Chapter Text
The thing is, Ellie didn’t need a father.
Yeah, it hurt when the kids around her would start talking all about their families, about what their mothers cooked yesterday or what their fathers gave them last week, even when the topic breached into uncles and siblings and whatever mess they had made on the weekend.
It hurt, but Ellie didn’t need it. She never died from a heartbreak, even on the days she really wanted to, and she wouldn’t die now.
Besides, she had been in Jackson for almost one year now, they had been in Jackson for a whole year, and Ellie had grown used to hearing Joel’s morning complaints long before she even got up from her own bed; she had grown used to fried eggs and a cup of hot milk waiting for her on the kitchen’s table – my prayers for your growth, Joel would say whenever she attempted to not drink the entire cup –, to the sight of Joel leaning on the sink as he smashed his gross beans into powder and refuted every poke she made in his direction.
Tommy, too, on the bi-weekly visits at the morning to raid their (their!) fridge; the way he would side with her without a millisecond of hesitation to gang up on Joel, how the asshole would snatch up her plate of eggs and raise it well over his head and then both of them would start play-fighting right in the middle of the kitchen… Ellie had grown used to knowing the man would roughhouse the whole morning without a care in the world but the moment she squirmed out of his shoulder a hand would shoot to protect her head, even if he ended up with a purple bruise for her own recklessness.
Maria… she was a bit more complicated. Ellie admired the woman, and she thought she was a total badass even if the pregnancy kept her from moving too much. And she had given her new clothes, even if her throwing her older ones out had made Ellie annoyed.
But she also had insulted Joel.
Even if the woman had been right, seeing as Joel had kind of betrayed her on that exact same day, her distrust towards Joel had subtracted a few points in Ellie’s book… Still, the woman had treated her as an adult when it counted, and a child when it was needed, and she cared for Ellie when Joel and Tommy were on patrol and her anxiety would get the best of her. She made hot cocoa which was better than Joel’s (even if Ellie would never tell any of them about it), and she had let Ellie carry a small gun around Jackson during those first weeks where Joel had to pry her off the house.
Point it, she had grown used to the Miller household, and even if hearing the other kids kinda hurt, she didn’t need a father, or a uncle, or a aunt or even a baby cousin: She had Joel, and Tommy, and Maria and even the baby in a few months, and that was enough.
That was enough.
Which is why, every time a teacher in Jackson riled them all up about some out-of-the-walls road trip or even a school activity that was off the clock, only to demand their parent’s written authorization first, Ellie sucked it up and went home in silence.
It’s been eight months ever since Ellie had grown used to school, too; ever since she stopped flinching from other classmates and freezing every time a teacher so much as looked her way (Ellie would have challenged them, same as she did back in FEDRA when fear made her either silent or reckless… but she couldn’t risk losing Joel. Couldn’t risk the chance of crossing whatever invisible line that kept him from seeing she was so much more trouble than what was worth it.).
Six months since she started wanting to go on those school incursions.
FEDRA had them, too. Ellie could sometimes still hear the sound of snapping necks from the hanging walls.
But Jackson’s trips meant riding horses outside the walls, learning how to identify constellations and make traps and find their way back home if they ever were lost outside, and they were free to roam around the perimeter made by the scouting patrols and the occasional voluntary parent.
Obviously she often went outside with Joel, sometimes even with Tommy too, but she longed for being able to go with the other kids, with the cool girl she somehow started being friends with, Dina, and the boy who she traded jokes and good-naturedly jabs, Jesse.
Winter passed by with those two visiting her on hers and Joel's house, sometimes even dragging her out of it too... In a month or two Ellie could even call them friends. Who knows.
“And that’s it, kids. You’re free to go!”
Oh right.
Their botanic teacher had been teaching something about which flowers became fruits and which fruits appeared at this season or that, but Ellie had got lost in her mind the moment the man said they would be hearing more about it on their road-trip outside, some neat waterfall Ellie might have passed by on that first year, while she slept in the front of a saddle between Joel’s arms because he was paranoid she’d fall otherwise.
“And remember, ask your family for permission!” He shouted behind the wave of kids scrambling to pass by the single door, all too ready to get back to their moms and dads. “Don’ wanna no parent coming up after us for stealing one of you kids!”
