Chapter Text
When Ellie was little, she used to pretend to be asleep when the FEDRA guards did their rounds, and as soon as they left, she’d roll onto her back and stare up at the ceiling and pull the blankets high and imagine what it would be like to have a mom.
Ellie would imagine a woman with hair and eyes and a nose just like hers coming by, saying, “My daughter Ellie, she was taken from me when she was a baby, do you have her, is she okay?”, and then Ellie would run out and say, ‘That’s me, I’m Ellie,’ and the woman would scoop her up and tell her how sorry she was that Ellie got stolen away and say that she’d been looking for her every single day. She’d tell Ellie she was beautiful and smart and so, so loved, and she’d take her away from the dorms with the too-thin blankets and guards who hit and other kids who hated her. She’d hold Ellie tight as she carried her away from the orphanage to her apartment, and it would be small but clean, and Ellie would have food that wasn’t the loaf and a real bed and bedtime stories that weren’t in her own head, and she’d have a mom who loved her more than anything and tucked her into bed with a kiss on her forehead and told her she was safe.
Ellie dreamed about her mom every night until she was seven or eight and the reality sunk in that nobody would come.
Her imagination, though, only ever covered her mom. She never imagined the specifics of what ‘home’ would look like, or whether or not her mom would have other family to be Ellie’s grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, or whether this imaginary woman had other children, or even if Ellie had a father.
Logically, Ellie knew she had to have a father, but she saw kids who got brought in because their dads were so mean that FEDRA, who smacked them around and fed them in slices that were only half real food and locked them in dark solitary confinement cells, had stepped in and taken them away. She knew men were mean, and thus, her dad, whoever the fuck he was, must be mean too, so she didn’t think about him. Just her mom.
And maybe that’s part of why it’s so weird in Jackson now, three-and-a-half weeks after he carried her home from the clinic.
Ellie’s still in two casts and a sling - all of which are evil and she hates, thankyouverymuch - which means she’s pretty much relegated to the couch in the living room of the house that Joel’s trying to make theirs. Which sucks absolute dick, because she’s not meant to sit still for that long, but what doesn’t suck is that Joel is somehow a totally different person.
Ellie knows he’s a badass. She’s seen him kick people’s asses, seen him snap necks and shoot people and just generally not take shit, but ever since she woke up from her coma (which is another thing that’s bullshit, because she’s still crazy tired a solid month later even though she slept for, like, three weeks), he’s been just… all soft and shit.
For instance, right now, he’s sitting by her feet (propped up on a pillow), drinking a mug of coffee (shitty by his own declaration), and watching the space documentary he got from the library for her, periodically looking over or adjusting her blanket or asking if she’s feeling alright.
…that doesn’t actually sound quite as weird as he is lately. No, what’s weird is him making her three meals a day (turns out Ellie really fucking loves Chilean food, which happens to be Joel’s specialty), him getting her homework from the school and writing the answers for her and laughing when she bitches about it or tells him a pun, him redoing the room that’s gonna be hers when the two breaks in her leg are done healing (another month because she was walking on it in Colorado, ugh) with paint and built-in furniture and secret stuff he won’t tell her about, him ruffling her hair and calling her names like ‘baby’ and ‘kiddo’ and ‘honey,’ him just casually touching her when he walks by with a gentle hand to her head or hand patting or fingers brushing whatever part of her’s closest to him-
Joel is dad-ing at her.
And somehow, that stacks on Tommy dropping by daily and referring to her as ‘darlin’ and ‘trouble’ and bringing her food (which she begrudgingly accepts, considering she doesn’t actually like the guy who keeps telling her to call him ‘Uncle Tommy’ and is far too enthusiastic about her being around but makes this sweet potato thing that’s really good), on Joel cleaning the house and redoing the walls and furniture and cabinets and shit to ‘make it their house,’ on her having a room and space documentaries and the school that she’s gonna go to as soon as she’s able to walk-
It’s weird. It’s so fucking weird.
And Joel doesn’t leave her side, not really. He hasn’t since they got back to Jackson. He doesn’t even leave her to sleep, just crashing on the mattress he dragged out to the living room, which she declined to stay on and insisted on the couch instead, swapping their spots. She’s told him he can sleep upstairs, he declines just as vehemently as her with the mattress.
Though that might be on her more than him. She wakes up screaming every night, the pain in her body in that lodge from her injuries too much and the cleaver too far away - David was so close, her fucking pants were off, he was so fucking close, and if anything had been just a little different-
But when she wakes up screaming and crying and shaking so hard it makes everything hurt, Joel’s immediately there, hugging her so tight that sometimes her back pops and telling her ‘you’re fine, baby girl, you’re safe, you’re here with me, I gotcha,’ and he just hugs her and rocks her as much as he can with Ellie having a broken arm and a leg broken in two places and a shoulder that got cut down to the bone and cauterized and infected and ribs that ache even though they healed, and when she stops clinging to him as best she can and sobbing, he usually puts this badass movie ‘Jurassic Park’ on and brings her a cup of hot chocolate (Ellie doesn’t know how he gets it considering they’re a self-sufficient colony in fucking Wyoming) and braids her hair while she calms down.
