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The first time Tommy had seen his brother in too long was when he showed up in Jackson, unprompted, unannounced, absolutely filthy and looking about 15 years older than the last time he’d seen him despite the fact that he’d only left him behind in Boston about five years ago.
“Tommy!” he heard, distinctively and unmistakably Joel. Unmistakably relieved, passionate, and fierce. All things unmistakably his big brother.
Despite his initial appearance, something was noticeably lighter and happier about him, but there was a new sort of concern there under the surface too. He didn’t notice it at first when they embraced each other right there in the middle of town, thought it was just the relief of having reached Tommy after what he could only imagine had been a very long and difficult journey. Then he’d taken a step back, a hand still on Joel’s shoulder and locked eyes with Maria who raised an eyebrow and cocked her head toward a girl he certainly didn’t recognize on the horse next to her.
He only had a moment to take in her appearance, allowing himself to look but not to stare. She couldn’t have been very old, definitely a very young teenager. She was looking down at her folded gloved hands, biting the inside of her cheek, a frown evident on her features even though he couldn’t see her whole face thanks to the hair wildly sticking out of the bottom of her hat.
His joy at seeing his brother quickly faded, replaced with a sinking feeling, a million unanswered questions, and Maria’s deeply displeased face, both eyebrows now raised, mask removed to reveal her lips pursed in judgment, the way she gets when she’s carefully picking something apart, analyzing it like she’s looking for evidence of wrongdoing.
When his gaze finally wandered back to Joel, he saw that he had his mouth slightly open like he was about to start speaking but wasn’t sure what to say. Tommy reacted on sheer instinct and desire to avoid an awkward conversation right here in the middle of the street, always anxious to ease the tension. He clapped Joel on the shoulder and spoke before he got the chance.
“How about some food?” He asked with a tight smile, hoping to convey a softness in his eyes, not wanting Joel to go on the defensive before they even got the chance to talk.
“Food…yeah, food sounds great,” Joel said. “What do you think, Ellie?” He asked, turning to look at the girl, voice too light, like he wasn't used to speaking to her like that. Ellie. Her head snapped up, surprise crossing her face, which baffled Tommy a bit.
“Huh? Oh, um, yeah. Food would be good. I’m fucking starving,” she rambled. Her young voice contrasted with that language threw Tommy, and one glance at Maria revealed that her distaste grew with every passing moment. “You guys have, what, like, stockpiles of cans? Jerky?”
“We have a full dining hall with fresh food,” Maria said, pointedly directed exclusively at Ellie. Tommy watched as her face softened ever so slightly, naturally wanting to convey a sense of safety to the young girl.
“Holy shit, Joel. We get to eat stuff that’s not, like, older than I am. It’s going to be so great for your old man stomach,” she said, seeming to perk up at the opportunity to make a dig at Joel.
“Ellie, watch your language,” Joel called back to her, voice tight. “It ain’t polite to curse like that in front of people we just met,” he said. Tommy couldn’t help the amused grin that crept onto his face at watching his brother lecture a teenager about bad language in the middle of an apocalypse and after they had clearly been through hell and back across the country, an assumption he felt safe making even with the very limited information he had.
“I’ll explain later,” Joel told him under his breath before advancing toward Ellie. “Alright, c’mon. Get down, and let ‘em have the horse back.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, clumsily throwing her leg over the horse, clearly never having been on one before, obviously unaware of how to dismount properly. She didn’t let it deter her though, waving Joel off when he tried to put his hands around her waist to help her down. “I don’t need your help, dude,” Tommy watched as Joel backed up, a look that could only be described as annoyance perfectly accented by her continuing quips. “Besides, you’ll hurt your back or something, and then -”
She was cut off by her left foot getting caught in the stirrup as she simultaneously lost her grip on the saddle handle. She landed perfectly on her ass on the ground, foot still stuck as she let out an “oof.” Even from several feet away and the chilly conditions already biting at their skin, Tommy saw her cheeks redden. He wanted to laugh, especially at the purely dismayed look on her face, but he didn’t know her like that, so he suppressed his initial instinct. It was apparently the right choice because her expression turned bitter quickly, looking at Joel like it was somehow his fault even though he in no way looked amused.