She scoffed at the mass of kids roughhousing to get dibs on the door, the daily competition to get off the building first, more patient than Tommy when it’s cheesy potato day.
Ellie, like the patient and smart young woman that she was, headed for the windows. She had seen a tall tree outside yesterday, and she was sure she could jump off the window and use its branches to climb down the second floor before the rest of her classmates could even get to the finish line – the school’s entrance.
She was fucking wining this race today, damnit!
“Ellie!”
Or not. damnit.
Jonathan, the botanic teacher with a kind face and an unfortunate case of pure white hairs in his early fifties, approached her with the gentle steps he always had around Ellie ever since a knife came too close to his eyes after an unfortunate accident.
The dude had resembled Joel when he reassured her no harm was done, and his eyes crinkled like Maria’s when she smiled at her jokes, and he smelt like Tommy too (leather and horsehair, since he often worked in the stable and with the cows and that one pregnant bison he promised to show her later to Joel’s growing anxiety), so Jonathan had arm-range-proximity privileges.
“Mr. Hake?”
The teacher laughed, his eyes crinkling with crow feets (Will the baby have them too, since Maria has them?) and shaking his head, “I told you, young lady. No need to use Mister. Jonathan is just fine.”
Ellie nodded, already knowing she wouldn’t follow it anyway; hadn’t heard it the last twenty times he asked after all.
Again, she couldn’t risk upsetting the teachers, not when one could reach out to Joel and then…
Well.
She couldn’t risk Joel.
Even if teacher Jonathan seemed like a good guy and her gut told her he was a friend. One complaint could be all that kept Joel from pawing her off for another person to deal with her shit, and she would be none the wiser.
Waking him up every night I get nightmares is already bad enough.. Risking his reputation as a mentor might be the breaking point.
“I am aware you haven’t been on any road trips to this day, is that correct?” Jonathan asked, his lips curled upwards into the easy smile Ellie was certain was his standard expression at this point.
“Yes, sir.” Shit, is he going to insist? For underagers to go outside they needed their parent’s permission, and she knew for a fact that simple mentors didn’t have the responsibility to give it… but Ellie couldn’t just walk up to Joel and ask him to act as her father, that’s…
You’re not my daughter.
And I sure as hell ain’t your dad.
Yeah, absolutely not. That had turned out bad last time, and she knew it would end up bad this time too. That’s not something she was going to risk.
“Don’t call me sir either, makes me feel old.” He snorted, fishing something out of his pockets. Despite how crinked it was, Ellie could distinguish the multiplying lines across the paper and the bold names over topological borders. “I am aware you and Joel passed by some bad misfortunes when you lived outside, but…”
A map?
Jonathan handed her the paper, waiting as she finished straightening it out. It was obviously a hand-made map, the lines uneven and dusty with charcoal in some places, and a few random drawings Ellie could bet were from Jonathan’s younger students.
“I pinpointed every location we will go on the road trip, along with my own notes about security and what to expect from each place.” He explained while Ellie inspected it; a few scribblings here and there talking about terrain and weather precavities, the kind of shit Joel would search for before planning their next hiking trip, but some of it also had patrol reports and reassurances that both humans and infecteds hadn’t been by in a long time. “Figured it might help your old man’s anxiety, having the game plan for the trip.”
Yeah, we passed by this waterfall that year.
“I’m sure you will like this one, I planned on showing the class how to find edible mushrooms and roots, some leaves you can use for tea. The better way to cut and plant ‘em too” Jonathan said, smiling with the confident certainty that Ellie would love those things:
The thing is, she did.
She had been asking him for help to grow her own personal garden ever since the middle of the semester. She had thrown water on Joel every time he tried to help on her garden – laughing when he pointed another idea for revenge in that mental list of his – even though she knew he often watered the plants on the days Ellie forgot or returned from home too tired and crashed on the couch.
Still, she couldn’t quite return the teacher’s smile.
Ellie couldn’t go on the road trip after all. Joel may be her person, her mentor in a way, but the man had been clear that he did not want the parent title and its responsibilities.
“– So try to convince your worrywart dad, okay?”
That was another thing that hurt, too.
Very early on their stay, Ellie had realized that a teenage girl living with an old, unmarried man would surely give the wrong impression to the population of Jackson and she had enough wits about her to not correct people when they referred to him as her father, regardless of the knee-jerk fear of the man overhearing it at first.
