Archive of Our Own

There was a cocoon that existed on the living room couch.

It was a chaotic jumble of blankets (always more than one, generally less than four), a barricade of pillows piled up against the armrest (and Joel's own pillow often took up residence here, stealthily relocated from his bed during the day when he wasn’t looking; “I don’t know, man,” she always told him with a shrug, “it just kind of wanders down here on its own,”), of sweaters and hoodies scattered across the couch because whenever Joel had the fire going Ellie oscillated between being “too hot” and “too cold” with rapid frequency. 

And there were books – a comically excessive amount, far too many of them for her to possibly be reading all at the same time. They tumbled out from the folds of blankets every time Joel dared to attempt tidying up, his quest for a sliver of order in this corner of the living room apparently an endeavor in futility. He learned his lesson about this early on, learned to press his hands to the blankets to feel for hard corners before pulling on them, because a misplaced bookmark or a dented hardcover was apparently a transgression worthy of icy silence afterward. 

Joel barely registered the mess as an inconvenience, this nest that Ellie had built for herself and which had become a semi-permanent fixture on her “half” of the couch (because that was where he had to draw the line: at him also occasionally needing a place to sit down). She’d found comfort in the tactile, soft things to soothe the day’s abrasive edges, and she clung to them with a fierceness that would have been alarming if he didn’t also understand it, this reflection of his own weariness.

Weeks after their return to Jackson, this shared fatigue was only just beginning to ebb. Their first few days after showing up at the gates were too much of a blur to even be notable: there was only shock on Tommy’s face, a clear suggestion of disbelief that after months of being gone over a harsh winter, his brother had managed to find his way back to him; there were Maria’s firmly pursed lips amongst the backdrop of an otherwise carefully neutral expression; and there was a house provided to them – the same blue house they’d stayed in during the previous winter, just across the street. And while Joel recognized that this was likely born out of a need to keep an eye on both of them, he was too exhausted to particularly care. He and Ellie walked through the front door of that house on one sunny, though chilly spring afternoon, and they let it swallow them. Time seemed to lose its definition within those walls, measured only in the sluggish crawl of recovery.

They slept, mostly, this much-needed rest punctuated only by brief awakenings to nibble on the food that Tommy diligently brought to them. There was no schedule to follow at first, no expectation that they would immediately morph themselves into functioning members of this newfound community – there was just rest and warmth and food and one overly-concerned brother who couldn’t stop his eyes from lingering over the way their clothing hung so loosely on their mutually shrunken frames whenever he briefly stopped by (which was often).

The house was too large, Ellie complained. The food was too rich, and it made her stomach queasy. The air was different here, unusually dry and arid for spring, stealing moisture from their lungs and leaving their lips cracked and bleeding. Their immune systems crashed pretty much immediately, Tommy unknowingly bringing a cold with him one day that left them both miserable and full of phlegm, and Joel developed a cough that lingered for more than a week, a violent expulsion that sometimes made him grip his stomach as though he was trying to prevent his scar from tearing open, a pained expression twisting up his features that he immediately softened whenever he noticed that Ellie was looking at him with any amount of concern.

Ellie struggled to sleep alone at night. Joel pretended not to notice it, choosing instead to maintain a facade of obliviousness whenever he awoke to find her curled up on the floor next to his bed, wrapped in a blanket with her pillow under her head. She tried to sleep in her own room, she really did – but there was something about it, about the peeling pink and white wallpaper, the frilly curtains, the colorful bedspread, the ghost of their last conversation in that room before the university, before Colorado, before Salt Lake City, that made her unable to stay there for more than an hour or two at a time at night.

He grew accustomed to turning over in the weak morning light, instinctively glancing at the floor in front of the door to find her there resting fitfully, mumbling and twitching in her sleep. He waited her out every time, feigning sleep as the birds began their morning songs and gradually roused her into consciousness, and eventually she would rise from the floor, a sleep-tousled wraith dragging her makeshift bed back to her own room. He always gave it another twenty minutes or so before he dared to get out of bed, willing himself to play along with this ruse, this carefully constructed illusion that he didn’t know where she spent her nights.

They otherwise walked around the house as though they were in a daze for that first couple of weeks, sometimes passing one another in the hallways without a word exchanged between them, sometimes eating meals together in stony silence, sometimes laughing together at one of the movies that Tommy brought them from the library, along with a steady stream of books for Ellie. The books sparked the start of the couch cocoon; it began one afternoon with just one blanket and one book, and Joel was glad for the stillness of it once he’d recovered a little from his cough, grateful for an opportunity to get something done around the house (and oh, there was plenty to fix) without wondering about what she was doing or how she was feeling, because every time he poked his head back into the living room she was still there, still absolutely enraptured by Jurassic Park .

It was a very fragile sort of truce that they seemed to have silently agreed upon. They didn’t talk about it , because there wasn’t anything to talk about. And this was easy enough when they were confined to the house together, when neither one of them had to face the rest of the world. But it was never destined to last, because just a few weeks after their arrival, Maria showed up on their porch instead of Tommy, a decidedly tight smile stretched unnaturally across her face. She nodded cordially when Joel stepped aside to let her through, and she walked into the living room, looking around as though she’d never seen the inside of this house before.

Joel hadn’t known what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t what ended up coming out of her mouth: “I think you should come to dinner tonight, at our house.” She said it like she was expecting a fight, one hand resting possessively at the bottom of her straining stomach as though to remind him that she was carrying his niece or nephew. “Both of you. There are things we need to talk about.”

She didn’t linger long enough for anyone to argue about it; she just waited for Joel to give her a small, jerky nod, she smiled at Ellie and her couch cocoon, and she left after telling them to show up at six o’clock.

“Well, that seems like a stupid idea,” said Ellie flatly, once she was gone, but Joel wasn’t fooled by it. He heard the edge in her words; that slight shakiness that she tried to disguise with aloofness, the way she immediately returned her eyes to her book as though she couldn’t even be bothered to discuss it any further.

“Yeah,” he sighed, “but we’re goin’.”

✦–✧✦✧–✦

They arrived at Tommy and Maria’s front door about ten minutes after six, mostly because Ellie had purposefully dawdled and dragged her feet just so they would be a little bit late. Maria, disappointingly, didn’t rise to this obvious bait. She just smiled when she opened the door, ushering them inside and leading them toward the dining room where Tommy, his cheer strained at the edges, was already pouring drinks into short glasses.

Ellie had actually forgotten that Joel had never been inside of their house before; he’d never stood in this living room, had never seen the memorial scrawled on the chalkboard that leaned atop the fireplace mantle. To his credit, this only seemed to momentarily unmoor him; she was right behind him when his pace hitched, eyes locked above the fireplace, and she was the only one to see him course-correct, to watch him square his shoulders and keep marching forward in a jerky sort of way, his grip on the glass Tommy handed to him immediately too tight, his knuckles white. Tommy smiled when they clinked their glasses together, but Joel didn’t.

Ellie didn’t like this. She didn’t like any  of this, to be fair, this unceremoniously ripping away of the safety of her house, but she was especially not a fan of her…of her Joel immediately being forced into discomfort within ten seconds of stepping into his brother’s house. She could feel her own frustration creeping in as they sat down for dinner, and she wasn’t trying  to be difficult, but none of this was comfortable, and she found it impossible to look any of the adults in the eye, instead focusing her attention on repeatedly stabbing her potatoes.

“ – know it’s late in the school year, but that might not be the worst thing,” Maria was saying, and Ellie found herself snapping back to attention, suddenly aware they were talking about her. “There’s only a couple of months left before summer break, so we can get her settled in her class, and then she’ll be ready and better adjusted when they start again in the fall.”

“I’m not going to school,” said Ellie flatly, and there was that silence that she hated so much; adults all looking at her with matching expressions of exasperation and pity in their eyes.

“Ellie,” Maria finally said, and the excruciatingly gentle way she said it only put Ellie more on edge, “if you’re going to live here, then you have to go to school. Every child goes to school until they’re at least seventeen, then –”

“Can I go to the bathroom?” Ellie stood up abruptly, hands steepled against the smooth surface of the table. Maria didn’t really react to this besides the barely perceptible raise of one eyebrow, and on the other side of the table Joel made a somewhat uncomfortable sound in his throat, but Ellie refused to look at him.

“Sure,” Maria said finally. “It’s upstairs, just –”

“Yep, got it. I’ll find it.” She pushed away from the table before anyone could stop her, jogging through the living room and vaulting up the stairs. 

She didn’t go to the bathroom. She didn’t even need to. She snooped, instead, quietly edging open the door to what was obviously Tommy and Maria’s bedroom - a hodgepodge of wooden furniture and a neatly made bed adorned with a dark blue quilt.

She didn’t know why she was doing this. She didn’t even know what she was looking  for, yet a deep certainty pulsed within her that she would find something, some sort of damning evidence that would prove that the pushy kindness currently being shown to her by these people – these strangers  – was just some sort of ruse meant to trick her –

–and she found it. With a sharp tug, she yanked open the nightstand drawer to reveal a box of ammunition, a snub-nosed pistol, and a pendant: a flat disc of metal with the Firefly symbol stamped on one side, dangling from a slender chain. The metal felt like fire against her skin, and she didn’t know why she suddenly felt so overwhelmed by it – she knew Tommy had been a Firefly, Joel had told her this, but when she turned the pendant over in her palm she just barely glimpsed the name TOMMY MILLER imprinted in blocky letters before it disappeared, her vision blurred with tears.

✦–✧✦✧–✦

Downstairs, uncomfortable silence settled thickly between the three adults, the clinking of their forks on the ceramic plates became almost deafening. Joel glanced up from his food and watched as Maria looked over at Tommy, as if wanting to make sure he was willing to back up whatever she was about to say, before she spoke up again.

“I know that Ellie’s obviously not excited about the idea,” she said, giving Joel a pointed look, “and I’m sure you may have hesitations about it, too, but she needs–”

“What she needs is time to settle in and feel safe here, she’s had a pretty rough go of it,” Joel interrupted her, more brusque than he knew he should be with his sister-in-law, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of being twenty-two again with well-meaning relatives and neighbors and strangers on the street all quick to let him know what his kid needed, as if his every waking thought didn’t revolve around exactly that.

Tommy frowned at him, his eyes soft and worried. “Jackson’s only been up and runnin’ for seven years, and a lot of families got here after that, so all of the kids her age have been through some shit of one kind or another. The teachers here are used to helping kids deal with that stuff, she’ll be in good hands, and you ain’t gonna be far away if she needs you.”

Joel sighed, shrugging and folding his arms across his chest, not about to get into the details of the unspoken fact that Ellie had, in fact, been through shit that none of the other kids in Jackson, or anyone else in the world, for that matter, had been through. 

“I know Ellie,” he said instead, “and she’ll come around to it on her own terms when she’s ready, probably a lot quicker than if we try to strongarm her into it.”

Maria silently raised an eyebrow in a clear indication that she was not done with this discussion, but she was willing to drop it for the time being, and she went back to her dinner. Tommy and Joel followed suit.

Secretly, Joel knew that Maria wasn’t completely off-base. At some point, Ellie would need the structure and routine of school, the normalcy of being part of the community. It would be good for her to have friends her age, and to have adults besides him who she could trust. He certainly wanted that for her. Throughout all the sleepless nights on the road from Colorado to Salt Lake, he’d been comforted by the thought of a future where Ellie was safe in Jackson, happy and well-fed, laughing easily again, playing with the horses and the sheep, trading comic books with new friends.

But right now, that wasn’t what the little girl camping out on his couch and sleeping on his bedroom floor, and currently hiding in his brother’s bathroom, needed.

“I should go check on her, she’s been up there a while,” he said, getting up from his chair before he finished speaking.

Maria nodded, putting on her practiced neutral expression. “Second door on your left.”

In the narrow hallway upstairs, he gently tapped twice on the bathroom door.

“You doing alright?” he asked.

No response. He frowned, stepping a little closer and turning his good ear towards the door.

“Ellie,” he tried again, “we can go back home if this is too much right now, they’ll understand. We’re all done talking about school for tonight.”

This also didn’t garner a response, and worry began to pool at the pit of his stomach.

“Is something wrong?” He lowered his voice a bit, not needing Tommy and Maria to hear him floundering immediately after he practically insisted that he was the expert on this kid.

He expected a snippy “I’m fucking fine, Joel,” or at least some kind of unintelligible grumbled response, but again, only got silence in return.

“Is it alright if I open the door?” 

He waited a moment, and when he once again didn’t hear a response, turned the doorknob, which was unlocked. He kept his eyes averted to give her some privacy, but found the bathroom empty. He scanned the room, as if maybe she’d snuck off into some corner of the tiny room he couldn’t see, but all he found were brown glass bottles of homemade soaps and shampoos, a bathtub in need of re-caulking, and his own vaguely panicked reflection in the mirror. 

His mouth went dry, the possibilities of where she might be starting to flood his mind. Maybe the talk of school had spooked her and she’d somehow retreated back across the street without them noticing, or maybe she’d been planning this, waiting for an opportunity to bolt–

Just as the thought crossed his mind, he caught the sound of movement from another room and he whipped around, spotting the door of the room across the hall ajar. 