“Are you hurt?” Joel asked, not even reacting. Instead, he just bent slightly, reaching out and helping her up by the top strap of her backpack. His lips were pressed in a thin, unimpressed line, as if he often offered to help her, and she often denied his assistance only for it to result in some range of failed results.
“No,” she mumbled, clearly chagrined. She ducked her head and moved to stand next to Joel, just slightly hidden behind him, seeming to floating there based on muscle memory alone, ready to continue shouldering onto the next thing despite her damaged pride and probably at least a little soreness.
“Well,” Maria interjected, down from her horse at this point as well. “This way for food,” she said, gesturing to her right.
Tommy joined the other two in following Maria, not even cognizant of the way all the people of Jackson were probably staring. It’s not every day that someone new turns up in Jackson, let alone two people. He couldn’t help but stare for different reasons; to anyone else, these two would have looked like a father-daughter pair. Something was scratching at Tommy, making him feel the same way even though he obviously knew better.
They drifted together, Ellie naturally falling in line exactly one pace behind him and on his right - always staying to his right.
Tommy watched carefully as they selected their seats next to each other, Joel silently gesturing for her to take the seat on his left this time. She did so without question, looking around with her eyes only.
“Tommy and I will go grab some things. Dinner isn’t for a while, but we should have plenty left over from lunch,” Maria informed them once they were settled. No one could miss the assessing look she was still fixing Joel with.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Joel said in a tone Tommy wasn’t too familiar with. It was cordial, but guarded, cautious.
He knew that it was serving a dual purpose, pulling Tommy away for a moment to talk while also allowing them to show some hospitality to two very obviously weary travelers. They made their way toward the kitchen, remaining quiet and aware of the eyes on them all the way there.
“Who is the girl?” Maria asked, turning on him as soon as the door was closed behind them. Tommy wasn’t surprised by her directness anymore. Maria was no bullshit, through and through. Direct, logical, and her priorities highly in check.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly, unable to help himself from checking over his shoulder.
“Do you think he had, I don’t know, a secret child? What would he be doing going across the country with a teenage girl? Just to look for you?” Maria demanded, arms crossed firmly across her chest.
“No,” Tommy said, already having started shaking his head as soon as the first question was out of her mouth. “No. He and Tess have been loyal to each other for at least as long as she’s been alive,” Tommy insisted, but as he did the math in his head, he realized he could be wrong. What if the girl was his daughter? She didn’t look much like him, but then again, neither had Sarah really. Things had been pretty bad when they were first settling into Boston after bouncing around the country after Outbreak Day. But was Joel really irresponsible enough to get a woman pregnant? He wasn’t convinced.
“I don’t like this, Tommy,” Maria continued. “You tell me about all the violent and depraved and horrible things he has done, say that’s why you left Boston -“
“It’s part of why I left,” he interrupted, but Maria waved him off, continuing with her statement.
“And then he shows up here with a teenage girl that probably isn’t related to him? Do you see how that looks?” She finished, eyebrows raised in challenge.
“It’s not great,” Tommy conceded. Maria let out a sigh, turning to start plating some leftover food. “My brother has done terrible things. I don’t judge him for it. But he would never touch a child, Maria. Whatever’s going on, I’ll find out, I promise you. But he is not a predator.”
“This world has made plenty of bad out of people who used to be good,” she said curtly, placing lids back on some of the food containers. “I trust you to find out what’s going on. But just know that I’ll be asking Ellie for her perspective as well.”
“I know my brother,” Tommy said, hating how defensive he sounded right now. After all, everything Maria knew about Joel had come directly from what Tommy had told her. And what he’d told her, in hindsight, did make him sound pretty bad. “He may have done some fucked up things. I think we have all done things we’re less than proud of to survive.”
