Work Text:
It’s almost sundown when Ellie gets a visitor at work.
Her office is a medium-sized shack located near the stables of the main gate, a perfect place to house all the paperwork she needs in order to facilitate her new role as the patrol manager. Ellie had originally argued with Maria that the chore didn’t even exist, that it seemed like a feeble arrangement to give her a task somewhat similar to what she was used to just so she could still feel useful around town.
Maria admitted to some truth to Ellie’s point, but she also insisted that she would love for Ellie to start learning to ropes of leading the town. There was a buried emphasis in her request that suggested Maria only trusted Ellie to be the one to succeed her role in the future. That Ellie was already deeply embedded in the tangled mess of a family the Miller brothers left them with—and implication was what led Ellie to accept the job on the spot.
Managing patrol rotations is not the laid-back kind of job Ellie thought it would be.
It’s far more stressful than what Maria initially described it would be, but it’s a task that keeps her on her toes on a daily basis. It was hard to believe it at first, but rescheduling patrol rotations sometimes felt like hugging an exploding bloater. Not to mention how balancing patrollers with the right partners oftentimes resembled the act of gathering sheep into a barn. One wrong move, and a stray could lead the pack in the wrong direction.
Jackson’s townsfolk always knew she would have the job in the future, anyway. There was a tacit understanding that regardless of the complications of their familial relations, Maria’s niece would one day take over the duty of leading Jackson. It was never a question of whether it would ever happen, but more of when Ellie would feel comfortable to take on these responsibilities.
It came as a surprise to those who personally knew her—that Ellie would start making her way up before she was even in her thirties. Most of them thought they would have to wrench a 100-year-old Ellie away from patrolling duties, so to have her willingly take a job inside Jackson’s walls was a bit unnerving.
The desk job isn’t as exciting, but it’s definitely enough work to keep her busy throughout the week. Her favourite part of the job was toward the end of the day. When her last task was to wait for the afternoon patrols to come back home, and she spent the time quietly drafting ways to adjust routes for possible expansions to the town. Nothing felt better than to wrap up a workday with a glint of hope for a better future for her son.
Ellie is knee deep in concentration, head down studying a map and ready to sketch out a new patrol route when a knock on the door breaks her focus. It’s Andres, Dina’s new apprentice at the electric shop, a gangly young man whose family recently moved to Jackson. His presence immediately makes Ellie panic. They’ve only met three times since Dina hired him, and their interactions have been cordial at best. So, what else could warrant his appearance at her office at the end of the day if it weren’t for something urgent?
“Hey, uh… Ellie. A-are you busy?” he croaks out, Ellie can tell he’s nervous, but what for she’s not sure yet.
“Andres, right?” she asks hoping to calm his nerves even though she knows exactly who he is, “what’s up?”
“D-dina sent me t-to tell you to please… go to her house as soon as pos-possible once you’re finished with work,” Andres stutters out, making Ellie all the more concerned.
Ellie stands up from her desk and promptly grabs her coat from the chair, “did something happen? Is she hurt? Is JJ okay?”
She tries to calm herself enough to hear a response from him. Whatever it was must have not been too terrible, because if something dire had indeed happened to her family, there is no way Maria would have sent this semi-stranger to send the news.
“Oh! I don’t—um…” the young man stutters and brings a hand up to rub the back of his neck, “she didn’t say. I’m just a messenger.”
With her jacket half worn on her back, Ellie looks down to the scattered papers on the desk and then to the clock on the wall. She only had 30 minutes left before the last patrol shift returned and reported back to her. Ellie was not one to ever leave her post early, but she was unfortunately not immune to whatever nervous energy Andres passed on to her.
The whole situation was terrifyingly curious, and she had to get to her family to find out what was happening. Ellie scribbles a note on a torn piece of paper, neatly folds it, and hands it to noticeably anxious Andres.
“Since you’re a messenger and all… can you quickly send this to Maria for me, please?”
**
Ellie tries not to sprint to Dina’s house. She doesn’t want to alarm anybody in town, so she ends up speed walking instead. In hindsight, sprinting would have probably looked way less ridiculous than the quick shimmy her hips do when she makes herself walk fast.
The thought comes too late. Dina’s house is already in view when she decides to run the rest of the way.
Ellie pauses on the porch to catch her breath. She knocks on the door twice before she curses to herself. Why is she knocking when she has a key to the door? Ellie digs in her pockets for the familiar shape of the metal when the door swings wide open.
“Did you forget your key again?”
Ellie looks up and releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Dina is leaning on the door frame with a smirk on her face. She looks perfect as ever and all Ellie can’t stop herself from hugging her right away. Relief floods her senses when she feels Dina reciprocate, her arms wrapping tightly around Ellie’s waist.
“Are you fine? Like, you’re not hurt?” Ellie whispers into her ear.
“Yes? Is this a trick question? Why?” Dina is puzzled by Ellie’s panic-stricken face and leads them into the house.
“Andres said I had to come home, and he was all nervous and twitchy, so I freaked out and kind of ran here,” Ellie admits before adding, “wait, what about JJ? Is he safe too?”
Dina eyes Ellie as if gauging to see if she was being pranked. When she realizes that Ellie was serious, she laughs and gives Ellie a quick peck on the lips.