He stepped out of the bathroom and peeked in the doorway of the other room, breathing a sigh of relief at the sight of Ellie’s ponytail and scruffy gray hoodie in front of him. She was sitting on the floor, her back to him, in front of the nightstand, its drawer open.

“You get lost?” Joel asked from the doorway, an eyebrow raised, a smile almost reaching his lips as she froze at the sound of his voice. It was something they’d joked about on the road. She loved snooping around in the abandoned houses that they’d holed up in, poring over the twenty-year-old TV guides and junk mail and diaries she would dig up, artifacts from what felt like another world. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but it wasn’t necessarily surprising that she’d have the same lack of boundaries in the home of people who were alive and well and very much living there.

But his smile fell when she turned to look at him now, her eyes red-rimmed and tears streaking her cheeks, her knees pulled tight to her chest and her fist clenched in front of her, clutching something. She’d clearly been crying for a while, and he felt a pang of guilt for not coming up to check on her sooner.

“Oh, kiddo, what’s going on?” he said, stepping into the room and reaching out a hand to comfort her, but Ellie narrowed her eyes at him and quickly stood up and took a step back, not looking for sympathy. 

She took a shaky breath, shook her head, and walked out of the room, brushing past him and stomping down the stairs, something fell out of her hand onto a wooden step with a soft metallic clink.

“Ellie?” Joel called after her, but she’d already cleared the stairs, flying around the corner. “Ellie!” Downstairs, he heard her stomp the length of the floor, the front door swinging open and slamming shut so hard the walls rattled. 

Christ sakes, girl . 

He readied himself to make his way down the stairs to follow her, but stilled when he stepped on the thing she’d dropped. He took a step back, lifting his boot from the little silver pendant, its ball bead chain splayed on the hardwood. He didn’t need to inspect it closely – he’d picked up and tossed away enough of them to recognize what it was. The sight of it there rooted him to the spot, strong-armed every instinct he had to go after her and stop her hurting and make everything okay into paralyzed stillness.

Joel didn’t hear the first time his brother called his name. But when he returned to himself, Tommy was there in front of him on the stairs, just a few steps below. Joel was seated on the top step; he didn’t remember sitting down.

Tommy’s palms gripped his shoulders, eyes searching while he said something over and over again. 

“Joel? Can you hear me?”

That time, Tommy’s voice reached him. Joel’s limbs slotted themselves back into place with a tired resignation, and he focused enough to look Tommy in the eye. 

“You okay?”

Joel cleared his throat. “Yeah,” but it was shaky and mild, and not at all how he needed it to sound. “Yeah. I’m fine.” 

Tommy must have seen something that convinced him, because he dropped his hands from Joel’s shoulders, leaned back, one leg propped up on the step and his hands shoved in his pockets, like a mildly embarrassed captain of a ship. He blew out a breath.

“Ellie okay?” he asked.

Again, Joel felt the impulse to move, to go find Ellie and keep her in his sight.

She’s across the street. She’s fine. She’s across the street.  

He left her alone too long. She was hurting, and he left her alone.

Joel didn’t know how to answer. He breathed in and out, shaking his head.

In front of him, Tommy’s gaze fell, searching the steps between them. He was fidgety, toes tapping, tongue clicking. The moment he saw the pendant, he went quiet. He looked to Joel for no more than a moment before reaching forward to swipe it from the floor, stuffing it into his pocket. When he spoke again, his voice was heavier, soft like lead.

“You want me and Maria to check in on her?” Tommy asked.

“No,” Joel protested. He breathed out, palms gripping his knees. 

“Swear we don’t mind.”

“No, I’ll do it,” Joel insisted. “I got her.”

Lips pressed together, eyes still searching, Tommy nodded. “Yeah, I know.” He reached out and grasped Joel by the elbow to pull him to his feet, and, once steady, led the way back down the steps.

Outside on the porch, a container with two hearty helpings of potatoes and green beans in his hands, Joel surveyed the windows of the blue house across the street. The upstairs window to Ellie’s room was dark, curtains drawn. Downstairs, there was a faint orange glow in the two front windows that told him the living room light was still on. 

It hadn’t gotten easier, he thought, going to face a daughter he’d failed again, who needed comfort, with nothing to offer but himself. 

Inside, boots planted in the entryway, his eyes fell at once to the sofa – to the little cocoon of pillows and paperbacks, of blankets for too-cold and discarded socks from too-hot. It ached just a little bit more than he thought it would to find it empty.  

Joel didn’t disturb the empty cocoon. Instead, he went to the kitchen and put away their leftovers. He washed the dishes left in the sink, dried them, and put them away in their cupboards with newly oiled hinges. He filled one glass of water, and then filled another, carried both upstairs to his room and set one on the side table and the other on the floor. Across the hall, Ellie’s door was shut tight.

He left his door cracked open because he simply didn’t know how not to.

✦–✧✦✧–✦

Ellie did not go to school. While technically enrolled, whenever she was meant to be there, she could very reliably be found just about anywhere else. She had her favorite haunts, for sure, but she was way too crafty to go anywhere someone would think to find her right away. After she got caught hiding out in the back corner stall in the stables napping with an old, retired mare, and then again out behind the greenhouses nestled between a barrel of mulch and the fence, she got exceptionally creative.

One morning, before school started, Ellie loitered near the school’s front desk until the lady working there was trying to organize a group of parent volunteers that had come for some kind of event with the little kids. Ellie approached the desk from the side and when the lady noticed her, she took her chance. “I forgot my project at home. I just need to run back and grab it real quick.” She waved her off with a distracted nod, and Ellie slipped out the front door.

 The main street was relatively dead with kids in school and adults on patrol or at work assignment. Ellie still walked home at a decent clip, as fast as she could without it being noticeable. But rather than go inside to get her non-existent project, Ellie pivoted toward the stand-alone garage next to the house. She had checked it out over the weekend to make sure it wasn’t a death trap. Once she was satisfied nothing it in would kill her, she swept the floor and brought out an extra blanket and pillow so she didn’t have to spend the whole day with no cushion against the cement floor.

Once the blanket was spread out and the pillow laid on top of it, Ellie pulled out a couple pencils and the journal Maria had offered her as some kind of peace offering the first week she got back. It had done little to bridge the gap between them, but it was at least one thing that felt familiar. Something that was all her own. She laid down on her belly and began to draw, the familiar motions of sketching and shading soothing her. A longing ache for her Walkman pierced her gut, and she tried to push away the deeper pain that came with remembering, and not remembering, Salt Lake City. 

Ellie wasn’t paying attention to how much time passed while she sketched, daydreamed, and ate the lunch Joel packed for her in case she didn’t like what was being served in the dining hall. So when the door creaked open, and a new source of light brightened the room, she startled. She looked up to see Joel’s broad frame filling the doorway, hands crossed against his chest, with an expectant look on his face, probably waiting for an explanation.

“Did I at least beat my record?”

“Yes. Congratulations on your victory.”

Ellie pumped an arm in the air in celebration.

“They didn’t even notify me at first this time. Just tried your usual spots,” Joel continued. “Then some poor woman from the school showed up panickin’ at the worksite, sayin’ they couldn’t find you anywhere. That you had gone home to get a project that accordin’ to your teacher doesn’t exist. If they’d’ve told me from the beginnin’, I would have been able to tell them you were just hidin’ out at home.”

“Whatever, old man. You didn’t know I was here.”

“Saw you casin’ the joint over the weekend. You’re not as sneaky as you think.”

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

Joel walked toward her and crouched down in front of her. She could hear his joints cracking at the motion, but a stern look from Joel stopped her from making a comment. He sighed and looked her in the eyes.

“Listen, Ellie, I’m not gonna force you to do somethin’ you don’t want to do. I want you safe and healthy and happy. And if that means no school right now then so be it. But I think you’re missin’ out on an opportunity. You got a chance to make friends, be a kid, and all that. I know it’s hard, but I think it’s worth a shot.” Joel stood back up, telling Ellie that he didn’t expect an answer from her right then. “You can stay out here as long as you like. I’ll be in the house. If you decide to go somewhere else let me know.” 

Longing for a more comfortable surface, she gathered up her things and relocated to the living room couch, cocooning herself in the half that she’d claimed for herself. Joel’s words echoed in her head, her desire to make Joel happy at war with her hatred of school. Rather than dwell on it, she picked up a book from under the blanket and read until Joel came back into the living room and announced, “We’re goin’ to Tommy and Maria’s for dinner again tonight.”

“Because that went so well the last time,” she said and added an eye roll for good measure. She set her book down and looked up at Joel. “I don’t want to go.”

“I’m not all that thrilled about it either, but they’re family. And I think they’d like the chance to get to know you. They promised not to bring up the school thing.”

Ellie huffed and picked her book back up. They’re not my family was what she wanted to say, but she wasn’t ready to have that conversation with Joel. She figured managing an awkward dinner would be easier, so she resigned herself to spending the evening getting lectured by Maria about the importance of assimilation to the community.

Dinner started out relatively well. Ellie could still tell her truancy was a point of contention between Joel and Maria from the tense silences that hung heavy between conversation topics. Maria and Joel seemed to be trying to have entire conversations through pointed looks, raised eyebrows, and heavy sighs. Tommy, ever the peacemaker, did his best to start casual conversations, avoiding anything that might spark a debate at the dinner table. While Ellie could have helped him, she found it more entertaining to watch him flounder when the charisma he usually used to charm everyone failed. 

It wasn’t until Tommy and Ellie left Maria and Joel in the living room while they did the dishes that it all went to hell. Tommy had picked up that Ellie wasn’t feeling particularly chatty, so they washed and dried in silence. When they were about halfway done, raised voices started to carry into the kitchen from the living room.

“You can’t keep enabling her to do whatever she wants. She’s a child!”

“She ain’t like most of the other kids here, Maria. You don’t know what she’s been through.”

“I’m sure I can take a guess.”

Before Tommy could stop her, Ellie marched into the living room, fists clenched, built-up anger threatening to explode.

“What gives you the right to judge Joel, huh?” Ellie glared daggers at Maria. “You think because Tommy told you some sob story about how Joel made him do a bunch of bad stuff, that you know him? You think Tommy is innocent?”

“I know that Joel–”

“You don’t. You don’t know shit about Joel. And it seems like you don’t know shit about Tommy either. Did you know he was a Firefly? After he left Joel? They were the kind of people that planted bombs in the city, and didn’t give a single fuck who might be caught in the explosion. They would recruit teenagers, kids my age, to do their dirty work. Use them however they wanted in their grand plan to overthrow FEDRA. They would leave them in abandoned malls, with pipe bombs and infected, and they didn’t even care!” Ellie’s breath was coming rapidly. Treacherous tears welled up in her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. “Stop fucking pretending like you and Tommy have the moral high ground.”

“Ellie–” Joel put a hand on her shoulder but she shrugged him off.

“Can we leave now?”

 Joel nodded and followed her out the front door and back across the street. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Ellie said as soon as the front door closed behind them. “I’m just going to go to bed.”

“If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

The next morning, Ellie woke up with a headache, likely from all the crying the night before. She decided that she definitely wasn’t going to school today and since Joel discovered her garage hiding spot far too easily, it was time for her to pull out the big guns.

It was easy to peel off from a group of teenagers she’d joined on the walk to school, having waved off Joel with a complaint: “Dude, I’m not going to be able to make any friends if you walk me to school everyday like a kindergartner.” One of the benefits of being the new girl who didn’t go out of her way to talk to anyone meant no one noticed. As she wound through some of the smaller streets, putting more and more distance between her and school, she pulled the hood of her jacket up and kept her head low just to be safe. After a quick detour - definitely not getting lost- she arrived at her destination.

The abandoned barn loomed at the end of a street of empty houses that Ellie had heard Joel and Tommy talking about being next on the list for renovation. Its dilapidated facade was almost comical, with just enough paint left to show the rest had been weathered away by the many years of neglect, and two thin planks hanging from the top of the door frame as the only remaining barrier to entry. However, Ellie’s initial inspection deemed it the perfect hideout for the day. It was far enough away from the main part of town and the wall that there wouldn’t be any foot traffic nearby. Based on her eavesdropping, the teens used this barn when they wanted to drink hard cider and smoke homegrown weed on the weekends. It was unclear whether or not any of their parents or other adults knew about the place, but she figured since she came by herself and she’d never actually been invited to hang out here before, no one would think to look here. 

As soon as she walked in, Ellie spotted some stairs that led to what she assumed was a hayloft. It seemed like the best place to set up camp. She didn’t think about the twenty-year-old steps until she heard the cracking sound of splintering wood and her left foot fell right through the rotten plank. Her right leg landed hard against the stairs but she managed to save her face from the same fate by getting her arms out in front of her. Once the adrenaline passed, she looked down to see her leg through the step up to her thigh. Any attempt to use her right leg for leverage to pull her trapped leg out was met with a sharp pain shooting up her leg. 

She was stuck.

Shit. 

✦–✧✦✧–✦

Dina sighed, her boots crunching across the hard-packed dirt path. Why was Jesse such an idiot all the time? Why were there only 10 people her own age in this stupid town?

She knew that Jesse didn’t mean to drive her crazy, but damn sometimes he said the stupidest shit. She didn’t care that Haley ‘fucking’ Osmand said they should be dating. She would date who she wanted when she wanted to. Sure, she’d kissed Jesse a few times when they were at a party, and yes, okay, maybe a few times when they were alone together too. That didn’t mean they were going out.