“I’m not here to argue with you,” Maria said, still moving around the kitchen gathering various things. “My priority is making sure that the child he showed up with is okay and hasn’t been harmed. Certainly you can understand that.”
“I do. Give me time to talk to him before prosecuting him,” Tommy said, picking up the tray of filled plates to carry back out the dining room. Maria hummed in response and followed close behind him with two plates of pumpkin pie. Whether that was hospitality or showing off, Tommy wasn’t sure. He never thought foods like pie would be possible in this world until he found Jackson. The fact that they have enough of it that they can even share with people who don’t live in the community, well, that is something special.
Joel and Ellie were in the same place they’d left them in a few minutes earlier, both silently taking in the space around them. It was an old restaurant that had been redesigned to be able to accommodate most of the people in the town for all three meals a day. It could also be transformed into a community space, a venue for plenty of other events. Tommy sometimes forgets what it was like to see Jackson for the first time, to see a thriving community that’s not tied to FEDRA or the Army or any resistance group thriving like they do.
Once the food was in front of them, they were eating hungrily and aggressively without a word. Tommy sat back next to Maria and watched, fully aware of the look on his face. He made a great effort to maintain a neutral expression, understanding that they were clearly starving.
Maria, on the other hand, watched critically through squinted eyes. Tommy knew she could see the same things he did, though. Ellie was clearly not afraid of Joel, engaging in some banter with him, sitting close enough to him that their arms brushed naturally. She was perceptive and witty and tough. And Tommy hated that he was watching her and trying to tell if she was being abused or taken advantage of by his brother. He knew she wasn’t, and he felt shitty for even having to entertain the thought.
He couldn’t yet tell if Joel finding out that he and Maria were married was a good thing or not. Joel had clearly picked up on the offputting energy between them, the apprehension that Maria was treating him with, even though to Joel’s knowledge, she knew very little, if anything, about him apart from his mere existence. And Tommy had been on the sorts of patrols that Maria had been on today when they came across Joel and Ellie; he knew how they must have been greeted initially, and it’s certainly enough to put anyone on guard.
He knew he couldn’t convince Joel now that he would actually really like Maria, that they were more similar than they were different, that they had similar motivations and ways of thinking. Instead, he tried to play the mediator, keeping his tone even and kind even as the tension rose, Joel unable to hide his dismay at this new information, especially not after Maria had directed that sentiment about a bad reputation quite obviously toward Joel
Thankfully, once they were done eating, there was an opportunity to show the two of them around, and, with any luck, pull Joel away to discuss some things. He watched with a growing smile as Ellie easily bantered with Joel, asked questions, and ran slightly ahead of them with wonder on her face. Joel rolled his eyes and grouched and acted annoyed, but he also humored her and watched her every move like Tommy used to watch him do with Sarah when she was younger.
It made him even more eager to get Joel alone.
“Well, I’m sure they’d like a shower, some new clothes. We can put them in the empty house across the street from us,” Maria said helpfully, transitioning into allowing Tommy and Joel to peel off on their own while she also got to talk to Ellie.
“Yeah. It’s a decent place,” he said earnestly to Joel. “Pretty much untouched since ‘03, but it’s got the heat going in it. Could do worse.”
“Oh, trust me, we have been,” Ellie said with a slight tilt to her voice, shooting Joel a grin over her shoulder.
“We’ve been doin’ fine,” Joel said tensely, all of the edge rushing back into his voice after he’d seemingly been worn down a bit over the course of the tour.
It was silent and awkward for a moment after that until Maria spoke up again.
“Well, I’ll take Ellie over there if you two want to catch up,” she said suggestively.
“Yeah, okay,” Joel said, turning with Tommy to walk back the way they came with one final glance toward Ellie.
“Joel?” she called quietly to him, concern clear in her voice. It felt weird to Tommy to leave her behind when she was obviously uncomfortable, but he knew she was safe with Maria, and he desperately needed to talk with Joel.