And Ellie would be lying if she said she wasn’t eating this shit up - she is, even though she’d much prefer being able to fucking move around without Joel having to help her to the bathroom - but she also knows for a goddamn fact that Joel lied to her.
Now that her head isn’t fuzzy from all the pain medicine, she knows that the pause before he said ‘soon’ when she asked when they’re leaving for the Fireflies means one thing: he’s not gonna take her.
And that pisses Ellie the fuck off.
Because she’s immune. She’s immune, and the world is dying, and Ellie can save someone else’s Riley or Sam or Henry or Tess, but Joel doesn’t want to take her.
She wants to yell at him. Tell him that as soon as they get whatever they need to make the vaccine from her and they know it works, they can come right back here, to this house that’s almost theirs and Tommy and Maria and their baby that’s only a few months from being born and this town with the wall and the school and everything that fucking works, but every time she goes to tell him that as soon as she’s able to walk she’s gonna make Joel take her or figure it out by herself, she can’t.
Every time she goes to, Joel looks so content or soft that she can’t make herself risk a fight.
The last time they argued was before they left, and Ellie felt so shitty that she’s not about to do that again, especially when Joel’s options are either to leave her alone to fend for herself for a bit (which, the more time she spends with Soft-Joel, she thinks is not very likely), or it’s awkward silence and a loss of this calm, easy, safe little dynamic they’ve got right now - at least until they both silently regret it and are a little nicer like in the past or one of them (probably Ellie) apologizes.
And Ellie would rather lay here watching space documentaries with Joel until she can at least slam a door dramatically like the girl in that movie ‘Sixteen Candles’ Maria gave her when they inevitably argue. (So fucking strange, but maybe that’s because she’s grown up in a world where zombies are a real thing, so…)
Joel sighs, leaning his head against the back of the couch and closing his eyes.
Ellie chooses not to think about the Fireflies.
“You fallin’ asleep, old man?” Ellie grins instead.
He huffs, shaking his head.
“Restin’ my eyes.” Joel mutters, but his head tilts slightly towards her and his coffee rests against his leg.
Ellie snorts. “Uh-huh. Sure. You’re gonna start snoring so loud the neighbors have to check.”
She hasn’t met the neighbors except for Maria and Tommy.
Joel cracks an eye open and gives her one of the exasperated, long-suffering looks he’s been handing out like candy ever since she revealed that, while volume too (hehe) of Will Livingston isn’t memorized, volume one sure as hell is. “I do not snore.”
“You one hundred percent do.”
“Do not.”
“Do too. You snore so bad that you would’ve died in, like, two minutes if Clickers were in the QZ.”
Joel exhales through his nose like he’s trying not to laugh or roll his eyes, shaking his head before reaching over and tugging the blanket higher up on her. It’s a dumb gesture - barely anything, really - but something goes tight in Ellie’s chest.
She used to dream about a mom. Now she has whatever the fuck this is. And she’s not allowed to forget, her hair in a braid he did and her stomach full of cazuela he cooked and watching a movie he brought home to their house with him laying next to her.
But when she closes her eyes she remembers Riley. Tess. Sam. Henry. She thinks of Joel getting bit and not being immune, of him dying.
She thinks of Sarah sometimes too. Ellie couldn’t have saved her, but she can save someone else’s Sarah.
And thus, she can save someone else’s Joel, too. If Sarah hadn’t died-
Well, Joel would’ve been like this the whole time, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t have tried to kill himself. He wouldn’t have become mean or hurt people beyond self-defense.
Ellie closes her eyes and leans her head back against the pillow.
She has to save the world.
But it’s really easy to pretend this room is the world.
Ellie wants to cry, but she holds it in.
Pro: she doesn’t start crying. Con: it makes her eyes stick together and her eyelids get heavy.
She feels him get up, the blankets be tucked around her tighter, Joel smoothing loose hair back from her forehead and his stubble scratching as he presses a feather-light kiss there. “Get good sleep.”
Ellie pretends to be knocked out until she actually does drift off.
-
When she wakes up, she recognizes another voice.
She recognizes it in only a minute or two of trying to place it. Tommy.
“When you gon’ start goin’ on patrols, big brother?” Tommy asks, clearly trying to keep his voice down. “We got folks who can sit with her. Hell, there are a couple kids ‘round her age that been comin’ an’ buggin’ Maria at work askin’ ‘bout the new girl in town. Could have ‘em come to your place, hang out with Ellie, have their parents watch your girl an’ their kids-”
“Not sure I’m gon’ go on patrols.” Joel sighs.
“Alright, fine. In a month or two after she’s better an’ can go to school?”
“Tommy. That ain’t what I mean.”