They'd known each other since they were kids, and everyone just expected it. Yeah, she liked Jesse, but maybe she didn’t really want to date him, okay? But then again- taking him out of the equation left her with few remaining choices.

Dina had finally made it to the old barn when she heard a string of muffled expletives from inside.

“Godamn, motherfucking shitty stairs. Of course, of course, you fucking break. You go fucking 20 years into the fungus apocalypse just fine, but little old Ellie Williams is the final fucking straw, is that it? Shit this really fucking hurts, fuuuuuck.” Dina heard several low, repeated thumps against wood.

She came around the corner and gasped when she saw Ellie, the new girl who came into town a few months ago with her dad, half sprawled on the hayloft steps. She couldn’t really make sense of why she was lying the way she was until she saw the splintered wood surrounding her leg and the deep crimson blood slowly dripping down onto the floor beneath her.

“Holy shit! Are you okay?” Dina cried, rushing forward.

Ellie’s head shot up from where it was resting against one of the steps. Her eyes rounded with surprise. They were red from crying. She immediately used one of her sleeves to wipe at her face, trying to hide the evidence of her tears, and said, “I’m fine. Nothing to see here. Go on about your business.” She tried pushing herself off the stairs with a grunt and actually seemed to make some headway, but then something caught on her leg, and she cried out in pain, falling back against the damaged stairs. “Crap!”

Dina watched the stream of blood trickling down Ellie's leg intensify. “ Stop!” 

She stepped up to her, putting her hand on her shoulder. Ellie flinched away hard, fresh tears tracking down her face. Dina moved back a step, keeping her hands out in a calming motion. “You have to stop. Your leg is bleeding pretty badly.”

Ellie groaned and banged her head down on the stairs, making the same dull thumping noise Dina had heard earlier.

“I think I can get you out, but I need to get help.” Dina examined under the steps and could see the offending piece of wood that was lodged against Ellie’s thigh. It was on the outside, not near any major arteries, so hopefully, the girl wouldn’t bleed out. “Why did you try going up into the hayloft? Everyone knows that the stairs aren’t safe.”

“I didn’t fucking know. I just got here.” Ellie grated. She took a deep breath and turned her face back to Dina. “Do you have to get someone? Can’t you just help? I’m… not really supposed to be here.”

Dina sighed and shook her head. “I’m really sorry, but we need someone else to pull you out from the top while I maneuver your leg from underneath.” Ellie groaned again, lying her face flat against the step, blowing out a deep breath. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m not supposed to be here either. So we’ll both be in trouble.”

Ellie snorted, “Yeah, but you don’t have Joel to contend with.” 

Dina tilted her head, confused. “Joel? Oh, do you mean your dad?”

“He’s not my dad, but, yeah, that’s who I mean,” Ellie grunted, her tone resigned. 

Dina immediately felt a sense of dread creep up her spine. She knew that this new guy was supposed to be Tommy’s brother. Up until they’d gotten here though, no one knew that he had a brother. Tommy never talked about him, never even hinted that he had any other family. But then, one day, Joel just showed up out of nowhere with a young girl in tow, and everyone just assumed it was his daughter.

“You’re not his daughter? Is he like your guardian or something?”

“Sure, I guess you could call him that.”

Dina remembered stories of people trafficking kids back before she came to Jackson, the fear she would see in her sister's eyes whenever they would come across other people on the road. 

Is that what this is? Was Ellie some sort of slave? “I’m-I’m not sure how to ask this… but do you need help?”

Ellie looked at her confusion written across her face. “Ah duh, yeah, I thought we’d already established that.”

“No, no. Sorry… I don’t mean… of course, you need help with this.” Dina said, waving her hands at the blood on the floor and the broken stairs. “I meant, do you need help… um, getting away from Joel? Is he holding you against your will?” Dina lowered her voice. “Does he hurt you?”

The confusion on Ellie’s face morphed into understanding and then disgust, “Oh no… no, no, no. Shit no. It’s not like that.” She tried pushing herself up again but immediately fell back with a hiss of pain. Dina suddenly noticed how pale her face was starting to look and realized maybe this particular conversation could wait.

“Shit, okay. You have to stop moving. I’m going to get help.” Dina started to turn.

“Wait, wait. Joel’s not like that, I swear. He is my guardian. We just haven’t really talked about what-what that means yet, okay? But I’m supposed to be with him; he’s not hurting me or anything.” Ellie said a little breathlessly. Motes of dust floated around her face and lips as she spoke, her voice softening. “He wouldn’t ever hurt me.” Ellie squeezed her eyes shut and sighed. “He’s gonna be so worried. Shit.”

Dina reached out slowly and touched Ellie’s hand resting on the stairs. “It’s going to be okay. Just- hold on.”

“Don’t really have a choice,” Ellie mumbled, gripping Dina’s hand weakly. 

“Dee?” Dina heard Jesse’s muffled voice call from outside of the barn. “Dee, I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad.” She heard crunching on the stones just outside the door, and then Jesse swung into the barn, his hand gripping the door frame. “Dee?” Dina turned and watched as his mouth opened in a wide O . “Dina? What happened? Is that the new girl?” Dina recognized when Jesse saw the blood because his face visibly paled. “Oh, shit!”

“Jesse, thank God. I need your help getting her out. She fell through the stairs.”

“Crap, I can see that,” Jesse said, coming up slowly, bending down to look where Ellie’s leg was stuck. “Now, why’d you go and do that?” Jesse asked, looking back up to Ellie with a raised brow.

“Oh, I don’t know. Figured there wasn’t enough fucking excitement in my life right now, why not just hurt myself in some possibly fatal way in any out-of-the-way location where no one was sure to find me,” Ellie grumbled, rolling her eyes.

“Welp, it’s just your luck that I said something stupid, and Dina got mad at me and decided to storm off to that out-of-the-way location then, right?” Jesse propped his hands on his hips and gave Ellie a wide grin, even white teeth shining in the sun peeking through the window.

“Sure, dude, just my fucking luck. Now, can you please get me out of this before I bleed to death?” Ellie panted, her face growing grayer by the minute.

Jesse waved her off. “You’re not going to bleed to death. Dina, you got her leg?” He turned to Dina, and she nodded. One nice thing about knowing someone for so long was that after a while, you just knew what the other person was going to do. So Dina crawled under the steps, and Jesse carefully climbed over the top of Ellie, keeping his feet to the outside of the steps, where he was safe from falling in.

“Okay, kid,” Jesse started before Ellie interrupted him, gritting through her teeth.

“I’m not a kid.”

“Fine.” Jess rolled his eyes. “Ellie. I’m going to grab you under your arms and pull while Dina maneuvers your leg out of the hole. You just have to hold still, okay? That’s your only job. It’s gonna probably fucking hurt, like a lot.” 

Ellie’s eyes were glassy, and her face was covered with a thin sheen of sweat as she bit her bottom lip. Finally, she let out a ragged breath and nodded. “Fine, whatever. Let's just get this over with.”

Jess reached down and grabbed under her armpits, planting his feet securely on the step below where her leg was trapped. “Alright, Dina, you ready?” He called. Dina grabbed Ellie’s leg firmly, causing her to gasp in pain.

“Sorry, sorry.” Dina soothed, loosening her grip just a little. “Yeah, I’m going to start trying to move it. Pull up slowly, Jesse. I mean, really slow,” she called loudly.

“I got it,” He yelled back.

“Okay, on three. One, two, three!” Dina called, and she started to maneuver Ellie’s leg away from the inwardly bent wood as Jesse pulled slowly upward. Ellie moaned roughly as Dina manipulated her leg through the hole, causing the wound to stretch and pull. “Okay, you can go a little faster, Jesse,” Dina said as the meat of Ellie’s thigh cleared the splinted step. Jesse grunted and pulled Ellie up the last few feet, Dina making sure that her leg stayed clear. Finally, Ellie’s boot was through the hole, and Dina let go, quickly popping up from underneath. “Jesse, over here.”

Jesse twisted, a wan, limp Ellie in his arms, and Dina grabbed onto her legs. Together, they carefully lowered her to the barn floor.

“You look like shit,” Jesse observed, letting go of Ellie’s arms.

“Gee, thanks,” Ellie panted, shrugging her shoulders weakly. “ Shit was the look I was going for when I left the house this morning.”

Dina chuckled, surprised. She had no idea how this girl was still so sassy when she looked like death. Her hair was a tangled mess, loose pieces floating around her pale face. Jeans ripped and bloody, sweat-soaked shirt plastered to her thin torso. Her wound looked raw and ragged, still sluggishly leaking blood.

Dina pulled off her overshirt and handed it to Jesse. “I need you to rip that into three pieces.” Jesse took it without complaint but gave her a nervous look. Both of their eyes panned down to Ellie on the floor. Her eyes were pinched shut, breathing shallow and stuttering. They needed to hurry this up.

Dina leaned down over Ellie and brushed back the hair from her face. Ellie’s eyes flew open, her body tensed, hand coming up weakly to try and bat her away. Dina gently took hold of it instead and whispered softly, “Hey, hey, it’s okay–just me, Dina. You’re alright. We’re going to get your leg bandaged up and then get you to the clinic. It’s gonna hurt. I’m sorry.”

“Just do it. I’ve had worse.” Ellie gritted her teeth and nodded before letting her eyes fall shut.

“Alright, Jesse, do it,” Dina said, squeezing Ellie’s fingers lightly. Jesse grimaced but got to work.

“Don’t drop her.” Dina gasped out of breath.

“I’m not going to drop her.” Jesse hissed. Ellie hung limp in his arms as they ran.

“Ellie!” A deep male voice boomed from ahead of them.

“Oh shit,” Dina and Jesse swore and froze as Joel barreled towards them.

✦–✧✦✧–✦

Healing, as it turned out, happened on no one’s time than its own.

Ellie spent two days in the clinic, where they put seventeen stitches in her leg and pumped her full of painkillers that made her feel like she was a cloud. Not floating on a cloud, she apparently insisted to Joel, over and over, but a cloud. He humored her and then took her home, where she was regulated to her corner of the couch - to the pile of blankets there, freshly washed and smelling like Maria’s lavender detergent; to her pile of comics and her pillows in their faded Star Wars cases and her stack of movies from the library. Back to her corner, where she was comfortable-

And alone.

The first few days weren’t so bad. She was still on a high enough dosage of pain killers that things like time and substance and space and breathing seemed very immaterial, very transcendental. But after they lowered her dosage, when the moments of clarity came to her in bursts of startlingly bright pain, when the world stopped sloshing around her, she found, weirdly, that her little corner of the couch just wasn’t really doing it for her anymore.

It didn’t help that she was completely useless. The doctors at the clinic had given her a pair of crutches, but Joel didn’t even let her use them. She was under strict instructions to holler for him if she needed anything, which even she found sorta annoying after awhile. Tommy brought her over a little bell, which provided entertainment for a single afternoon until Joel took it from her and threw it out the window. And then, after that, she was just bored.

And angry. Mostly at herself, but also at whoever put that fucking barn there to begin with, and also a little with Dina and Jesse, who ratted her out to Joel. And she was pretty embarrassed too, and she was in pain now, all the time. She could barely even use the toilet on her own, and her hair was starting to get greasy, and her spot on the couch was starting to feel more and more like a cage with every passing day, and all of this sort of tangled up inside of her to form one big knot of dread, and most of all: she couldn’t figure out why no one else felt this way, or if they did how they were so good at hiding it, and most of all- she didn’t know why Joel wasn’t mad at her. 

He would have been, on the road, for this sort of thing. One time in Nebraska she climbed a tree after he told her not to and fell and banged her head up a little, and he was pretty pissed off at her then. And this - this was way worse, and he hadn’t even said anything to her about it except to make sure she was feeling okay, and living in this limbo - waiting and waiting and waiting for the other shoe to fall, for him to lose it - was starting to make her itch all over, underneath her skin where she couldn’t get at it. Every time he brought her dinner in the living room or helped her up the stairs to the bathroom she wanted to scream at him why are you being so nice to me? When he washed and dressed her wounds, murmuring apologies the whole time, every inch of him tender and careful, she wanted to dig her knuckles deep inside of the cuts on her thigh and demand that he do the same. One day, finally, five or six days after the whole fucking thing had happened, she snapped at him:

”Why aren’t you mad at me?”

He blinked at her, long and slow and, in Ellie’s opinion, sort of stupid. “You do something I don’t know about?”

She huffed, flopped back against the couch cushions. “About this, dude.”

He’d been sitting on the coffee table, carefully rewrapping her leg. Now he shook his head and stood, stooping over to start picking up the medical supplies from where he’d set them on the varnished wood table top beside him. “There’s nothin’ to be mad at here, Ellie.”

“Yeah- but -”

She stopped, flummoxed. Joel cocked an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, what?”

“You asked me to tell you where I was going,” she said at last. A rush of shame, heady and hot, unfurled in her stomach, licked tongues of flame up the back of her neck. “And I didn’t. And I got hurt.”

Joel squinted at her, then at the bandages and jar of ointment in his hands. He fiddled with the cap of the jar for a second. “You want me to be mad at you about that?” He asked at last, and she sighed, dug the heels of her palms into her eyes. 