“You’ll be fine,” Joel said over his shoulder. Tommy didn’t think Joel caught a glance of Ellie’s face, masked panic in her eyes as she watched Joel’s retreating figure.
//
He could tell Joel wasn’t telling him the full truth about the girl.
He’d spent all of an hour with them here since they’d arrived, and it was enough to know that she was more to him than some Firefly asshole’s daughter. It sounded like they’d been through hell and back to get here, and Joel was carefully guarded about revealing any of their experiences or any further information about Ellie.
The part that this had started as a job, Tommy was keen to believe. For as long as he’d known him, Joel was never one to turn down a job, especially not if it was going to get him some sort of payment that he couldn’t turn down in return. It just wasn’t exactly clear what the payment was for this particular cargo transport. Whoever the girl was, she was clearly more than a job, more than cargo, and Tommy was going almost exclusively off of his limited interaction with the two of them and the way that Joel pointedly tried to make it appear that he didn’t really care about her.
One thing about his brother that hadn’t seemed to have changed was just how fucking clueless he was as to how obviously he wore his emotions, even if carefully cloaked behind layers of gruff aloofness. Tommy wasn’t so easily fooled.
So when the truth came out later that night when he found Joel in the workroom, tearful and desperate, Tommy knew that this was the God’s honest truth, as far-fetched as it may have seemed that she was immune and that a cure may actually be within reach.
Smuggling Ellie out of the Boston QZ and to the Fireflies had been a job. Then it was Tess’ dying wish. Then it was a matter of necessity, the danger of crossing the country alone having become a reality. It transformed into something more than any of those things somewhere around Kansas City, and maybe earlier once Joel had a chance to actually be honest with himself. Joel spoke about her in a way that both broke and healed Tommy, listening as he detailed their experiences, talked about her in a way that told Tommy he was willing to risk it all for her, and not just because she was immune.
“Here’s your chance to bring your kid into a better world,” Joel told him, voice breaking in too many places. A plea that Tommy would have to have felt far more than heartless to turn down after he’d just watched Joel bare his soul to him.
“You want me to take her,” he concluded solemnly.
His big brother, tough and hardened, strong and steady, and now broken down in front of him over a kid that just earlier today was just someone he agreed to smuggle west.
So, even though it pained him to do it, Tommy agreed to take Ellie to the Fireflies in Colorado. He’d have to ask Maria to forgive him later. He was sure she would, especially if he returned with a vaccine.
“I’ll take her out at dawn,” Tommy promised him, against all his best instincts. To make the world a better place. To make things up to his brother. To finish the job he’d left him behind to do. To keep Ellie safe.
//
“I should’ve gone with ‘em,” Tommy said mournfully one day from the front window of his and Maria’s home. He stood, peering out at the thick white snow coming down, blanketing the entire town. Jackson had a damn good system set up for this type of weather, and this storm still knocked them out for at least a few days. The house across the street, still reserved for Joel and Ellie, still empty and dark and also awaiting their return, was perfectly in his view from this position.
He must have been zoned out because he didn’t even hear Maria cross the room to wrap her arms around him from behind, her growing pregnant belly pressing into his back, face pressed between his tense shoulders.
“Joel can handle himself. And Ellie is tough,” Maria soothed, saying about the only thing she really could to reassure him.
He would probably never forgive himself if he had his only living family back, here and safe in Jackson after having somehow crossed the whole fucking country, only to give him the directions to go off and get himself killed after saying it was an easy journey. He had the opportunity to go with them, to be an extra set of eyes and ears, to be another person who could ensure their safety to Colorado and back. He had so effortlessly handed the reins to Joel when he turned out to be in the stables waiting for him and Ellie to arrive.
The warmth of Maria’s arms and the pressure of her rounding stomach against him were enough to serve as reminders as to why he had done what he did. He let them go. He put his faith in Joel, believing in his abilities to keep Ellie and himself safe for a two-week round trip.
And by then, it had been two months.