Joel himself must have reached the same conclusion, since she had seen him chat around with his contractor buddies and the occasional friendly neighbor sometimes, had seen him shoulder the title of father without as much as a twitch when it came his way from other people’s mouths.
He sometimes even smiled, when one teacher walked up to him to praise something his daughter had done in school. Playing the part easily enough that Ellie’s heart sometimes burned.
So in public, in Jackson, Ellie was a daughter. It was a necessary lie, an agreement that came unspoken between the two of them, and she often had to bite back the instinctive need to reply that no, he wasn’t her dad, he was just Joel.
Especially when they were side by side: she didn’t want Joel to think Ellie was having the wrong idea about what they were.
Not again. That was a mistake she wouldn’t repeat.
Ellie started to nod, absently wanting to finish up with that conversation and throw the paper into the trash bin before Joel could see it and the subject could arise in their safe household– but a voice crossed the room, breaking the silence.
“Ellie?” A sharp, uncommonly dangerous tone, but familiar in the way that automatically made her body relax.
She turned to meet Tommy’s face, finding him by the threshold; his face was unexpressive, but even from the distance Ellie could see the downturn of his lips and the hard tension in his forearms ending in a closed fist around the wooden frame.
“What are you doing here, old man? Time to change the diapers again?” Ellie said, the poke falling easily from her lips even if the tension in Tommy triggered her own nerves.
“Nah, them kids said somethin’ about a raccoon up here,” He replied, and Ellie was relieved when his lips turned upwards easily enough as he looked her way, hand leaving its deathgrip on the wood so he could walk closer to them. “Figured I’d take care of it ‘fore it could pass rabies.”
“Low blow, dude.” Ellie smiled, catching on their inside joke easily enough, even if she couldn’t really infect anyone… Half the fireflies would have turned if that was the case, between her fistfighting anyone who came too close in those three weeks, and later on in the hospital…and Joel too.
And Tommy… who bit her back, the bastard. Surprisingly enough, Maria as well.
Damn, thank fucking god I can’t infect people.
Regardless: “Low, looooow blow.”
Tommy gave her a quick flick on the nose as soon as he was in arms range, before standing beside her – a few inches in front of her in fact – and yeah, there was definitely a threat in the way he smiled, eyes pinching the same way Joel’s did when he was about to start swinging.
Teacher Jonathan just grinned at Tommy, no signal of noticing the other’s unusual severity.
"Mister Miller! It’s a surprise to see you, I thought you would be at the stables for longer,” he said, offering a hand to the other man.
Tommy shook it, a muscle in his forearm tensing in the process, and Ellie elbowed him just behind the ribs when Jonathan winced from the fierce grip, pinkish fingerprints adorning the teacher’s hand once they broke the handshake.
The younger Miller offered her a tight grimace, lips twitching; Tommy being extremely ticklish was a goldmine Joel had offered her, back in the first months where Ellie felt queasy at being near any other men that wasn’t him.
“Oh, well… I was headin’ for the stables down the south side of Jackson, and since I was passin’ I thought I might as well go and steal my niece,” Tommy offered, words tinged with a forced quality as he threaded an arm around Ellie’s shoulders and hugged her to his side.
It was enough to get the niece out of her head.
Contact, the affectionate kind of physical contact at least, was still a novelty of sorts; her and Joel had been attached to the hip ever since they came back to Jackson, even in public, but Tommy never touched her without a preamble; the roughhousing in the house was a playful and new dynamic that started from Ellie herself, after she stole some dessert right from the man’s hand and ran off to hide behind Joel.
Joel, like the asshole he was, sidestepped to lean over the kitchen and refused to pick sides as he watched them chase around the house.
But this, a genuine hug without the premise of stealing each other’s food?
First fucking time.
Ellie held herself still before she could do something embarrassing for her public reputation like hug him back and hide under Tommy’s neck, the same way she did whenever Joel hugged her goodbye for school or patrol.
“Was waitin’ by the tree, knew this damn hellion woulda jump off the window first chance she got,” Fuck, was I that obvious? Tommy nudged her, but Ellie didn’t deny or confirm the crime. “Saw no hair of ‘er, so I came by… See if anythin’ was amiss up here.”