“Not really.”

“Alright then.”

Apparently satisfied, he went into the kitchen and started banging pots around like he was fixing to start dinner at two in the afternoon. Ellie sat on the couch, chin tucked into her chest, fighting against the burning ache in the back of her jaw that always signaled the start of her fucking crying, and then Joel appeared back in the doorway. He had his coat on and her’s in his hand.

”Put this on,” he ordered, tossing it at her. She caught it, confused.

“Dude-”

“Do what I say.” He disappeared again. She heard the back door in the kitchen open and close. Sitting up, she slipped one arm, then the other, into her jacket. She was just buttoning it when Joel came back into the living room and without any warning, scooped her up against his chest. 

She shrieked. “Joel- you asshole-”

"I hurt you?”

She glared. “No, but - some fucking warning would be nice.”

Joel grunted, bent with her still in his arms till she was dipping closer to the couch than she was comfortable with. She snaked one arm around his neck, and he said against the side of her head, “I ain’t gonna drop you. Grab one’a them blankets. It’s chilly.”

She used her free arm to snag one of the blankets off the couch, and trailed it behind them as Joel set a pace through the living room to the kitchen, then out the back door, where he deposited her, gently, into the porch swing. “Get your leg up,” he said, and she hitched her leg up slowly till he could ease a pillow underneath it. He took the blanket from her and took a minute to fuss with it, tucking it beneath her thighs and her back till she was wrapped up like a caterpillar in a cocoon. “You comfy?” He asked, and she nodded. “You warm?”

“It’s barely even cold,” Ellie pointed out, and Joel huffed.

”Humor me.” He stood up, stretching out his back with his hands on his hips, then stepped down off the porch into their yard. “Don’t go nowhere,” he warned, and Ellie threw out a hand towards her busted leg in exasperation.

“Dude!”

The asshole laughed - actually fucking laughed, the nerve of him - and jogged across the lawn to the garage. He was only gone a minute or two, but when he came out, he had his guitar on its strap across his back and another one in his hands. He stepped up onto the porch and, almost shyly, held it out to Ellie.

Her throat felt tight. There was that ache in her jaw again. The guitar - and the hand holding it, and the arm attached to that hand, and the man attached to the arm - fractured into a million glittery little prisms of light in front of her. She shook her head, rubbed at her eyes with her shoulder. “Joel-”

"I was gonna wait for your birthday,” he said. His voice was thick, a little more halting than it had been in a while. “But I, uh - well, I figured with you laid up for a bit longer, you might be able to use the time to learn a thing or two.”

She felt herself smile. She rubbed at her eyes again. “Joel-”

“Now, you don’t have to go thanking me or anything,” he interrupted. The smile he shot her was rounded and full, a little teasing around the edges. “But I did promise to teach you. And well - we got ourselves some time now, honey. Don’t reckon we oughtta let it go to waste.”

Ellie closed her hand around the fret, brought the instrument to rest in the bowl of her lap. It was shiny and smooth, a deep ochre that reminded her of the red clay cliffs in Utah, of the foothills around the Rocky Mountains in the fall, of the way the air shimmered, bejeweled and lurid, around the edges of the cradle of their little valley at sundown. There was a moth engraved on the top of the neck, right below the head, a small white thing, pearly and luminescent and perfect. She touched the tip of one finger to it, softly, felt the thrumming of that moment all the way down to the very hollows of her bones.

“You made this?” She asked, and the look Joel cast her was enraptured and tender and so full of that thing they were both too afraid to name, even now. 

“Yeah,” he replied. His fist flexed open and closed against his thigh. “You, uh- you like it?”

She strummed a note on the guitar, watched it tremble, sanguine and solemn, like an oath, on the air in between them.

“I love it,” she said.

When she glanced back up at him and the way his face was crinkling up even more around his eyes she couldn’t hold in a laugh, and when he chuckled too it felt like something that had been tightening in her chest might be ready to unwind instead. 

“You’ll love it more when we get you playin’ some music you like,” he said. She could hear in his voice that he was still grinning. “Learnin’ to play is about bein’ patient ,” he said, shooting her a pointed look and getting an eye roll out of her. “Takes time. And practicin’ can feel a bit dry when you’re startin’ out, but -”

“Sounds like a blast,” Ellie sighed, only half teasing him. 

He huffed out a breath. “ But,” he continued, “a little bit every day for a while, you’ll get there fast enough. First lesson whenever you’re feelin’ up to it. Hm?”

“Okay,” she said softly.

Joel twisted his guitar around in front of him as he took his own seat on the porch steps. She kept her eyes on him, watching the way that he tugged his guitar into place and his body just knew how to curve around it, his hands finding their homes so easily it was like they were coming to rest. She tried to mirror him, awkwardly, cringing at herself while she did. But she plucked at another string, and the burst of sound gave her a little thrill in her chest anyway. 

She tried to wiggle her way into a comfortable position but couldn’t quite get there - the bulk of her coat was scrunched up in between her and the guitar, and the blanket made it sit just high enough on her lap she couldn’t loop her arm quite right without feeling a tug in her shoulder. Still - she ran her nails along the strings again, and imagined for a moment what it would be like to actually be able to play the way Joel could.

“You wanna hear somethin’?” he asked. His hands were moving, playing something so faintly with the pads of his fingers that she could barely make it out. “I believe I did agree to a song, too,” he added. “F’your feelin’ mean enough to hold me to it.” 

However he’d done it, the gleaming, gentle moment Joel had pulled out of seemingly nowhere fell apart as Ellie remembered her unfulfilled side of the agreement. 

“You don't have to do this stuff for me,” she said, the guitar suddenly feeling heavier in her lap. She heard Joel’s hands still but kept her eyes looking down as she moved, putting the guitar down on the ground and leaning it against the swing. The bench rocked forward a little as she shifted, the chain creaking into the quiet air. She kept one hand on the neck of the guitar to keep it upright until the movement stopped. 

She didn’t have to look to know he was staring at her.  

He waited a bit longer. She hoped he’d just drop it. 

“What’s on your mind, kiddo?” He asked instead. His voice was soft as the breeze, but still carried enough fuel to catch spark to the frustration that seemed to have gotten its claws deeper into her with every day that passed in Jackson. What a stupid thing to ask, she thought bitterly, and she found herself already responding before she really thought it through, like something dormant in her finally come to life.

“Are you ever mad at Tommy?” 

Joel let his hand drop from the guitar strings, turning so he could face her dead on. The question had sent him reeling. “What -”

“He found this place and just - the whole time he could have just fucking told you he was fine,” she heard herself blabbing. Part of her was recoiling, pleading at herself to stop talking - but the other part felt suddenly like she was going to suffocate if she couldn’t get the words out. “He knew you would go looking for him - and he didn’t tell you that he’d found somewhere that wasn’t -” 

“A lot happened with Tommy and I,” Joel cut in. “More’n I’ve told you. He doesn’t - it’s not somethin’ I’m holdin’ a grudge over.” He stumbled over his words, knocked off balance by the direction she was steering them. The concern sank deeper into the lines of his face. “It doesn’t matter -”

“How can you say it doesn’t matter?” She clenched her teeth together and took a few seconds to breathe, feeling completely off the rails now. She shuffled in her seat again, trying to relieve the ache from the bench pressing into her back. “He was safe. The whole time. You could have died - don’t you think that’s fucked ?”

“All that’s over, Ellie,” Joel said, slowly, like he was trying to gauge her reaction.

She was fully crying now, and she pressed the sleeves of the coat into her eyes. “ I know ,” she said. “And now you want me to - to pretend everything’s fine -”

She kept her eyes covered, not watching as she listened to the soft thunk of Joel’s guitar being set down, his steps towards her. He sat on the other side of the porch swing, tugging the pillow out of the way to make room and letting her leg rest back down on his knee before he gently squeezed her ankle through the blanket.

“Hey. Look at me .”

She sucked in a shuddering breath as she opened her eyes, but she couldn’t do what he asked - the humiliation was too sharp, stinging, and her eyes darted away from him, landing on a patch of grass in the yard. A small brown and yellow bird pecked in the mud, digging for worms.

“There’s a lot I wish was different, or - or went different,” Joel continued. “But that’s - there’s no changin’ it.”

She took a deep breath and pushed it out fast, feeling on edge with the way that he just kept circling it, and never just actually fucking said it . He could never say it, and it wasn’t fucking fair when he was the only one of them who even knew anything about it all - 

Joel squeezed her foot with his hand again as he kept talking. “It’s okay to need time to - figure this place out. But you don’t need to be worryin’ about Tommy. Or Maria. Or anyone else here, alright? Only thing you need to be thinkin’ about is you -” 

“That’s the whole fucking problem,” she said, turning, finally, to look at him again. 

He twisted his torso so he was facing her more, his arm stretching out along the back of the bench like he was struggling against the urge to reach out and hug her. His eyes were searching her face, trying desperately to figure out what she meant.

She licked her lips. The words were right there, on the tip of her tongue. She’d almost said them before - when he’d walked in on her sitting on the floor in Tommy and Maria’s place, the reminder of everything right there in front of her, but she chickened out. They’d been rattling around in her head for weeks - she’d hung onto them tightly long after she’d forgotten if they were keeping her afloat or just stones in her pockets. 

Both, probably, she decided as she finally said them with her heart pounding at her ribs. 

“What if there’s still a way? What if some of them are still out there?” 

Joel froze. The faint sound of a hammer, somewhere, from some construction work on a nearby street was the only thing to interrupt the quiet for what felt like agonizingly long seconds. When Joel spoke, his voice was nothing like it had been. Razor sharp, dripping with edge.  

“Still a way…?” he repeated slowly.

“I want to ask Tommy about them.” 

Joel’s frown deepened as his lips pressed together. She felt herself getting more desperate, knowing the shut down was coming, needing more from him right now, so she kept going. “If he knows anything else about -” 

“He doesn’t -” Joel cut her off firmly, shaking his head. 

“Have you asked him?”

“Ellie,” Joel sighed, running a hand over his face, “I - there -” 

“I can’t -”

“ Heeeeey… ” 

The chains rattled on the swing as they both jolted in surprise at the new voice. Ellie’s guitar was knocked off balance, clattering onto the wooden porch loudly. She leaned over to see past Joel before quickly jerking back, her eyes going wide at the sight of Jesse having rounded the corner. He stood with a wide eyed expression, clearly also caught off guard by their reactions. 

Ellie scrambled to tug her feet back from where they were propped on top of Joel’s knee; she forgot to mind her stitches, and gasped sharply at a dull achy pain as they tugged. Joel spun back to face her, his face so twisted up in worry that it would have been funny if she didn’t feel so fucking overwhelmed. 

“I’m fine,” Ellie hissed at him hastily, feeling her face burning.   

“Sorry!” Jesse was saying, sounding maybe as uncomfortable as Ellie felt. “I wasn’t trying to sneak up. I knocked out front, and I was - gonna just drop this off, but then I thought I heard voices -”

Joel seemed to finally get his bearings, standing up at last and turning to face Jesse. “That’s alright,” he said reassuringly. “Just didn’t hear you. Hi, Jesse.” He had the presence of mind to put the pillow back in place under her leg as he talked, and she felt a lump rising in her throat again, willing it to go away. The last thing she needed was to fucking cry in front of someone else. 

“Hi,” Jesse said, and then he looked in Ellie’s direction. “Hope your leg’s healing okay.” 

She cleared her throat and tried not to actually squirm , no longer able to hide behind Joel’s frame and wishing she had at least bothered to brush her hair recently. “Yeah, thanks,” she said lamely. 

Joel leaned down to get Ellie’s guitar, propping it gently against the railing near his and giving her a curious look as he asked, “Somethin’ I can do for you, Jesse?”  

Jesse raised the box he was holding in his hands a bit, looking back and forth from Joel to Ellie nervously as he gestured with it. “It’s a - video game thing? Playstation. Some video games, too… figured you might get bored being stuck inside.”

“Oh shit.” The words left Ellie’s mouth before she remembered she was trying not to draw attention to herself. “Really? Thanks, man.”

Jesse shrugged. “It’s cool. My mom’s stoked that I’m letting you borrow it, actually. She’s always badgering me to stop playing so much.”

Joel chuffed in front of her, and Ellie chuckled awkwardly. She felt weird, being the only one sitting, and smoothed her palms along the messy bun that currently lived like a bird’s nest on top of her head. She was keenly aware of the bacon grease stain on her t-shirt from yesterday’s breakfast.

The thing was, she’d seen Jesse around town; he was cool, and older, and recently moved from group patrol to paired patrol—which was kind of unprecedented for a seventeen-year-old, but apparently he was just that good. Standing—sitting—in front of him, the two-and-a-half years between he and Ellie felt more like twenty.

“You want to come inside and play?” Joel poked a thumb back in the direction of the house. “I got a pitcher of iced tea from Maria.”

Ellie smacked a hand to her face, wishing for all the world that she would fall through the rickety wood of the porch.

“Oh my god,” she lamented under her breath. To Jesse: “I’m sorry, don’t listen to him.”

Jesse opened his mouth to reply, but Joel spoke first, turning around to face her with a hand on his hip. “You were just telling me the other day how bored you are.”