And here he was, safe within the carefully constructed walls of Jackson while his brother and a kid were caught up in God knows what in the middle of a brutal winter. He could only hope that they made it to the Fireflies in Colorado and were being well taken care of while they were hard at work to develop a miracle vaccine.
“I’ll never forgive myself if they don’t make it back,” he muttered aloud a different time. They were sitting at the same table where they’d watched Ellie and Joel scarf down that first meal in Jackson. No one was sitting in the chair that Ellie had occupied. It made him uneasy down to his bones.
This time, Maria just reached across the table and squeezed his hand sympathetically. He knew she cared. He knew how much emotional burden she had taken on from him over this situation. And he certainly didn’t blame her, not even in the slightest. But nothing was going to ease his mind like going out with a patrol to look for them, and Maria had flatly refused.
Tommy hadn’t wanted to argue with her, knowing that definitely would not make him feel any better. He never had felt quite as useless as he did just sitting there, safe and warm and nourished in Jackson, waiting for his brother to return from a trip that Tommy knew damn well should have taken them a maximum of three weeks. Maybe four if the Fireflies had gained any sort of sense to actually carry out creating a vaccine. It gnawed away at his insides constantly, consuming his thoughts, filling him with an anxiety he hadn’t experienced in years.
And then, like something out of one of his wildest dreams, Joel and Ellie staggered back in through the gates of Jackson sometime in early April.
It wasn't triumphant or celebratory. There was no proclamation of a cure. There was no heroic story or happy ending. But Joel was back, and it was all Tommy really could have hoped for.
Sure, there had been a plenty noticeable shift in his big brother before, but this was seismic in comparison. Joel and Ellie leaned into each other’s energies, clearly sapped and in much worse shape than they’d been in when they left a few months ago. He realized then that he didn’t even realize that was possible considering the state he’d seen them in before. Once again, Tommy was left with a mountain of questions and no good opportunity to get answers.
This time, Joel didn’t leave Ellie behind when Tommy tried to peel him away to talk. He just put his hand in between her shoulders gently. Tommy watched as they moved in tandem, communicated through unmoving eyes and blink-and-you’d-miss-it body language.
Ellie didn’t have a backpack anymore and wasn’t drowning in a huge, puffy winter coat, and he had to admit, she looked somehow even younger and more vulnerable without them. She had on different clothes that she did when they left, which would have made sense if it weren’t for the fact that Joel was in the same clothes as before.
“Still a place for us here?” Joel asked, a tight smile that didn’t reach his eyes plastered on his face.
“Of course,” Tommy said, careful not to miss a beat. “Yeah, uh, we kept the same place ready for ya. Maria’s idea, actually.” There was an awkward moment that hung in the air between the three of them, Tommy looking between the two of them before finally shoving his hands in his pockets and speaking again.
“I’ll walk ya over, make sure everything’s in working order. Dinner’s in about two hours if you can wait, or we have food back at our house if -“
“I think we can wait,” Joel interjected, nodding in the direction of the house. “Just need to get cleaned up,” he said, the tiredness clear in his voice now. Tommy knew what that was like, the way his body was being taken over by sheer exhaustion now that he could relax, now that he didn’t have to be constantly worried about watching their surroundings. The stress rolled off of them in a way that was almost tangible, relief evident in both of them even though they remained tense.
He hugged Joel once they reached the house, promising to check back in on them in a couple hours once he and Maria were on their way to dinner.
“Maria’s been collecting some things for you. Should be at least a few changes of clothes and a spare pair of shoes for each of you in the bedrooms. If you need anything between now and then, I’ll just be across the street,” he told him once he pulled away.
“Thank you, Tommy,” Joel said thickly before turning to enter the house.
//
Dinner this time around was much different.
For one, Joel was more talkative, politely asking questions, catching up, eager to know about how Maria was doing with the pregnancy, all while pointedly avoiding any topics regarding anything that he and Ellie had been up to for the past several months. He filled the silence before anyone even had a chance to muster up the gall to ask them. It was a smart strategy, really, and one that would have lead anyone who didn’t know his brother like he did to think that he was doing well, all things considered.