It’s dead silent for a minute.
“Joel, all the adults gotta do somethin’. You can’t exactly-”
“I can join the kitchen staff.” Joel cuts off, voice firm.
Tommy scoffs. “Look-”
“I’m already doin’ enough cookin’. Ellie won’t eat nothin’ unless I made it an’ I try it first.” Joel says. “Or I can build things. Contractors always needed, even after the goddamn world.”
“Joel-” Tommy sighs.
“Tommy, if I start goin’ on patrols, I ain’t there if she needs me.” Joel snaps. “Even if she’s in school, she- I don’t want to be outta the walls where she can’t get me if she- hell, she could fall an’ break another bone. For fuck’s sake, she broke her calf in two spots an’ her arm an’ a few ribs - they’re gon’ rebreak, Tommy, unless you forgot ‘bout how you’ve rebroken that spot on your foot, what, twenty times?”
“If she gets hurt, someone’ll come get you.”
“You are not listening to me, Tomás. No puedo dejarla.”
Ellie’s caught off-guard at the Spanish, and even more off-guard when Tommy says something back to him, his accent much worse than Joel’s. It’s a little cringey, actually - while Joel’s southern accent fades and gets replaced on the words, Tommy’s doesn’t, and it sounds clunky and unnatural coming from him. Ellie can’t understand a word, but it’s hissed, and she knows they’re arguing about something.
“You weren’t like this before.” Tommy says, suddenly switching back to English.
“Look at her.” Joel snaps. “She’s twelve goddamn years old. She is twelve fuckin’ years old an’ she wakes up screamin’ every night. She was in a coma for three weeks an’ almost died. She’s watched too many fuckin’ people die. An’ that’s without mentioning she grew up alone in an orphanage where they malnourished her so bad she got fuckin’ scurvy an’ locked her in solitary confinement an’ drugged her so they wouldn’t have to explain shit to her even though it made her sick. I wasn’t this way with Sarah ‘cause she didn’t need me to be this way. She had me her whole life an’ knew she was loved an’ that nothin’ bad would happen to her while I-”
Joel’s voice cracks, and he goes quiet for a second.
Ellie doesn’t know how to feel about what he’s saying. What he’s making her think.
“Ellie’s still a little girl.” Joel says quietly. “She ain’t never had a parent. An’- look, Tommy, the second she’s alright, I’ll send her off to school, she’ll sleep in her room, she’ll make friends an’ shit, I just- fuck, Tommy, she lied to me. She said she was fourteen, an’ I bought it, an’- Jesus fuckin’ Christ. She’s twelve years old.”
“I understand that. But when Sarah-”
“Ellie ain’t Sarah. She don’t got the same needs.”
“Fine. But what happens when she’s fifteen? Eighteen? Grown? You still gon’ try for kitchen duty because you wanna hover?”
“She ain’t fifteen or eighteen or grown. She’s twelve. Right now, she needs me a lot, an’ after she’s able to move around, I’ll be whatever she needs then. But right now, she needs me to take care of her.”
Tommy scoffs quietly. “An’ it’s just her, big brother? Not you needin’ her?”
It’s dead silent for a second.
Joel says something quietly in Spanish before going back to English. “You said some kids were askin’ ‘bout Ellie?”
“Yeah. Good kids. Mostly these two, the Wong’s boy an’ younger one of the Woodward girls. Couple others, but those two are the ones that keep askin’.”
Joel sighs. “When she wakes up, I’ll ask if she wants ‘em to come over. All up to her.”
Tommy chuckles. “Gonna get into some good trouble if they turn into friends.”
“What happened to ‘good kids’?” Joel teases, though his voice is still heavy.
“Jesse an’ Dina are good kids. They’re just… also normal kids. Meanin’ they find a whole lotta trouble.”
Joel sighs again. “Alright, I’ll ask. No promises, though.”
Joel and Tommy go about their normal rituals, and while Ellie’s prepared to pretend to stir so that Tommy doesn’t touch her (Joel’s the only one who’s allowed to smooth her hair and touch her and shit despite Tommy’s best efforts to ingratiate himself - for fuck’s sake, he really isn’t picking up on her ‘get away from me and Joel and get out of my house’ signals, even though she’s trying), but today he doesn’t try to, just leaving after putting his jacket on.
Joel’s going to sit back down next to her when Ellie blurts, “I mean, if you want, they can come over.”
Joel sighs again. “Ain’t my decision, baby. You gotta pick.”
Ellie wants to say no. She honestly just wants Joel. No Tommy, no Maria, nothing but the two of them in this house. Just him looking at and treating her like the center of his universe and her getting to be Ellie-honey Ellie-babygirl Ellie-kiddo.
After they make the vaccine, of course. But the second they make it, she’ll come back here, and it can be just the two of them, right?
But she remembers Joel talking about how he wants her to have friends, and she just got him to be like this and love her so much, of course she’s not gonna disappoint him.
Oh, she hates this already.