Ellie gestured vaguely in Jesse’s direction. “It’s, like, probably not even a two-player console.” She barely even knew what that meant, but it sounded right.

Mouth quirked up to one side, Jesse fished around in the box for a moment before lifting up two black controllers, dangling from his fist by their wires.

He grinned. “C’mon, Williams. Afraid to go up against a Jackson champion?”

Ellie scoffed, waving a disinterested hand. “No. Champion against who?”

Jesse shrugged, stepping up onto the porch.

Joel, looking like he just snapped out of a daydream, suddenly clapped his hands together. “Alright, then. I’ll get your crutches, Ellie.”

“Cool,” she breathed, and internally thanked the god she didn’t believe in. She’d rather punch a Bloater than have Jesse watch her be carried around her house.

Ellie watched him follow Joel inside. Then, he stuck his head back out of the sliding glass door and narrowed his eyes, still grinning like a weirdo. “You’re going down, kid.”

She waited outside, listening to the muffled footsteps coming from the house and watching a flock of birds set against the lowering sun. One landed on the ridge of the shed roof and the others just kept flying, leaving the one behind. Ellie frowned, and then Joel was back outside, crutches clutched between his hands.

He set them in front of her, shoulder-width apart. “Need help?”

“No,” she said firmly, because Jesse was probably watching from the kitchen window.

Joel shrugged, but kept holding them in place for Ellie while she maneuvered her legs off of the swing and steadied herself on the tawny wooden crutches. Once she got them situated underneath her armpits, Joel slung the sliding door open for her and grimaced as she clunkily made her way into the house.

“Good job,” he praised, but it wasn’t very convincing, all in all.

Ellie’d seen people walking with crutches before in the QZ, so she knew what to do in theory. In reality, however, her movements were jerky and unbalanced, and her armpits were already starting to hurt a little.

Inside, Jesse stood in the middle of the living room, cardboard box still held against his chest. Ellie looked at him, then at the living room TV, and cringed as she imagined Joel putting on his nice-guy-Jackson-grandpa persona, hovering and serving them iced tea and making them dinner. Not going to happen.

“Joel, can we set it up in my room?” She turned to him and raised her eyebrows, half-puppy dog and half-threatening.

He hesitated, rubbing a palm against the top of his abdomen. “Uh…” he hedged. “Yeah, alright. You sure?”

“Yep,” she replied, popping the p.

“Yeah, alright,” Joel repeated, the tips of his ears turning pink.

“C’mon,” Ellie waved Jesse towards the stairs before Joel could say anything else that would embarrass her—as it was, her attempts at using the crutches on the stairs were embarrassing enough. When she was halfway up, Jesse already on the upstairs landing, Joel whisper-shouted her name from the bottom steps.

Both she and Jesse turned around. “What?” she hissed back.

“Just—” Joel ran the flat of his fingers along his brow, “just leave the door open, please.”

Ellie threw her head back dramatically, nearly losing her balance, before snapping it back to Joel. “Oh my fucking god!”

She grabbed both crutches and threw them under one arm, using the other to grip the handrail and fumble the rest of the way upstairs, cringing every time she put even a little bit of pressure on her injured leg. She was blocked on the top step by Jesse’s body.

He gave Joel an awkward salute. “No problem, Mr. Miller.”

Ellie looked up at the boy in front of her. “Don’t encourage him.”

When she glanced back at Joel once more, he was smiling, looking very nearly smug. She pushed on Jesse’s chest until he turned around, and they scurried down the hallway and into her room.

Once they were inside—the door left open with only the tiniest crack out of pure spite—Ellie looked around her room and sighed. She hadn’t been in here since before her injury, and she’d kind of forgotten the state she left it in. Clothes in piles on the floor, a stack of books strewn on her side table. She spotted a sports bra by her foot and surreptitiously kicked it under her bed with her good leg.

Jesse suddenly barked out a laugh. “What the fuck, dude?”

Ellie followed his gaze and cringed.

Her TV came with the room, and Joel refused to trade for a new one when she had a “perfectly good television already.” Asshole. The thing was small and boxy and bubblegum pink, with a swirly, lavender-outlined plastic heart on top. Joel called it a “Disney princess TV,” whatever the fuck that meant. Horrible.

“It’s…” she fished for words.

Jesse looked her way, face serious. “Dope.”

They both burst into laughter, and the tension shattered like ice.

He began to set the PlayStation up while Ellie putzed around her room, consolidating piles of clothes and making her bed. When she was done with that, she grabbed the stack of games from inside the box and parked on her bedspread, fishing through them.

“What’s this?” she asked, holding up a game with different colored cartoony boxes on the cover. A random dude, a car, a helicopter.

Jesse glanced up from his spot behind her dresser (and makeshift TV stand) and grinned. “Oh. Grand Theft Auto III? It’s only single player, but you’ll like it, I think. You steal cars, sleep with hot chicks, y’know…” He shrugged and trailed off, newly distracted by a set of wires.

Ellie felt her face go hot. Fuck, was she really that noticeably gay? Well, not so gay that the old man living in her house had ever noticed.

“Oh, uh…yeah,” she replied lamely.

It didn’t take much longer for Jesse to get everything set up, and when he asked what game she wanted to play, she shrugged and let him pick. He popped in something called Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 , which actually looked pretty cool.

There were these moments, sometimes, when a strange, inexplicable feeling would flood over her—some mix of happy, carefree, maybe yearning for something she’d never had. Like she was the closest she would ever come to being a normal teenager, one from before the world went to shit. Playing video games was something that felt so odd in this world, so unattainable for most of her life. Yet, here she was doing it.

As it turned out, Ellie was honestly pretty bad at Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 —she’d never played a video game before, only pretended to with Riley. It was hard memorizing all the buttons and getting her fingers to work together at the same time. Normally, being so bad at something when Jesse was so good would piss her off, but he was actually really cool about giving her tips without being patronizing or treating her like a little kid.

“So, how’s your leg actually?” he asked, eyes glued to the TV. His character was doing some trick called grinding on the awning of a cruise ship, which was too many levels of ‘what the fuck’ for Ellie to even comprehend. She was skating in circles around the ship deck, working on doing a kickflip without eating shit. “What’s the damage there?”

“Uh…” she began, finding it hard to play and talk at the same time. “Seventeen stitches. But I’ve had worse.”

Jesse laughed. “Alright, tough guy. It looked pretty gnarly when I saw you bleeding out all over the barn. Thanks, by the way, for giving up the best party spot in town.”

Oops. She shrugged. “There’s an old house by the southside wall. It’s all caved in on one side, so no one lives in it, but the other side is perfectly fine. Party-able,” she finished awkwardly. The house was one of her hiding spots.

Ellie saw Jesse nod approvingly in her peripheral vision. “I’ll check it out. Thanks.” He paused. “You should come hang out with us sometime. I know Dina would’ve invited you by now if you’d ever show up to school.”

She sighed. “School is just…”

Jesse shook his head. “It isn’t so bad, seriously. My dad always says we’re spoiled here in Jackson, and that school used to be a lot harder—more strict, or whatever. I mean, you’d think growing up in the apocalypse would garner sympathy points, but nah.”

Ellie laughed—really laughed, with her whole chest. “Dude, Joel always talks about how he had to wake up at four a.m. because ‘school started at seven’ and his ‘bus ride was an hour long’—like that’s some big deal. As if I didn’t literally have to walk across the entire country with him just to get here.”

“Man, he’s so cool though,” Jesse sighed, sounding suddenly like a little kid. “Y’all just got here, and he’s already teaching me so much about patrol. Dude’s a total badass.”

Ellie felt a little curl of affection and pride snake its way through her, even as she laughed in Jesse’s face like he just said the dumbest thing in the world. “Well, you can have him. I’m kind of pissed off at him right now, actually.”

“Why?” Jesse asked. No judgment in his voice, just curiosity.

“He…” Ellie tried to figure out a way to explain without spilling all the Miller family secrets, herself included. “Someone treated him really shitty, and I just think it’s dumb how he doesn’t get angry about things like that.”

“Someone here was shitty to him?”

“Well, yeah.” She hesitated. “Tommy actually.”

“Tommy? You mean your uncle Tommy?”

Ellie began to feel the need to backtrack. “I mean, kind of. There’s, like…other stuff I’m mad at him for, too. I probably shouldn’t get into it.”

Jesse nodded, shrugged like it was no big deal. “Hey, families fight like cats and dogs. But my mama always says, ‘We’re just lucky we have family to fight with, Jesse’.” 

✦–✧✦✧–✦

His words bounced around Ellie’s head for the next few days as her confinement dragged on. She was due back at the clinic at the end of the week to check her stitches - and hopefully get them removed - and until then Joel was dead set on her not moving a muscle. It was annoying almost as much as it was endearing, and every flash of worry she saw cross his face set off the echo of Jesse again.

We’re just lucky we have family to fight with .

Was that what her and Joel were - family? Sure, he’d used the word once, saying that Tommy and Maria were their family, but did that make her and Joel each other’s ? Everyone in Jackson seemed to assume as much; the few interactions Ellie’d had with other people had usually involved some version of how are you and your dad settling in? And after Dina’s confusion, Ellie hadn’t bothered correcting anyone on that unless it meant them getting the same wrong idea.

But what the fuck did that even mean?

She didn’t want to dwell on it, didn’t want to sit in her cocoon and think about it and dissect every little interaction that she and Joel had on a daily basis and how that fit into whatever the fuck they’re supposed to be.

But right now, she had nothing but time to do just that.

Joel entered the living room, tugging Ellie from those morose thoughts and into another set as she took in the bandage and ointment in his hands. It was nothing new between them, bandaging each other’s wounds on the road - she’d seen more of his stomach and abdomen than she had ever wanted to - but it still made her feel so helpless every time she sat here while Joel unwrapped her leg and patiently wiped it clean and slathered ointment on it and rewrapped it. She’d tried once telling him she would do it herself, but Joel had just nudged her hands away with a quiet no and continued on.

His hands were unfailingly gentle as they unwound her bandage and tossed it aside, but Ellie couldn’t help herself - she pulled her leg back anyways.

“Ellie,” Joel said patiently, hands already reaching again. “I gotta change it. I know it ain’t fun, but we can’t have it gettin’ infected. Shit’s dangerous.”

Ellie blinked, and the Joel sitting in front of her with his health was replaced with the Joel on a mattress in Colorado. Even then she’d been useless, her pitiful attempts at caring for him a complete failure until she’d gotten medicine from –

She pulled her leg back firmly from Joel when his hands touched her again. “Stop.”

“Ellie –”

“Just –” she reached for the ointment and bandages on the table, nearly overbalancing until Joel’s hands steadied her like they always did. “Just fucking let me do it, okay. Just let me do something .”

Joel watched her carefully for a long moment, concern pinching the corners of his eyes. “Just tryin’ to help you, kiddo.”

“Well, stop,” Ellie snapped, hugging the jar of ointment to her chest. “Just stop, I don’t fucking want your help. I can do shit on my own , Joel. I’m not some useless fucking kid who can’t take care of herself. I may not be able to fucking hide out from school successfully or walk up the stairs on my own or save the fucking world, but – but I can bandage my own leg. Just fucking… stop .” Her chest was heaving by the time she was done, an instant, cloying regret seeping into her veins, but Joel didn’t react or respond for a long moment.

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat, palms of his hands scraping across his jeans as he rubbed his thighs. “Yeah, course you can. Sorry, I – sorry.”

And then he stood and nodded and walked upstairs without another word, leaving Ellie to sit on the couch with her jaw clenched and her leg throbbing and her heart aching.

She had too much stupid pride to call him back and ask him to do it, so instead Ellie lathered the ointment on herself, wrapped the fresh bandage around and tied it by herself.

It didn’t feel as comforting as when Joel did it.

✦–✧✦✧–✦

An awful sort of silence permeated the air of their house the next day. Joel made himself pretty damn scarce, and Ellie was left to hobble down the stairs alone and make her own breakfast and get situated on the couch. Everything took way longer than it should because while her leg was a lot better now, when she’d been on it too long it was just fucking painful enough to make everything else suck.

The whole day felt limned in dread. Ellie’s eyes stayed glued to the door as she waited for Joel to come back from wherever he’d gone. He’d been out of the house already when she woke up, no note left behind for her, and if they had been anywhere but Jackson, Ellie would have been worried out of her mind.

Instead of worry though, guilt sat heavy on her chest, anchored by the repeat of her stupidly angry words and the reverberation of Jesse’s.

I don’t fucking want your help.

We’re just lucky we have family to fight with.

But what if she didn’t now? What if her stupid little outburst was the last straw that broke this little family-adjacent… thing between the two of them?

Joel didn’t return even as lunch time passed. The sun rose to its peak and slowly began to drop, and Ellie was five seconds from unwinding from her blankets when a knock sounded on the door. The knob turned and Maria’s face peered in, landing on Ellie with a small smile that Ellie didn’t return.

“Mind if I come in?”

Ellie shrugged. “You’re already in, so who am I to stop you?”

The smile didn’t drop from Maria’s face as she shut the door behind her and walked slightly closer, hands cupping her stomach. “I’m going to sit too, if you don’t mind. Standing’s a bit uncomfortable for me these days, something I’m sure you can relate to.”