“JJ’s upstairs doing homework, but babe, you do know Andres has a speech impediment, right? Like, it’s a medical condition, it doesn’t mean he’s actually nervous,” Dina chuckles when Ellie finally realizes that there was actually nothing to worry about.
“A speech impediment? You mean to say I got nervous for nothing?” Ellie takes a step back to shrug her jacket off her shoulders.
“Mhm,” Dina agrees, and takes Ellie’s jacket to hang on the coat rack by the door.
“So, what was so urgent you sent you lackey out to fetch me?” Ellie tilts her head to the side, still so apparently confused by everything.
“Well… your son—” Dina starts but Ellie interrupts her.
“Oh no. What did he do?”
Dina points up to the stairs, “your son picked a fight at school today.”
Ellie’s eyes bulge out in amazement, “Potato picked a fight? But… he’s only five years old!”
“That’s what I thought!” Dina shrugs, “but then I remembered who his parents are and then I realized that the apple really didn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Holy fuck, you didn’t not just say that,” Ellie laughs.
“I literally just sounded like my mother,” Dina groans.
“Seriously, though,” Ellie asks, treading carefully but not without a smirk on her lips, “why did he get in a fight in the first place? Because questionable parents aside, he’s practically an angel!”
Dina sighs and leans forward letting Ellie hold her once again, “he said he doesn’t want to talk about it. Only that he wants to ask you something important.”
Ellie glances up toward the stairs wondering what their son could possibly want to ask her. She wonders what kind of demon would have likely possessed their sweet little spud to attack another student at school. The worst part is not even knowing how to explain to their son about not resorting to violence when the world they lived in required such actions to survive.
Despite the severity of the situation, Ellie couldn’t help but to joke, “if he wants to learn how to punch better, he’s asking for the wrong mom.”
The comment earns Ellie a light jab to the chest from Dina.
“Oof. Way to prove my point, babe.” Ellie shakes her head and grabs Dina’s hand to lead them upstairs to JJ’s room.
They share a look understanding that whatever JJ wanted to talk to Ellie about, they all had to do it as a family.
**
Ellie enters JJ’s room first. They find him slumped and sitting cross-legged on his big boy bed. Ollie is on his lap, and they seemed to have interrupted a silent conversation between JJ and his beloved toy. Ellie slowly makes her way to sit on the edge of the bed leaving Dina behind to lean on the doorframe. Their family was complete, but they still wished to respect JJ’s request to only talk to Ellie.
“Hey, bud. I heard what happened at school today. Wanna tell me about it?”
JJ sinks further into his bed and fiddles with Ollie in his hands. He hesitantly looks up and whispers, “do you love me?”
The question baffles Ellie and feels her heart breaking at sound of doubt in her son’s voice. She is more than a little concerned that her son somehow thinks there is a universe in which she could possibly stop loving him. She immediately scoots closer to him and wraps him tightly in her arms.
“Of course, I do, Spud. What makes you think I don’t?” Ellie eyes Dina by the door making a speechless plea for some comfort on her part. Dina only nods her head, assuring her that she is doing all right.
JJ stays still in Ellie’s arms and his teeny voice is muffled when he says, “Max said you’re not my real mom so we’re not a real family and that you only fake love me.”
“What? Who the fuck is Max?” Ellie growls making JJ flinch under her grasp.
Ellie has a sudden urge to hunt down this Max to teach a lesson about not meddling in other people’s business. Dina loudly clears her throat as if to remind Ellie that she is veering off track. Ellie has to remind herself that children can be unconsciously callous and that whoever this kid was probably didn’t mean any harm, and most likely doesn’t know any better.
“Are you angry with me?” JJ asks her and slithers out of her arms.
Ellie is reluctant to let him go and only does when Dina approaches them to sit next to her.
“Mom is not angry with you, Tater,” Dina speaks up, “she has her thinking face on.”
JJ pokes Ellie on the cheek as testing to see if his mom would notice. Ellie fails to hide the smile that emerges on her face. She kisses JJ on the head and comes up with a way to explain the dynamics of their family to a five-year-old.
“Do you remember the book I read to you the other night about the lost bird asking the dog if she’s his mother?” he nods and she continues, “well, our family is kind of like that. You have momma, and you have me. And just because we don’t look alike, it doesn’t mean that I’m any less your mom than momma is to you. Do you understand?”
The truth is that the allusion to the old story isn’t quite fitting to their situation, but Ellie hopes that it is basic enough for their little boy to understand the way their family works.
“You’re the dog and me and momma are birds, and you love us anyway?” he asks so innocently she and Dina can’t help but to laugh.
“I love you always no matter what other people say, Spud,” Ellie reassures him, and she is relieved to see him accepting her explanation, “we’re our own little family and I will always be your mom, even when you don’t see me.”
“What about momma? Do you love momma too?”
Dina tilts her head at Ellie, mimicking the hopeful look in their son’s eyes.
“Your momma owns my heart, Tater.”
Ellie feels Dina’s hand grasp one of hers, their fingers intertwined. JJ sees the contact, jumps on them, and nuzzles his little head in between theirs. The moment was so tender they almost forgot what had started the discussion in the first place.
Until JJ spoke again, “if we’re always a family, how come you don’t live with us?”
And damn, their son really did have some hard-hitting questions that night.