Then there was Ellie. Conversely, she was notably quieter, which gave Tommy a chance to notice how observant she was. Her dark circles were prominent, face sunken, jaw tense, eyes tracking Joel’s every move. She’d silently demanded to not sit with her back to the door once they made it to the dining hall, and Joel had, in turn, silently complied, shifting their plates to be positioned on the opposite side of the table. With every new person that entered the dining hall, her hand that wasn’t holding a fork clenched into a tight fist next to her plate, breath held until they were clearly in her line of sight or out of what she clearly considered to be a close proximity.
Joel sat close enough to her that their knees touched, and each time Ellie tensed up, he mumbled under his breath so quietly that even Tommy couldn’t make it out from across the table. Joel reached over to Ellie’s plate and clearly took bites of it before she would touch something new. At first, it looked like he was swiping food from her plate. The longer it went on, the more Tommy could clearly see that he was showing her that the food was safe to eat. It was simultaneously heartbreaking and mending, seeing Ellie obviously traumatized and Joel taking it in stride so well. It clamored and scratched at Tommy’s insides, the desire to know what happened to her.
And deep down, from a place he almost didn’t recognize or acknowledge anymore, the desire to make sure that whoever had done something to make her this way had paid for whatever they had done.
Tommy and Maria agreed with each other that they would leave them alone in the week that followed their arrival and that dinner. They needed time to be able to rest, to settle in, to find a place within Jackson before people started demanding stories from them. They saw very little of them, usually just for meals, and even then, it was rare for both of them to be there at the same time. It was pretty common for one of them to pop down to the dining hall, get the food to go, and eat back at the house.
Tommy knew it was at least a little annoying to Maria who wanted them to merge with the rest of the community, but he was grateful that she kept her thoughts to herself for the most part. It didn’t stop her from swinging by to drop off items for them, usually things for Ellie, once in a while, insisting on seeing her each time much to Joel’s hesitance. Tommy rightfully thought it was just to make her presence known and to be nosy, but he was not about to stop his very pregnant and very determined wife from doing what she wanted.
On the seventh evening, after watching Joel make the solo journey to the dining hall to pick up food for two, a disgruntled look from Maria had him approaching Joel and asking if he could come over to talk after dinner.
“Ellie usually goes to bed sometime around 9:00,” Joel said cautiously, a few containers of food balanced in his hands. “After that should be fine.”
“Just wanted to talk, see how you and Ellie are settling in. Nothing to worry about,” Tommy said, smiling softly at his brother. “Plus I need to catch up with my brother,” he added when Joel didn’t respond.
“Yeah,” Joel agreed, some amount of uneasiness evident in his stiff body language. “I’ll see ya then,” he nodded, quickly ducking out of the dining hall.
“Well?” Maria demanded once Tommy sat back down next to her.
“I’m going over after Ellie’s asleep,” Tommy updated her. This was clearly an answer that pleased her as she returned to her dinner with a satisfied slight upturn of her lips.
“Make sure you tell him about school for Ellie,” Maria said. “And invite them to the bonfire next weekend.”
“Yes, dear,” Tommy retorted good naturedly. He knew she had perfectly good intentions, that she was looking out especially for Ellie, that she didn’t want to push but thought the best way to get something done was simply to do it.
So, Tommy softly knocked on the door of the blue house across the street from his own at 9:15, not wanting to look like he was trying to pounce right at 9:00. This was supposed to be casual, not a formal meeting. Joel looked a bit better than he had at dinner when he opened the door for Tommy.
Something about being in the low lamplight of the living room brought out the gray in Joel’s hair, the slight limp in the cadence of his steps, the prominent wrinkles around his eyes. He looked like he’d aged an additional 5 years at least, looking well beyond his age even though he was close to pushing 60.
“Want a drink?” Joel asked as Tommy made himself comfortable in the living room. “Got water and tea.”