Ellie didn’t answer, just gestured sort of noncommittally to the chair Joel usually occupied, and waited for Maria to make herself comfortable. She guessed that Joel sent her here to talk to Ellie, sort of woman-to-woman or whatever, which did little more than piss Ellie off a bit. They didn’t need Maria sticking her head into their…situation. Maybe she had eased up a bit on Joel in the time they’d been in Jackson, maybe she’d been trying to be a little more welcoming to them, but Ellie still saw the suspicion in her gaze when she looked at him sometimes, the way she seemed to weigh every word he uttered and find them all lacking. Never mind that her own fucking husband had been a Firefly, never mind that he’d done just as many shitty things as Joel. Tommy was perfect to her, but Joel was just a bad person .

“How’s the leg?” Maria asked, and Ellie shrugged.

“Fine.”

Maria made a humming noise, nodding slowly. “And how are you and Joel settling in?”

“Look, what do you want?” Ellie snapped. “Are you just here to fucking blame Joel for more stuff?”

Maria didn’t flinch, just slowly shook her head. “I’m here to check on you,” she said simply. “I’m worried about you. Tommy’s worried about you. Joel’s losing his mind with worry about you.”

The guilt in Ellie’s chest wedged itself deeper, pricked her till she thought she might bleed. “I’m fine.”

“Ellie –” Maria moved as if to lean forward and winced, leaning back again when her belly got in her way. “You’re not fine. Nobody expects you to be fine. We may not know what you and Joel went through on the way here or after you left, but we can tell it was bad. Adjusting to living here is challenging even under the best circumstances, but then you got hurt –” Ellie squirmed uncomfortably “– and it’s made things even harder. And Joel…” Maria sighed. “He –”

“Don’t talk to me about Joel,” Ellie bit out. “You don’t know him and you don’t like him, so you don’t get to tell me anything about him.”

Maria’s eyes shuttered for a brief moment, her jaw tightening before she spoke again. “I know Joel better than you think. And I don’t just mean about what he was like before you,” she added, holding up a hand to stop any further interruption, “I mean about how he feels. Losing Sarah, finding you. I know how all that sits with him, better than you or Tommy ever could.”

Ellie shifted uncomfortably, tugged her blanket more snuggly over her legs. She couldn’t really argue that .

Maria let out a long, slow breath and then continued. “Nobody expected you to jump into school or life here enthusiastically, Ellie. But we just want you to know that it’s okay to accept help. It’s okay to let us , and especially Joel, help you. Hell, you letting Joel help you helps him . That man would do nothing but take care of you if you’d let him.”

Ellie’s eyes dropped down to the blanket, fingers tugging at the loose thread on one side. She didn’t know how to articulate everything that sat in her in that moment. That she’s never been able to ask for help before, that she doesn’t know how much is too much to ask for, that eventually Joel has to get tired of needing to do shit for her right? He was supposed to take her to the Fireflies and walk away, and yet here they are months later, and Ellie is still dependent on him. He had to get annoyed with it at some point, right?

Even more, Ellie didn’t know how to say that ever since they failed at making a cure, it feels like there’s nothing else she can do. Nothing else she’s good for - she can’t even get around on her own right now.

Maria seemed to read it all on her face though, because her lips curved up in another small smile. “It’s okay, Ellie. It’ll all be okay.” She let out another slow, measured breath, seemingly waiting for Ellie to respond.

All Ellie could manage was a nod. She didn’t quite believe Maria at this moment, but she also didn’t want to keep talking about any of this. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Maria repeated. Her next breath was an inhale, tight, sharp, and Ellie sat up anxiously. “Okay. Well, I hate to do this to you because I know you’re not supposed to be on your leg much until the stitches come out in a couple of days, but I need you to go down to the stables and get Tommy.”

Ellie threw the blankets off her legs and pushed unsteadily to her feet, pulse thrumming like a drum beat. “You need me to go get Tommy?”

“Yep.” Maria winced, teeth gritting ever so slightly. “Get him and tell him to meet me at the clinic, because I just went into labor.”

✦–✧✦✧–✦

Tommy wasn’t at the stables.

According to Dina, who seemed confused, concerned, and even a little amused by Ellie’s frantic appearance, he’d gone across town to help Ms. Asher with her water heater. Which was really fucking rude when she wasn’t supposed to be on her leg in the first place and now her trip was twice as long. Maybe Maria had been onto something when she insisted Ellie take the crutches. It was only too bad that she’d ditched them not three steps from the front porch. But the pain in her leg was more annoying than anything, so she set off again to track him down.

Tommy wasn’t at Ms. Asher’s either. Because apparently Tommy chose today of all days to play the Dumbass Cowboy Edition of Where’s Waldo. After an exasperated groan of frustration and a quick exchange, she took off toward the library, hoping that Tommy-Do-Gooder had fulfilled his good deed quota for the day or at least hadn’t had enough time to tee up another one. Absently she thought it might have been a better idea to have passed this task off the Dina back at the stables. She probably would have tracked him down faster than Ellie with her flagging leg. Too late now.

She spotted him crossing the courtyard in lockstep with another resident she recognized but couldn’t put a name to. Chatting away as he always seemed to be, completely oblivious to the fact that he was missing the birth of his own baby.

“Tommy!” she called on approach.

His attention snapped to her and the easy smile fell from his expression as she ran toward him, his gaze dropping to her leg.

“Ellie, what’re you doin’?” His hands came up to catch her when she misjudged her stopping distance and all but crashed into him. “Woah there, Seabiscuit, you’re not s’pposed to be on that leg just yet, let alone runnin’ sprints.”

“I know–” She sucked in a breath, the sprint had taken more out of her than she realized and for a beat she was grateful for the hand he kept at her elbow to steady her. “–but you gotta listen–”

“No, you gotta listen – walkin’ around the house is one thing but runnin’ around town?” he said. “That’s not–”

“Tommy, you don’t–”

“Ellie girl,” he cut in and when she opened her mouth to interrupt him again, he continued right over her, “ain’t nothin’ important enough to risk that leg of yours gettin’ infected.”

“Tommy–”

“Ellie–”

“Baby!”

His brow furrowed with that same line down the center that Joel’s did. “What–”

“Your baby is coming, like, right now. Maria sent me to tell you to meet her at the clinic,” she said in a rush.

She could see the moment his confusion turned into something else – something that looked a little bit terrified. He pivoted and took off but nearly tripped to a stop after a few hurried steps.

“You alright gettin’ back–”

“Go!”

She flung her arm in the general direction of the clinic and that was all it took to get him moving again. He took off at a run this time, leaving her with the dull ache in her leg that was starting to throb.

✦–✧✦✧–✦

Her ass was starting to hurt and she had to pee, but she wasn’t about to get up and fumble with the clinic’s spare crutches in front of Joel.

After the adrenaline of finding Tommy had worn off, the pain in her leg had flared to an uncomfortable level as she made her own way to the clinic. She’d briefly considered trying to find Joel, figuring he wouldn’t want to miss this either, but between having no idea where he was all day and her leg, she hadn’t really had a choice but to stay put. Another member of the clinic staff had been dispatched to track him down. 

So she’d taken one of the chairs in the waiting room and tried to make herself comfortable, or as comfortable as she could manage with her leg. The upside of being stuck waiting was that if she kept her leg still enough and pretended it had been amputated, she could almost forget that it hurt like a bitch. The downside was that Joel had rushed in sometime later, trapping them in the room together. He’d gone straight to the desk, missing her at first. When he’d turned back, she’d already drawn up a comic as a flimsy shield, not quite sure what she was afraid he might say.

He’d hesitated for a moment, no doubt frustrated at her inability to follow the most basic instructions to stay home and off her feet. But he hadn’t said anything as he took the seat across from her to wait. Neither one of them had spoken since. She hadn’t moved in that time either and she was really beginning to regret her lunchtime hunger strike considering she was missing dinner now too.

She glanced over top of her shield and watched Joel stare vacantly at the floor between them, one hand massaging the other absently – the way she knew meant his knuckles were stiff. He snuck glances at her too, when he thought she wasn’t paying enough attention to notice. She could feel all of her shortcomings in the weight of his gaze – all the trouble she caused him.

Joel’s losing his mind with worry about you.

Maria’s words from earlier bounced around in the silence. When had she turned into such a big thing to worry about? And why didn’t Joel just fucking ‘fess up and admit she was a burden?

She squirmed in her seat when the weight of his gaze grew uncomfortably heavy. He cleared his throat and she thought he might be about to tell her to go home when the nurse came out and invited them back to see Maria and the baby. Joel glanced her way but ultimately left Ellie to navigate on her own. Her progress on the crutches was slower but she saw him stutter a step as he approached the threshold of Maria’s room, like some part of him wasn’t quite ready for this.

By the time Ellie made it to the doorway herself, Joel was standing next to Tommy, a watery smile tugged at his lips. They were all so happy – Tommy, Maria, their new baby, and Joel. That was what a family looked like, a whole family. Joel’s family. The sight of it pinched up in her chest, tight in a way she didn’t understand. Tears pressed into her eyes. She didn’t fit.

She didn’t fit.

She left the crutches against the wall and took off before anyone could tell her to leave.

✦–✧✦✧–✦

She slid down the back of her door, sinking into herself like the sun on the horizon, hot tears running down her cheeks. She didn’t know whether they came from the pain in her leg or her heart. Shuddered breaths hitched through her chest. Joel didn’t need her, nobody did. Useless and alone. Always alone.

The back of her head thumped against the door, trying to dislodge her own thoughts.

That man would do nothing but take care of you if you’d let him.

Maria said it like it was a good thing but Ellie knew better. He was already tired; in the clinic today he’d looked exhausted, the most like he had on the road in a while. It was only a matter of time before his patience wore too thin and their already precarious arrangement shattered like ice. She needed to fix it before it was too late – before he wasted the rest of his life following her around, fixing all her mistakes.

All her mistakes except one. He couldn’t exactly fix the fact that she’d failed at saving the world. She had to keep that one for herself.

She sucked in a sharp breath as the muscle in her leg twitched and pulled at the injury. Fuck – she couldn’t even make it around town without fucking things up even worse.

The familiar sound of the front door had her swiping at her eyes, cheeks, nose, and chin.

“Ellie?” he called out.

His heavy steps moved up the stairs and she hated the way her heart rose with them. The knock, soft as it was, vibrated down her spine.

“You in there?”

She took a steadying breath and said as evenly as she could, “Go away.”

He heaved a sigh she could hear through the door and one more dull knock like he pressed his fist against it. “Why’d you leave the clinic?”

“I said go away.”

Silence indicated he still wasn’t leaving.

“Will you open the door, please?”

Opening the door was the last and only thing she wanted to do right now – hoping Joel would leave it and hoping he would keep pressing until she admitted where the pain was festering. So she stayed quiet and didn’t admit how twisted up she was.

“Ellie?”

Why the fuck did he choose right now to be so damn persistent?

Because he’s worried – all he did was worry about her. The idea burrowed under her skin and wedged itself between her ribs. She would just remove herself from the equation. Joel couldn’t worry himself to death if she wasn’t here for him to worry over.

“Ellie, baby, please ta–”

“Stop, I’m not–”

The pet name was too soft for her, it belonged to another girl.

“Not what?”

She stood – ignoring the pain that shot through her leg and the way the room tilted briefly – and swung the door open. Whatever he’d been saying was swallowed by surprise.

She squared her shoulders and said, “I’m moving.”

His expression rippled with something she couldn’t identify. “What?”

She gave herself a little shake, shoring up. This was for the best and it made sense. Joel couldn’t get tired of her if she wasn’t around as much, he would have space – they both would. “I’m moving,” she repeated, “to the garage.”

He stared at her, one arm still propped on the door frame, blinking silently like he sometimes did when he hadn’t quite heard something.

Then he just said, “No.”

“No?”

“No.”

She crossed her arms, “What the fuck do you mean ‘no’?”

“Just that.” The response was clipped, leaving no room to argue.

It wasn’t the response she’d expected, though considering she’d only come up with this plan about two minutes ago, she hadn’t spent much time dwelling on it.

“You can’t stop me,” she threw the words down anyway. “I don’t belong to you.”

As soon as they were out, she wanted to snatch them back. She’d swallow each one covered in broken glass if it got rid of the look on Joel’s face. But she couldn’t admit that with the way her throat had closed up.

His jaw clenched and there was a mix of pain and something like anger – similar to the last time the two of them were at odds in this room. His gaze dropped and he shook his head once, mouth twitching with whatever words he was holding back.

“No,” he finally said.

And for a heartbeat she thought he was agreeing with her and felt the same sting of what she’d seen in his expression. She was shaking and dizzy with echoing thoughts. No, I can’t stop you. No, you don’t belong. No, I don’t want you–

“You ain’t movin’ anywhere without talkin’ to me first,” he said.

His words went hollow at the end and she shook her head to clear it but the room tilted and when Joel spoke again the words were mud and so was she.

“Is this about that Jesse kid?” he asked, and she would have laughed if her heart hadn’t been beating so fast that it made her head loud and her stomach queasy. 

