a little bit true at the time. But far less so than he’d been willing to admit to himself.
No, you’re cargo. Not family. And had she been? Not then, no, not exactly. But he’d known he was done for the moment he’d broken his hand on that FEDRA soldier’s face. Or maybe it was the way she’d looked at him when he’d come back from Bill’s garage-–he realized later that she’d fully been expecting him to ditch her, but hoping against hope otherwise. Or the moment he’d snuck a look at Wil Livingston’s book to steal the punchline for the scarecrow joke. Or the moment he’d stood helplessly by as Sam attacked her, those three seconds that felt like an eternity until Henry had finally ended it. Or when he’d finally found her outside of that burning building in Silver Lake, blood on her face and in her hair, and clutched her to his chest and swore to himself and to her that he would never leave her again--
Joel was a famously bad liar. It’s why he always let Tess do all the talking in their smuggling deals. He could get away with small things, if he looked mean enough. Covered it up with violence, or anger, or apathy. "You’re cargo" had been his best attempt at apathy. Even still, it seemed like Ellie had believed him anyway.
He thought about busying himself with the fire, adding another leg from the chair he’d taken apart. Buy some time. But what was the point?
“She did ask me to take you, yes.” He turned, looked directly at her, and felt the full force of her gaze on him. Knew at last—finally understood—the power of his words. The rope she’d been throwing him this whole time that he’d been kicking away. He knew it was time to reach for it. “But Ellie,” -–and he called her by name, knew it tuned her in like nothing else-– ”I would have taken you anyway.”
Her eyes widened, and she almost choked on a peach. “Really? You would have?”
He nodded. “‘Course I would have. I wouldn’t have left you to fend for yourself.”
“Hmmm.” She chewed thoughtfully. At least this conversation was distracting enough for her to actually eat, he thought, nevermind the feeling of having his heart beat so hard it was threatening to leap out of his chest.
She was almost as good at feigning nonchalance as he was, at tiptoeing around the avalanche of emotion this conversation had turned into. “I believe you,” she said. “Because despite what you think,” she continued, pointing her fork at him, “you’re alright. As a person, I mean.”
He rolled his eyes, scoffed at the thought. “Sure. Uh huh.”
“I’m serious, though.” She put her can down on the floor, pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. “You are, Joel. I know you’ve done terrible things, and now I guess…so have I. And you’re still—you’re alright. You still want to do the right thing. You’re still a good person.”
He could only stare at her for several moments, his throat closing up with emotion. The right thing? Choosing the right thing hadn’t been a privilege for twenty years, and yet somehow she thought she saw good in him. Somehow she thought he was still capable of that.
He wondered who else got grouped in with him in the “good” category, the poor bastards. “I think you need to meet more people, darlin.’”
She reached over and smacked his arm. “Shut up and take the compliment.”
Joel knew how his voice would sound, all thick and teary, and could only manage one word, spare just a glance at her face to let her know he heard her.
“Okay.”
And then later, after she’d rolled out their sleeping bags and he was shoving a couch up against the door, he managed something else.
“You’re a good person too, you know.”
Ellie nodded silently, staring at the fire.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It was still dark when she woke him up, her breaths coming fast and loud, her arms trying to escape her sleeping bag.
“No. No! You can’t—don’t leave me—”
Joel reached over, his hand hovering near her shoulder. He knew if he touched her too soon she’d come at him with that knife of hers.
“Ellie,” he hissed, “—wake up.” She was thrashing by now and he decided to risk it, and reached a hand to the back of her head so she wouldn’t bang it on the floor like she had last week. “No one’s leavin’ you. Wake up.”
She sat bolt upright, her hand over her mouth, knife clattering to the floor. Old habits died hard and months of hiding from infected and raiders in silence had her terrified of making any noise at night.
“Joel?”
His hand was on her arm now, pulling her towards him. “Shhhh. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
She nodded silently, her hand still over her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m—are we okay?”
“We’re okay. Nobody heard nothin’. Nobody here but us.” He tugged again on her arm again. “C’mere.”
She shrugged him off. He tried again. “Do you—do you wanna talk about it?”
“I’m fine,” she muttered, flopping back down and away from him. “Go back to sleep, Joel.”
This kid, he thought. So embarrassed over something that had been happening for as long as they’d known each other. The first time, they were camping in the woods next to Bill’s truck and he’d been looking and listening for raiders—and not expecting to hear her scream piercing the night. He’d stood over her whimpering body for two or three minutes, totally fucking clueless as to how to handle it, until she finally settled down and he could walk away and curse into the darkness.