Jonathan winced, something like realization hitting him in the face. Ellie stared, then raised her head to stare at Tommy too.
It was the sneer that made it click in her brain why Tommy was being so weird about it. Paranoid as she usually was, Ellie was surprised by how long – more than two minutes – it took for her to get it.
She pinched the hand loose on her shoulder; Tommy pinched her right back, but kept looking at the teacher with that glint Joel usually had before doing morally dubious shit.
“Mr. Hake was explaining some cool shit about foraging off the walls,” Ellie started, lips going upwards at the relieved sigh the teacher let out, “like, mushrooms and not eating the very bright ones.”
Tommy finally cut the death stare shit, lowering his head to observe Ellie.
Almost as if simply having her on his line of sight, that easy smile returned to his lips as Ellie talked; that was good. Tommy was never pissed off, and seeing him like that was unnerving even if the similarity to Joel made her feel safe enough.
“That so? Damn, and here I was plannin’ on givin’ ya this pink cap I found earlier.”
Jonathan opened his mouth to add, and Ellie found herself tucking the piece of paper deeper in her jacket’s pocket.
Please don’t mention the trip please don’t mention the trip please don’t mention the tri–
“I was trying to convince this young lady to go on at least this next school trip–”
Fucking shitting hellish damnit.
Ellie squirmed when the weight of Tommy’s eyes set up on the crow of her head, his voice barely louder than a whisper as he repeated, puzzled, “at least?” under his breath.
“I’m aware her father is very anxious about her safety,” Tommy snorted, somehow not reacting to Ellie’s shrinking on herself at the paternal title. “So I made a map to help her convince dad, right Ellie?”
As if Ellie was handing out a bomb or something bad like those expired drugs Joel used to sell, her hands clutched the crumbled paper, mentally willing its contents to dissolve into dust.
It fell in Tommy’s waiting hand, and unfortunately enough it still had its original contents on the surface when calloused fingers straightened it out, much more efficiently than Ellie had done.
“Oh, these are quite detailed,” Tommy accepted, finally losing the threat in his tone; now ten times more friendly and genuine, he grinned at the teacher before retracting the arm on Ellie’s shoulders, elbowing her with it like the jerk he was, “You up to the task, or wanna some help on your uncle’s part? I can offer moral support.”
Tommy had a thing for calling himself uncle.
While Joel seldom said the ‘d’ word, assuming the lie was going to spread enough by itself, Tommy had basically branded the uncle label on his forehead, even on those first days where he knew for a fact Ellie had a grudge against him – the remains of Joel almost ditching her onto him.
Maybe it was because he was more of a public image on the town, being Maria’s husband and all, but it was rare a day where the title didn’t pass through his lips.
He’s always blabbering, as Joel kept saying.
“Ellie Girl?”
The words came easily enough: “Yeah, no, I got it.”
“You sure?” Tommy pressed, brows pursued over his eyes as he looked at her with doubt, “by the looks of it, ain’t the first time you got held off those trips. I know how difficult my brother can be, but I’m not gon’ let him keep you from havin’ fun, ain’t right of him.”
It’s not his right to give me permission either. Not his responsibility.
“Nah, I’m good.” Ellie said, snatching the paper and waving it Jonathan’s way, “I got this.”
Got the stove to burn this before Joel gets home.
Tommy laughed, offering Jonathan his hand in a goodbye handshake – or whatever term old people had for it – much more friendly this time, while the other arm went around her in yet another hug, though it was much more loose and afar in comparison to the earlier one.
“Aight’, gon’ believe it... I’ll be takin’ this raccoon outta your hands now, Mr. Hake,” he said, pulling Ellie along as they went to cross the classroom. Then, in a much lower voice, he asked her once they were in the hallway: “You good? Was I bein’ too paranoid?”
It hurt, knowing whatever label they called themselves wasn’t really real… Ellie was no daughter, and she was no niece. But there, under the comforting weight of Tommy’s arm, his worried eyes soft and attentive in her face, it almost didn’t burn that much.
Ellie felt warm, and happy, and pulled herself a bit closer against Tommy’s side. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Tommy smiled and hugged her tighter. “So, about the window…”
“Don’t tell Joel!”
“Ain’t gon' do…but ya gotta tell me exactly why you woulda jump off a damn window, young lady.”
“Dude, there’s this, like, unspoken race…”