“Holy fucking shit,” she breathed, hands shaking as they looked for something, anything, to hold onto before she actually passed out right here in the middle of this room that wasn’t really hers, the same one where Joel had told her that she wasn’t his what felt like a lifetime ago but was really just a few months ago. It haunted her dreams sometimes and hung like a bad aura in the room each night, driving her to burrow into the spot on the floor next to Joel’s bed most nights, forcing her to find a way to hobble quietly down the hall as she recovered from this godforsaken leg injury that she brought upon herself because she was too stubborn to go to school, too bullheaded to listen to anyone, too strong willed to just do the simple things that Tommy and Maria and Joel have asked of her in order to fit here. 

That months-old conversation rang in her ears now as the earth spun around her, the weight of not fitting crushing her as just brick was added to the load. The cracked door thing - did he think… Did he expect that she was…interested in Jesse? This, on top of everything else, was too much. She found the edge of the bed, feeling the sudden urge to hurl the Playstation controller that was still strewn on her bed right at Joel’s head and then immediately feeling guilty for thinking as much.

“Ellie?” Joel’s voice broke back through the fog, and she swallowed thickly, her throat swollen up and burning in that terrible way it did before she cried. Of course, he was there in an instant, kneeling on one knee, deep concern etched into his face as he searched hers. “Him bein’ here the other day - I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, honey. It’s just… the boy stuff, y’know, I ain’t really sure how to… If that’s a part of all’a this, then -” 

“It’s not,” Ellie cut him off quickly and insistently, finding her voice finally. “It’s not about Jesse. We’re not, like…together. If that’s what you’re implying,” she finished, flushing a deep red as she avoided his eyes. 

“Oh,” Joel said plainly, seeming a little lost for words in a way Ellie rarely saw him. It made her uncomfortable, watching his face as he tried to put together some other reason that she dropped the whole moving out thing on him out of nowhere. 

She’d been so stupid to think she could have this, that she could have Joel, that she could have family. And she could never tell him how stupid she felt, how close she got to almost letting herself believe it was real, that she could fit in and be the kid he clearly - mistakenly - thought she was.

“Talk to me, Ellie,” he insisted again, this time bringing a hand up to rest on her arm. Ellie stared at it, tears blurring her vision, lower lip clamped firmly between her teeth. “Let me help.”

“Why?” she asked miserably, still studying the lines and veins on Joel’s hand, the way it was wrapped reassuringly around her arm, holding her there and steady even though he should be at the clinic getting ready to hold his new niece or nephew - someone who would actually be his family. 

“Why?” he repeated imploringly, and Ellie watched as his hand left her arm almost in slow-motion. She thought maybe he was about to stand up and leave her there, finally go back to see the new baby and join his family. Instead, he brought his hand up to her chin, applying the slightest pressure to it before she relented and faced him again, eyes still heavy and watery and not meeting his. 

“Help me out here, kid,” he said, and she could hear the hurt in his voice. The hurt she was causing. The hurt she always caused him. She guessed the least she could do would be to put it all out there, let him know just how fucked up she was and just how much he should want her out of his house, how much he should want her to stop messing up his best chance at spending his post-apocalyptic life with his family by staying here and playing pretend daughter. 

“Why do you care if I move out?” 

He sighed, bringing a thumb up to quickly swipe at a tear that she didn’t even realize had escaped her careful guard. 

“I care about you, Ellie,” he said earnestly. She wanted to believe him. She chanced a glance up at his face; he looked genuine. It broke her heart. She wanted to ask why again, but he beat her to it. “I don’t want to hear any bullshit about you bein’ difficult or messin’ things up. You ain’t. Besides, family takes care of each other, Ellie.” 

Family.

She got stuck on the word, even though Joel continued anyway. “Even when it’s tough. You think I haven’t thought Tommy was the biggest pain in my ass at least once a week - hell, once a day - my whole damn life?” 

He knew. Of course he knew. They’ve had this conversation in dark, quiet moments at least a handful of times before. Between Silver Lake and Salt Lake City and Salt Lake City and Jackson and the earliest nights in this quiet and too-big blue house. It always ended the same way: Ellie burnt out and exhausted, Joel reassuring and patient, an uneasy peace among them, the dissatisfying knowledge that this conversation would come back around again. 

“Tommy’s your real family,” Ellie muttered, bringing her own hand up around his arm to wipe at her nose. “You have to keep him around.” 

“The hell I do,” Joel scoffed. “Could’ve kept my ass happy back in Boston, saved myself a whole world of trouble. But I didn’t, as you so kindly reminded me the other day.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. They never really resolved that conversation, the wound left open and festering, guilt pooling back into her stomach. He stood with a quiet groan then, tapping her on the shoulder with a grunted, “Scoot,” and she did, feeling the bed dip next to her as he sat down. She remained silent as he got comfortable. 

“You see, Ellie…Life’s all about choices,” he said. Profound, she thought, not quite mustering up the energy to roll her eyes. “And as hard as it may be for you to believe, I choose you, baby girl. And I support you wantin’ a space of your own and playin’ hookie from school and spendin’ time with whoever you may well like. But this…runnin’ off, shuttin’ down, skippin’ school without tellin’ anyone, gettin’ yourself hurt shit’s gotta stop. ‘Cause I want you in my family, and so does Tommy and Maria. And family’s gotta keep each other in the loop.”

Ellie bought herself some time by leaning down to scratch around the stitches.  She twisted her lips to one side as that muscle lurched again.  She drew her nails around the site in rapid, tight little circles to soothe the ache.

“That givin’ you tro - ”

“It’s fine,” Ellie clipped, leaning back with a great sigh.  And then she felt bad again because Joel just nodded, mute, so she added:  “Just itching a bit, okay?”

“That’s it - that’s it healin’ up right there.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

It was easier to claim it was bothering her because it was healing than admit she might have set herself back by running all over town.  Her itching turned into a gentler massage with the side of her hand and she fixated on the wall.  There was a water mark the size of a fist just below the window frame.  The leak was repaired now, but the stain remained, a reminder of long years of neglect.  The house had all kinds of problems, really.  The nails in the stairs liked to pop up, some of the windows rattled, and there was a time there when the lights blinked off and on.  Ellie didn’t know what Joel’s full scope as a contractor was, but no job seemed out of his wheelhouse.  He’d said something about the apartment in Boston being a deathtrap and he and Tess had taught themselves all kinds of skills to make this repair or that to keep them from freezing to death, electrocuting themselves, or coming to some other kind of untimely mishap.

“… well, all right,” Joel finally said, breaking into her willful silence.  “Guess that’s enough talkin’ for now.  You just holler if you want to … talk about it some more, I guess.”

Ellie looked up as he rose. “Are you going back to the clinic?”

“Eventually.  Might give them a little time to themselves.  Maybe in an hour.  Could stretch that on out to two, plenty to do ‘round here …”

He was giving her time to get her shit together and go back, and wasn’t exactly being subtle about it.  Ellie wiped her chin on her sleeve and turned her head the other way so he wouldn’t catch her rolling her eyes.  That gesture wasn’t for him.  Of course she’d be going back, too.  Try and save face while she still could.  Maria had just had a baby and there she was, running off like a stupid little kid, making everything about herself.  Ellie worked her jaw back and forth.  She’d set back her injury, and set back her standing with this dumb family.  

“I was an asshole,” Ellie muttered.

“Let’s not get carried away.”

Ellie snorted and tried not to smirk.  Her leg was pounding in tandem with her heart now, a big, distracting pulse point.  She kind of liked the way it felt.  She expected Joel to leave her alone for a bit to lick her wounds, think over his profound testimony about choices, but she realised he was lingering in the doorway the way he did when he still had something to say but didn’t know how to put it.  It was hard to know which one of them was worse at speaking their minds.

“Ellie, just one more thing.”

Here it comes.

“Tommy’s got … responsibilities now.  He’s got himself a kid of his own, and this is where his focus needs to be.”

Funny, Joel didn’t seem to think that when he tried to foist her off onto Tommy in the winter, but fine.

“Yeah?  So?”

“So I am askin’ you,” Joel continued, quiet and slow, “I am askin’ you not to ask him about the Fireflies again.  I know you want answers and I know that you feel - I just get it, okay?  I get it.  But, well, it’s time Tommy moved on.  He deserves to move on and uh … bringin’ up all that stuff with the Fireflies, that don’t help him.”

Ellie was very still for a moment.  Then she tried on a smile and a half-hearted nod.  “Sure.”

“All right.”

The moment stretched on between them, crackling with unspoken energy.  It was a warning quietly spoken, gently given, but a warning nonetheless.  Ellie didn’t often see the old Joel these days: the remote, menacing smuggler she had first met in Boston a lifetime ago.  But now and again an element of him would surface, and this was one of those times.

Joel reached into the hallway and pulled out her crutches.  “Come on.”

Ellie blinked.  “Come on what?”

“You wanna move into the garage?  Well, let’s check it out.”

“… but you said …”

“I know what I said,” he patiently answered, waving the crutches at her.  “I said not without talkin’ to me first.  So let’s talk about it.”

“Now?”

“You got somethin’ better to do?”

“… no ?”

So that was how she ended up outside with Joel five minutes later, awkwardly swinging her body back and forth between two rigid struts as they made their way down to the garage.  

“Stop laughing, asshole.”

“You’ll get your rhythm, don’t worry.”

“I bet these hurt if you get them across the skull.”

“Rather not find that out.”  

She hung from her armpits while Joel unlocked the door.  The key was already sitting in the lock, all it required was a little twist to get them inside.  The hinges creaked.

“That’s an easy fix,” said Joel as he stepped inside.  “Mind the step there.”

“I got it, thanks.”

Ellie hobbled herself from side to side to get over the doorjamb.  She took a few big swings until she was in what looked like the exact center of the garage, and took a good look around.

It was kind of smaller than she remembered, but that was a good thing.  Ellie didn’t want a lot of space.  The idea of moving into the garage had been slinking around in her mind for awhile.  It was just sitting there, not doing anything, storing old things that nobody really wanted.  She liked the idea of a little independence and, if she was honest, she liked the idea of being just a step or two removed from Joel, for reasons she did not really want to linger upon.

Joel stuck his hands on his hips and wandered around, casting an appraising eye this way and that.  “We’d have to check in with the council, see what materials we can get our hands on to fix it up properly.  It’s already got a water supply to that old sink, but we need to think about how we’re gonna keep it warm, insulate the walls so you don’t freeze your ass off in here.  All this shit can go.”  He tapped a box with the toe of his boot.

There was an old lawnmower, long since cannibalised for parts, vegetables spread out to dry on tarps and boxes that had once belonged to the old homeowners.  These had been sorted through for anything of use, but the leftovers hadn’t been disposed of yet.  

“What about your workbench?”

“I can make myself somethin’ else out here for that,” Joel said.  “Put it inside, even.  I’ll have all that space now, won’t I?”

“I guess.”

They poked around the garage for a little while longer, experimenting with ideas.  The bed could go here, maybe.  Was the ceiling tall enough for a loft?  What about a kitchen, and where did Ellie want her desk?  Ellie was starting to feel a little better by the time they had a list of questions for the council and some plans to think about in the meantime.  

“You should probably get back to Tommy,” Ellie suggested.  Her armpits were beginning to ache, and she wanted to get off her good leg.  

Joel nodded.  His big hand was wrapped around a support beam like his mind was still on the renovations, but Ellie knew better.

“You comin’?”

✦–✧✦✧–✦

The stroll back to the clinic was just that: a stroll.  

But not a particularly fun one. 

The crutches had her moving at a crawl. She was precariously aware of where she was footing them into Jackson’s unpaved streets, the shaky stilts seemingly hell-bent on finding every divot and small rock in the dimly lit path to the clinic. Each step felt like a gamble, her arms trembling under the strain, underarms already sore and chafed. The darkness only made it worse - not much light at all until they turned onto the main strip and were greeted by the overhead twinkle lights strung up above.

Joel stayed in tight proximity, his hands shooting out to hover near her every time she wobbled or the crutches threatened to slip from under her armpits; to which she would throw him a soft glare - something to the effect of “ you didn’t just see that” - and pressed on without as much as a mumbled thank you. 

They had fallen into a peculiar rhythm: her glares, his feigned ignorance, and an unspoken tension that hung between them. They had resolved some things, sure, but the half-life for tense conversation is a day at best, and even though the hour spent in the garage plotting out her new digs had masked it for a little bit, there was no escaping the awkward fallout that always came. 

It hung between them, as thick as the humid air.

Family.

Choices.

Moving on.

If she could have, she would have buried herself in the couch fort, nestled herself deep into the cushions and pillows, and ended the night early - avoided him till things pittered back normal, till she fucked up again and they had another discussion - but his “you comin?” hadn’t sounded much like a question. 

There were only so many times you could ditch meeting a new member of your “not family” family, and that number was not two. It probably shouldn’t have even been one. 

She dragged her crutches a little more, her eyes tracing the ground in search of the next excuse to slow down. She kicked a small stone ahead of her, watching it bounce away, logging where it landed in an effort to keep delaying the inevitable. 

Joel was going slow too, matching her stride. By the subtle sag of his shoulders, the tightness of his jaw, and the restless rubbing of his palms, Ellie knew there was more to his languid pace than just practicality. She couldn’t quite piece together why, but she was sure he was trying to delay their arrival just as much as she was. 