It got worse after Kansas City, then better once they got closer to Jackson, and had completely disappeared in the week they’d spent traveling to Colorado.
After Silver Lake it was almost every night. He still hadn’t figured out what to do. Sometimes if it was real bad she’d lay closer to him and he’d stroke her hair and that worked alright, but other times she outright refused any comfort at all, too convinced she was costing him precious sleep. He hadn’t figured out how to tell her that he needed to hold her, too; probably more than she needed it herself. That he needed to feel her breathing, that he woke up all the time needing to convince himself she was alive.
“Okay,” he finally replied, staring at the back of her head in the dark, watching her shoulders hitch with silent sobs. The way that kids do when they’re cryin’ and they can’t catch their breath. Sarah used to do that when she had a nightmare, too.
He gritted his teeth, helpless against a riptide of memory, and recalled what he’d done for Sarah. The only thing that had really worked—at least enough to distract her until she calmed down—was singing.
They were different kids, for sure, but something had to give. It was worth a shot.
Fuck it, he thought. Worst it can do is make her laugh. Or piss her off. Either one was preferrable to what was going on at present.
Joel cleared his throat and took a breath. And then another. And a third, because he was suddenly nervous. But it didn’t matter, because he took one more look at her and the sleeping bag draped over her too-thin frame, the way she was folded in on herself, and the words came of their own accord.
“Put a candle in the window
'Cause I feel I've got to move—”
It felt like pushing the pedals on a rusted-out bicycle, like dragging a bucket through half-set concrete. He winced a bit at the sound of his singing voice, both too foreign and achingly familiar. (He sounded a little like Tommy. Or more accurately, like their father. Like someone’s father, anyway.)
But Ellie’s sobs had slowed, and her head tilted to the side.
Joel kept going.
“Though I’m going, going,
I’ll be coming home soon—”
She turned now, her tear-streaked face coming into view, and a slight sideways glance at him that wasn’t exactly mad or mocking. More confused, if anything.
“Long as I can see the light.”
He didn’t even have to think about it, the lyrics stored in some part of his brain that had been locked up for the past twenty years. Dusty, but there, and flowing without hesitation now that he knew she heard him.
“Pack my bag and let’s get moving
‘Cause I’m bound to drift awhile"
He knew she was staring at him, and he’d already moved his line of sight from her to the ceiling. It was too much, he knew—if he looked at her he’d break, and he couldn’t break. Not now.
“Though I’m gone, gone
You don’t have to worry
Long as I can see the light”
He felt her shift and turn towards him, and then her hand on his arm. Maybe she wanted him to stop, so he did.
They lay like that for a long time, waiting for the other to break the stillness.
“Joel?”
“Yeah, Ellie?”
“Could you—” She was silent a beat, and his heart sank a little. Well, he tried. At least now he knew. Because it had been for her, sure, but it had also been for him. He was throwing the rope back to her and begging her not to kick it away.
“—could you do that again?”
Joel turned to her and reached out, slowly, until he held her face in his hand and swiped at her tears with his thumb. Ellie moved her hand to his, a little tentative movement with a couple of false starts until it took.
“I haven’t really—not since—” she whispered, clearly struggling to find the words. “I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone sing to me like that.”
It broke his heart a little more, knowing she lived so many years without something so simple, so easy. He had to breathe through the sorrow that welled up in him at the thought of little Ellie laying alone at night with no one to sing to her.
“Joel?” said said again, her voice barely a whisper.
“I’ll sing to you anytime you want, babygirl. Now, c’mere.”
Ellie scooched over in her sleeping bag until she lay next to him, and rested her hand over where she knew his scar lay under his jacket.
They were silent a moment, and then she whispered: “You died. In my dream. I couldn’t save you, there was no medicine—you died.”
He drew his arms around her until her head came to rest on his shoulder. “But you took real good care of me, and here I am. And I told you, I’m never leaving you again. Right?”
She nodded. “Right.”
“Now hush, and let’s see if my old brain can remember this whole song.”
That got a giggle out of her, and he took a deep breath.
“Put a candle in the window
'Cause I feel I've got to move
Though I'm going, going
I'll be coming home soon
Long as I can see the light
Pack my bag and let's get moving
'Cause I'm bound to drift a while
Though I'm gone, gone
You don't have to worry, no
Long as I can see the light
Guess I've got that old traveling bone
'Cause this feeling won't leave me alone
But I won't, won't
Be losing my way, no, no
Long as I can see the light”