“Just take some water,” Tommy said, looking around the space. It was largely the same as it had been when he first showed it to Joel with a few small differences. There was a game of Boggle spread across the kitchen table. There were blankets piled on one end of the couch, some DVDs stacked on the coffee table, a few books lying around in other places. He was looking at them as Joel reentered the room with two glasses of water in hand.
“Those are Ellie’s mostly,” Joel told him. “Kid loves to read.”
“Looks like she’s got great taste, too,” Tommy said with a smile, examining the back of one book - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
“Yeah. Picked that one up in a camper somewhere in Utah,” he said, settling into the armchair near the couch. “Told her I’d keep trying to find the others for her. She’s read that one at least three times already. Haven’t broken the news to her yet that the last two years never got the chance to be released and the fifth one will be a son of a bitch to track down.”
Tommy noded knowingly, remembering taking Sarah to the Borders bookstore himself on release day a few months before Outbreak Day to pick up the book. She had read the whole thing in two days flat, despite it being damn near 900 pages. He never was much for reading, but he’d listen to Sarah talk about her books for hours.
“I’ll help ya out,” Tommy said, replacing the book on the coffee table and relaxing against the back of the couch. “Between the two of us and the little library here in Jackson, we’ll be able to find them.”
“I’ll let her know she’s got someone else hard at work on the case,” Joel said with a quiet chuckle.
“So,” Tommy started. “You two likin’ the place so far?”
“What’s not to like?” Joel asked rhetorically. “Appreciate you and Maria lettin’ us stay.”
“You’re family, Joel,” Tommy assured him.
“Still,” Joel said stubbornly. “And I’m sorry about not bein’ able to return everything the way we left with it,” he said, addressing the missing horse. No one had even asked, and Tommy hadn’t cared. He noticed in the time between their arrival and now, but it wasn’t something that he was going to make an issue out of, not now that they were back in relatively good shape.
“No one’s holdin’ anything against you, Joel,” Tommy told him honestly. “We all just want to make sure you two are okay.”
Joel opened his mouth to respond, but as soon as he did, they could both hear the soft sounds of footsteps from upstairs. They both looked up toward the ceiling as if they could see through it. There were the sounds of two different doors creaking open before the steps walked back the other way and started down the stairs and Ellie appeared at the bottom moments later.
She looked like she had seen a ghost. It was a corny euphemism, but it was the best way to describe Ellie’s appearance. She was pale, eyes wide, jaw stiff, and fists clenched. Her body wracked with anxiety, and her breaths came in loud and fast inhales and exhales. Joel was up and by her side in an instant, speaking to her lowly and comfortingly.
“Are you okay?” Tommy could make out even though Joel asked it in a hushed tone. He watched as Joel reached out to put a hand on her shoulder and rubbed it carefully.
Ellie nodded, glancing at Tommy quickly out of the corner of her eye. He tried to smile reassuringly from across the room, but she had already returned her full attention to Joel. Her breathing began to come back under control, chest rising and falling at a more normal rate the longer she stood there.
“I’ll come up in just a minute,” he told her gently, moving his hand up to her head to smooth her hair down around her face. He spoke in a way that Tommy hadn’t heard in something like twenty years, soft and low and full of affection. It affected Tommy more than it should, watching his gruff brother, unfailingly Joel, but a version that was softened by this teenage girl.
Even just seeing Ellie with her hair out of her usual ponytail felt weird and personal. Watching this interaction felt like intruding on something very private, but somehow he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He wanted to tell Ellie it was okay, that he could never judge her, that she was deserving of kindness and tenderness, that being afraid was nothing to be ashamed of, especially not in a world like this one. Instead he sat in silence, taking in every aspect of the interaction from his place on the couch across the room.
Ellie nodded wordlessly again, but Tommy could practically see her lean into Joel, even if just slightly. “It’s okay,” Joel encouraged her as she turned around and retreated back up the stairs. He stood at the base of the steps and watched her go all the way up before walking back over to Tommy.
“She’s still havin’ a bit of trouble sleepin’,” Joel explained needlessly, now standing in the center of his own living room awkwardly.