✦–✧✦✧–✦

When they finally walked into the room, they almost turned and walked right back out.

Tommy had ushered them in with a bright smile, but the atmosphere inside made Ellie feel like an intruder. The room was bathed in a warm yellow hue from a lone lamp in the corner, and a cracked window allowed a pleasant breeze of warm air to waft in. It was quiet and calm, making even the click of Ellie’s crutches on the tile seem intrusive. Maria was propped up in bed feeding her child, a thin sheet barely covering the half of her chest not exposed and in use. 

Joel’s eyes darted to the floor, cheeks reddening, while Ellie’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Knocked, sorry, we can come back -” Joel stuttered as his hands dug into his pockets, clearly uneasy as his gaze settled firmly on the floor. 

Tommy chuckled, amused by his brother’s sudden embarrassment. 

“We know. Let you in, Joel.” 

His hand drifted from the door to the back of Joel’s neck and gave it a small squeeze, as he passed and settled into a chair next to Maria’s bed.

Ellie couldn’t stop staring.

She had never seen a baby before, and certainly not a baby being breastfed. She wasn’t trying to gawk like it was something gross or bizarre, but that tiny thing was latched onto Maria, and her brain just couldn’t quite seem to process that it was inside her body just that morning. 

The baby’s tiny hand rested on Maria’s chest, its little fingers curling and uncurling as it fed. It seemed impossible that it would one day it would grow into a full-sized human being, like them. 

Weird , was all she could think.

“Ellie,” Joel said softly, nudging her arm, breaking her stare. She quickly diverted her gaze and followed Joel’s lead, settling down next to him on a bench seat under the window, propping the crutches up on the wall beside her. 

Hands now free, they found work picking at the fraying edges of her old shorts. She tried to find something else to focus on, but her eyes kept drifting back to the tiny bundle in Maria’s arms -more curious than anything. 

“You decide on the name yet?” Joel asked, hunching over, propping his forearms on his thighs. He kept his gaze firmly on his brother, not letting it even flick over to Maria or the baby in the slightest. 

“Gabriel James Miller,” Tommy replied proudly, rising to stand next to his wife and giving her a quick peck on the forehead. 

In turn, Maria rolled her eyes with a small shake of her head. “Managed to get him off that Tómas Jr. bullcrap about an hour ago.”

“Hey now, like I said - would’ve gone by TJ, not Tommy Jr, but Gabriel is well ‘n fine...fits the little man better anyhow.”  

“James is for me - my last name before Miller,” Maria added with a curt nod.

Without any words shared between them, Maria unlatched Gabriel and passed him to Tommy, quickly shifting to cover herself as Tommy placed his child up near his shoulder and gave him a few gentle pats on the back. 

Even Ellie could tell it was an impressively fluid transfer, but it was Joel who noted it outloud to the room. “Few hours in and y'all seem to have this down pat.” 

“Told ya - I felt like I would be a good dad.” There was an unmistakable pride in Tommy’s voice, but a general cadence of unseriousness - some sort of inside joke Ellie presumed. 

Joel smiled at his brother but dropped his head. Ellie watched him closely, trying to read his expression. 

The room fell quiet, but not in a comforting way. Briefly, Ellie wondered if it was her and Joel tainting the vibes of the room - tracking in the fallout from their conversation like mud into the entry of a house. 

Messy, unwelcome guests, her brain supplied. 

The thought was almost in complete contradiction to what was offered next 

“You're both welcome to hold him,” Maria extended, shifting in bed. 

“Oh yeah, here -” Tommy agreed, discontinuing the rocking he had set into and crossing over to the pair of them on the bench. 

Ellie straightened up, nervous. Joel did too. 

For a moment, she thought he was going to object - just something about the way his jaw was set and his posture rigid, but then Tommy was holding out Gabriel and there was no other option but to receive the child.  

She watched as the arms that she had seen strangle people maneuvered into a delicate cradle, gentle but intentional, hands going exactly to all the right spots without any awkwardness. The moment Gabriel was safely nestled in his hold, Joel’s body language changed – rigidness melting into something more soft.

A twang of something hit Ellie’s chest. 

It was abundantly clear that he’d done this before, probably countless times by the look of it. She swallowed back the feeling and shifted in her seat. If she was next, there was no way she could hold the little thing that easily - her hands felt clumsy just thinking about it.

And next came utterly too soon. 

“You want to give it a try?” Joel asked, voice a bit flatter than expected. 

She glanced over, searching his face for reassurance, but instead, she found a cold somber look dominating his eyes -  borderline vacant. 

She had seen that particular gaze before. Twice, actually. 

Once, when she caught him off guard with her name back in winter, and then the other day, when he stuttered to a halt in Tommy and Maria’s living room as his eyes met the mantle: Sarah. 

Losing Sarah, finding you. 

Maria had tried to explain it to her before, but the moment she had heard the name her brain went somewhere else, entirely uncomfortable talking about the girl she was replacing. 

She had been so wrapped up in her head about Tommy,  and the Fireflies, and Maria, and the baby, and what Jackson was supposed to be for her - how to adjust, and how to feel, and how to fit- that she hadn’t taken much time to think about what this all must be like for him.

On the porch swing he told her there was a lot he wished was different, and she had assumed it was about the fireflies, about what he took from her, but maybe that wasn’t all it was about. 

Maybe it was also about what someone took from him.

She must have hesitated for too long because Joel handed the baby back to Tommy.

“Give us a minute,” he said to Tommy. 

“Course,” agreed Tommy, Gabriel a tiny bundle cradled to his chest. He gave Ellie a soft smile before he moved back across the room to Maria’s bedside. 

Ellie eyed Joel apprehensively; he seemed more present now, but there was still an air of lingering sadness. 

“What’s going on, kiddo?” Joel asked, voice low but firm, words clearly intended for her ears only.

Ellie’s eyes flicked to Tommy and Maria before landing on the floor in front of her, an embarrassed flush coloring her cheeks. Joel seemed to take the hint and stood to pull at the privacy curtain, blocking Tommy and Maria from view. 

“Ellie, look at me,” entreated Joel, voice still hushed as he returned to his place next to her. “Tell me what this is really about. I know it ain’t about Tommy or Jesse or even the baby. I ain’t letting this sit between us any longer.” 

“I’m not family,” she mumbled, falling back into her earlier sentiment.  

“Ellie, we’ve been over this. Course you are,” Joel replied, sounding a little exasperated. 

“Not real family, not like them,” she elaborated, gesturing to the curtain. 

“Ellie… you’re my real family because I want you to be. Family is more than just blood.”

“What about when you stop wanting?” Ellie retorted in a harsh whisper. 

“Never gonna happen, kiddo,” he answered, his gaze serious and steady. 

Ellie looked away. She didn’t understand how he could be so sure, especially when she’d fallen short on every promise she’d ever made.

“But… I didn’t keep my half of the bargain…” she argued quietly, brow furrowed in frustration. 

Joel cocked his head, and ducked to look her in the face, “What’re you talkin’ ‘bout, kiddo?” 

“You,” she started, voice unsteady, “... you brought me back to Jackson… You take care of me… You got me a guitar …'' her voice cracked on that last word. She was struggling to keep her volume low as her anxiety built, but she forced herself to finish, “But I… I didn’t save the world.”

Her statement was met with silence, which only caused her uncertainty to grow. For a long moment he just blinked at her, like he was trying to make sense of what she said. 

“Neither did I. Neither did Tommy… or Marlene… or anyone else for that matter…”  Joel contended. 

Ellie huffed in frustration. He clearly didn’t understand her point.

“But I could have …” she stated insistently. 

“Ellie. It was a long shot from the beginning. That ain’t on you.” 

“Then who’s it on?” questioned Ellie defiantly. 

“No one. God. The cordyceps… It doesn’t matter. All that matters is it ain’t your responsibility to save the world. You tried… you gave it your all… it’s more than anyone should have asked of you…” stated Joel earnestly, as if it was that simple. 

“And it wasn’t enough,” she added through gritted teeth. 

“That’s just life, Ellie,” he said, some of that sadness creeping back into his tone. “Sometimes you fail even when you do your best… there’s nothin’ wrong with that, or wrong with you… And it wasn’t you who failed anyway. It was them damn Fireflies. Don’t go putting that on yourself. If you need someone to blame, blame me.”

Her brows knit in confusion, unsure of why Joel would take that blame, “But you were never meant to have to keep me… It wasn’t supposed to be like this…” she said desperately, trying to articulate the turmoil in her heart. 

“Ellie… things changed… I want to keep you. You’re my kid, ” he insisted, his tone so earnest it made her throat tighten. 

Her chin trembled treacherously, the words striking the tender center of her insecurities. 

“I’ll never be her,” she choked, the thing she’d been afraid to say - afraid to hear confirmation of - forcing its way into the open. 

“Ellie,” he said, his voice dropping low again. “I don’t expect you to be - or want you to be… you’re not a replacement for Sarah… just like Gabriel isn’t a replacement for Kevin… Love isn’t a limited resource, baby girl. I have enough for all of you.” 

She looked up at that, startled by his words.

“You love me?” The words slipped out before she could really process what she was saying. 

Joel flinched, as if hurt by her question. He took a deep breath and his eyes found hers again.

“Of course I do, Ellie. I love you. I try and show you every day, kiddo… but I’m…I’m sorry I ain’t said it. I shoulda said it…” he explained, as tears gathered in his own eyes.

“I love you too,” she breathed, cutting across his apology. The tears she’d been fighting finally spilled over and rolled down her cheeks.

“Come here,” he said, and pulled her into a fierce hug.

She leaned into it without hesitation, burying herself in his embrace. They both stayed that way for a long moment, locked in each other's arms. 

“Everything okay over there?” came Tommy’s voice from the other side of the curtain, obviously alerted to their continued silence.

They both let out surprised little chuckles and sat back at the same time. She’d almost forgotten where they were. Ellie wiped roughly at her face with her sleeve. 

“Whadda ya say we go meet your new cousin properly?” asked Joel. 

She nodded and he reached out and wiped a stray tear from her cheek with his thumb and gave her a warm smile. 

Ellie returned the smile and started to get up but Joel reached out an arm to stop her.

“Crutches,” he reminded her. “You’re staying off that leg until you get those stitches out. Even if it means I gotta carry you everywhere.” 

✦–✧✦✧–✦

It was early afternoon when Joel returned to the house. 

“Ellie?” he called. He’d expected to find her in the living room, but he redirected his search when he heard sounds coming from the back porch.

He walked quietly to the back of the house, drawn by the soft sounds of a guitar being lazily strummed.

The back door was propped open and from his place in the hallway he could see out onto the deck. Baby Gabriel was there, laid on his back atop a blanket, and Ellie sat cross legged next to him (her leg injury long since healed) with the guitar he gave her in her lap. Dappled light played across their faces as the midday sun streamed through the leaves. 

Joel paused, watching and listening as Ellie continued to strum, practicing her finger placement and fiddle with the tuning pegs. She was still slow to switch between cords but she was getting better. Her little hands struggled to reach the right frets, but she’d refused to give up on learning to play. Quitting, it seemed, was just not in Ellie’s vocabulary. 

“Want to hear a song?” Ellie asked the baby, who’s only reply was to coo and kick his feet. 

She must’ve taken that as confirmation because she began to play notes from a familiar tune. It wasn’t one he taught her, but it was a song he’d heard a million times. 

Gabriel babbled in delight when Ellie started humming along. 

“You like that?” Ellie asked Gabriel, and got a giggle in response. 

Joel smiled to himself as he lingered in the hall, observing. Ellie was still unaware of his presence; the stark difference in lighting between the outside afternoon sun and the interior hallway provided unplanned cover. 

“How about this… been working on changing it up a bit,” Ellie explained to the uncomprehending infant. 

She began strumming again, starting the song from the beginning, and when she started to sing - even though it was a little out of tune - Joel thought his heart might actually explode with affection. 

“Almost heaven, West Wyoming

Grand Teton Mountains, winding Snake River

Life is old here, older than the trees

Younger than the mountains, growin’ like a breeze,

Country roads, take me home

To the place I belong

West Wyoming, mountain baby…” 

She hung on the last word and grinned at Gabriel.

“Take me home, country roads…” 

She let the final strum reverberate, sound falling off naturally. 

“That’s all I got figured out,” she said to the baby, setting the guitar aside. 

Taking that as his opening, Joel stepped forward into the doorway and got Ellie’s attention. 

“Hey, kiddo. Tommy’s startin’ up the barbeque. You ready for some lunch?” he asked. 

“Heck yeah, let me just go change my shirt… Gabe spit up on this one. Can you watch him for a minute?”

“Of course,” he answered, kneeling down to pick up his nephew.

“You weren’t spying on me were you, old man?” Ellie asked a little suspiciously as she passed him, heading to her room.

“Me? I’d never,” he replied and pressed a kiss to Gabriel’s dark curls to hide his guilty smile. 

“Mm-hmm,” she responded disbelievingly as she stomped up the stairs. 

He and Ellie still had a lot to work through, but they’d come a long way. They’d all lost so much; but they still had each other, and that meant everything.

When they headed across the street together, Gabe on his right hip and Ellie on his left, animatedly telling him about her morning, Joel couldn’t help but feel like a lucky man.