Work Text:
January 2029, Jackson
Ellie had been out on patrol duty since the early morning and felt like she was frozen to Shimmer’s back. Trying to ignore the fact that she could barely feel her fingers and that they would be anything but reliable if she had to shoot anytime soon, she remind-ed herself that, yes, it wasn’t exactly comfortable, but at least she was allowed back on patrol.
Tommy would never snitch on her, but that hadn’t stopped Joel from seeing her ride back into town from a patrol she shouldn’t have been on, since he had made sure she was put on watch duty for the foreseeable future.
Joel was always grumpy, but after that he had been extra grumpy. It had taken her weeks to get him to stop checking on her every ten minutes and let her outside of the fence again. Just cause she had taken care of some of the walkers and maybe one or two clickers by herself. She could handle herself and Joel knew that. He had taught her most of it after all.
The sun rose late, but by the time the troop came back and waved their blue hanker-chief, it was up in the sky, which had decided not to be completely covered in clouds for a change and actually let them warm up a bit.
About an hour later Ellie closed the door to her room behind her and, after making sure to drop all of her gear on the floor first, fell into bed. One of the downsides of patrols was having to get up so damn early. Not bothering to get changed, she doze off, her shoes still on her feet. But she left them hanging over the end of the bed. She wasn’t savage.
-
What felt like barely a few moments later, but judging by the light must have been several hours, Ellie woke up. She was remarkably comfortable, which might be due to her current state of being snuggled up to Dina, who must have snuck in. And who had apparently taken off Ellie's shoes in her sleep. She hadn’t thought she was so out of it. A small patch of sun had made its way across the bed and was now lighting up the black mess that was Dina's hair. Ellie could smell the familiar scent of her soap. She reached out sleepily and tangled her fingers in the warm, dark strands.
“Since when are you here?” Ellie asked quietly.
“Since somewhen between the time you didn’t shower and the time you woke up.” Dina replied in a drowsy mumble from the depths of the pillows.
“How can you be sure I didn’t shower? I shower!” Ellie complained.
In response Dina loosened her arms around her to shuffle down a bit and moved her head back, to get a good look at Ellie.
“Ellie, I love you,” she said, “but you absolutely reek of horse shit.”
“I do not! Besides, you got into this bed, so I’m assuming you like it.” Ellie said, a wide smug grin creeping across her face.
“No I do not!”
Crawling onto Dina Ellie let her hair fall in front of her and shook her head to really get it in Dina's face.
“Oh, I think you like it.” She laughed. “They should make a perfume from it, you like it so much.”
“Ellie, stop it!” Dina turned her head to the side trying to resist laughing and fighting back, while Ellie dramatically acted out sniffing her own horse smelling hair and praising the scent.
They ended up lying on their sides, giggling, Ellie with her arms around Dina. Softly she kissed Dina's neck and moved her hand to lay on her stomach.
“How’s the baby?” she asked.
“Good, but… You know I can’t really feel it yet, right?”
“I don’t know how these things work. Fedra wasn’t particularly keen on teaching us sexed.” Ellie defended herself.
“We’ll both have a bunch to learn.” Dina admitted. “Have you told Joel yet?”
“Ugh don’t remind me!” Ellie groaned, rolling onto her back. “He’s gonna kill me.”
“It’s not like you got me pregnant.” Dina said, rolling around herself.
“Have you told Jesse yet?” Ellie asked.
“No. I want to, but it’s impossible to find the right moment.”
“Maybe we should invite both of them for a dinner and see what happens when they find out together. It could be fun, you know. Maybe Joel will make that face again he did when he caught me and Kat making out.”
Dina propped herself up on her elbow, looking at Ellie astonished. “Excuse me what?”
“On my birthday.” Ellie said grimacing, followed by a giggle. “You should have seen it. He had no clue.”