“What happened out there, Joel?” Tommy asked, the words rushing out before he could stop himself. He had carefully avoided asking any prying questions, not wanting to be in their business, but he couldn’t help it now. He watched the shift in Ellie’s behavior, learned that they were both having issues adjusting, and now watched her suffer from a nightmare.
Joel stiffened at the question, looking down at his socked feet and shaking his head. “Ain’t really for me to say,” Joel said. “But it was bad, Tommy. I’m tryin’ my best to make it better now.”
“Was it the Fireflies?” Tommy asked, forging on now that he’s opened up the can of worms anyway.
“Nah,” Joel said, chuckling dryly, now looking off to the side. “Ran into some other folks in Colorado. Fireflies had left town, moved on to Salt Lake City. Got my ass hurt, and she saved my damn life. She got tangled up with some people who had a community of their own down there while I was down and out. Still don’t know all the details, to be honest. But she’s had…bad nights ever since.”
“Jesus,” Tommy said, not sure what else to contribute. He didn’t have to imagine the evil people who were out there nor what they would do to a teenage girl given the chance. The guilt bubbled back up, imagining how things could have been different if he had just gone with them. Maybe Joel wouldn’t have gotten hurt. Maybe Ellie wouldn’t have been affected like this. Maybe they would have made it back before the storms of the winter.
“I ain’t meanin’ to kick you out,” Joel started after a moment of silence. “There just ain’t much that calms her back down after this happens, so I’ve gotta -”
“I get it,” Tommy interjected, standing and leaving his glass on the coffee table. “We’ll catch up a bit another time. Talk workin’ and other shit.”
“That would be good,” Joel said distractedly, picking up the same Harry Potter book that had been the topic of conversation just a few minutes ago, nodding as Tommy moved toward the front door.
“Goodnight, Joel,” Tommy said, offering a slight smile before ducking out the front door.
“Night, Tommy,” Joel responded.
When Tommy looked back to close the door behind him, Joel was already halfway up the stairs.
//
“So I take it you didn’t get around to talking about school,” Maria said as soon as she entered the room, one look at Tommy’s tired face probably telling her everything she needed to know. She settled into bed next to where he was propped up against the headboard, watching him carefully, her eyes conveying a great amount of understanding.
“Not quite,” Tommy said, a dry laugh forcing its way out. He wasn’t able to keep sustained eye contact with her, worried that his face would betray him and reveal all of his emotions when he was trying to hold it together.
He had immediately walked upstairs and gotten ready for bed after he returned from Joel’s, not even stopping to talk to Maria who was still up and working in the kitchen. Seeing Ellie like that made him feel physically ill, the curious and snarky teenager he met just a few months ago reduced to a fearful shell of herself.
“I’ll stop pushing them,” Maria said, leaning against Tommy’s shoulder. He raised his arm to wrap it around her. She was intuitive, could sense things before he even said them. He loved her for it, was constantly astounded by her brilliance and ability to understand things that she would outwardly insist that she didn’t. “What do they need right now?”
“Just time I reckon,” Tommy said. “And those Harry Potter books for Ellie,” he added with a sad smile.
“Time, we certainly have plenty of,” Maria said. “Those books, on the other hand…We may have to send a search party through Jackson to round them up. But I think we can make it happen.”
He pressed a kiss to the top of Maria’s head and brought his other hand across his body to rest on her fully-rounded belly, resting it there before rubbing gentle circles over the fabric of her t-shirt.
“Thank you,” he said into her hair. “For everything,” he emphasized, applying the slightest pressure to where their baby was resting, growing, already so well cared for by the woman he loved.
She turned her head to press a kiss of her own to his collarbone in a wordless response, resting her hand on top of Tommy’s, her intention perfectly clear even without verbalizing it.
Time, they could certainly do. In a world as cruel as this one, time was a privilege he wasn’t sure he’d ever be afforded.
They’d start with time. And, with enough of it, he’d help make everything right.