Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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They bury Amy in the town’s cemetery just outside the walls.

She’s laid to rest in a patch of lush green grass underneath a huge bur oak tree. The ground still soft from the spring rainfall the day before. Maria and a few of the other council members are asked to say a few words in remembrance. Amy’s father stands silent and alone, closest to the open grave, head bowed, shoulders rigid, and weathered face set like granite. His only family was the little girl now buried six feet under. Ellie can hear nothing but the ringing in her own ears.

Even though the sun shines bright overhead, the air is sticky with an oppressive sort of grief that clings, and Ellie feels like she’s choking on it. The loss sits as heavy as the large hand Joel has on her shoulder. His own expression a blank mask, but he hasn’t once stopped touching her since it happened. He’s kept her in sight and in reaching range since they dragged the lake and came back with Amy’s body.

Amy who was only a year younger than Ellie when she died. They had the same teacher in school, shared the same circle of friends, and the same love of horses. Amy, who had a smattering of freckles on her cheeks that stood out more when she stayed too long in the sun. A girl who snorted slightly when she laughed, and loved the color yellow and always had paint stains on her fingers. A girl who wrinkled her nose up at brussel sprouts but devoured the fuck out of some broccoli. A girl who loved nature and collecting caterpillars just to name them all Fred. A girl who bullied her father into piggy back rides and standing still long enough to be her paint subject.

Amy who told Ellie that she had gorgeous eyes.

Tommy always said that girl was sweet as apple pie just to see her smile.

Amy who was just talking to Ellie yesterday is gone. She’s fucking dead. It sits like quick sand in Ellie’s gut, the more she squirms, the more it threatens to swallow her whole.

Several men grab shovels to start covering the wooden coffin, Tommy among them. His eyes are red-rimmed and swimming with decades’ old pain. They make eye contact, and Ellie fights the urge to turn into Joel’s side and hide away from the grief that seems to leak from every person here. She hears Joel’s breath hitch next to her, a stifled something in the back of his throat that makes her own eyes sting, only imagining what sort of memories this is drudging up.

No one moves until the grave is covered.

The crowd slowly disperses, heading back for the town gates.

Ellie’s gaze is glued to Amy’s father, Jake. His shoulders are shaking but no noise leaves him. Joel squeezes her shoulder, trying to get her attention. “C’mon, baby,” he whispers, voice deep and rough as sandpaper.

His voice draws Jake’s attention too, who turns his head to look at them. There’s an instant where his blue eyes shift hollowly over them like he isn’t really seeing them at all, and then recognition flashes and his expression turns cold and brutal. He’s looking right at her. Ellie takes an involuntary step back against Joel who immediately braces her with another hand at her back, automatically rubbing up and down. She can feel the trimmer in his hand, the shaky exhale of air ruffling the strands of hair on the back of her head. His concern for her sudden reaction is palpable. Joel must follow her gaze to Jake because his grip on her tightens, and he starts leading her away from the glare she’s caught under.

“This is your fucking fault,” Jake seethes, gaze sharp and piercing. “My baby is gone because of you.” There’s a manic twist to his mouth, a trembling in his limbs that puts her on edge. The light in his eyes is more than a little crazy, like something inside him has just snapped.

“Hey,” Joel cuts in firmly, stepping in front of her and blocking Jake’s line of sight. “That’s enough.”

Jake acts like he doesn’t even hear him. He takes a step towards them on shaky legs, Joel tensing and matching his step with one of his own.

“Step back,” Joel says, tone clipped. It’s like the words go in one ear and out the other as Jake zeroes in on her further where she’s peeking through just over Joel’s elbow.

Jake doesn’t fucking listen.

What happens next goes so quickly that Ellie blinks and nearly misses it.

“It should’ve been you,” Jake bites out between clenched teeth, icy eyes not leaving her face, and then Joel is fucking swinging on the man, his own face set in a snarl.

Tommy seems to appear out of nowhere, getting in between them before a full on fight can break out. It takes several men, but finally Jake is herded away while Tommy keeps firm hands pushing against Joel’s chest, acting as a barrier until the scene is over. “Easy, big brother,” he murmurs, frowning as he watches Joel heave for breath, his face red and knuckles white with fury from where they cling to Tommy’s shirt at the shoulders.

Ellie remains frozen, unable to look away from Jake’s retreating form. His words settling like lead in the bottom of her stomach, and bile rises in her throat. Swallowing hard, she slams her eyes shut, trying to focus on her breathing and stopping the trembling in her body. The voice in her head that tells her Jake is right. Amy’s death is her fault. Swimming at the lake had been her idea. They’d been daring people all day to jump from the ledge into the deeper end of the water. It was supposed to be perfectly safe. Everyone in Jackson had been going to that lake for years. Amy took Ellie’s turn at her insistence and jumped first. She must’ve hit her head on a rock because she never surfaced. They didn't find her body until near nightfall.

She still hasn’t told Joel that it was supposed to be her. In more ways than one she should be dead right now, but for some reason she keeps pulling the long straw.

Another death on her conscious. More blood on her hands.

When will it ever stop?

A familiar voice says her name, stilted and worried, and close by. Ellie opens her eyes to find Joel standing right in front of her, mouth turned down and brows furrowed. His hands are hovering over her like he wants to touch her, but isn’t sure if it’s okay yet.

Jake is long gone.

Tommy lingers just past Joel’s shoulder, his own face pinched and drawn up tight.

She leans into the hand that is already going for her face, letting Joel’s palm rest against her cheek, warm and calloused and so familiar it soothes her. His thumb brushes along her skin. “You okay?” Joel wonders gruffly, eyes scanning her intensely.

Ellie nods against his hold, releasing a breath that makes her head spin a bit as it continues to pound behind her eyelids. Suddenly, she just aches to be behind closed doors with just Joel. Safe in their little blue house away from everyone. She doesn’t want to stare at Amy’s grave anymore and imagine scenarios where she died instead. She doesn’t want to think about how Jake is going back to an empty house because he buried his daughter today.

How in another world it would’ve been Joel burying her.

“I just wanna go home,” she whispers, and because she needs it, Ellie steps forward, falling into Joel’s arms that encircle her fiercely. She tucks her face into his neck and just breathes, feels a hand on her back and the other tangle in her hair.

“I gotcha, baby girl,” Joel swears hoarsely, cradling her. “We’re going home.”

They walk back to town with her glued to his side, hidden underneath the arm that doesn’t leave her shoulders, and Tommy, a silent companion, walks on Joel’s other side.

None of them realize that Ellie is still being watched.

A man with icy blue eyes is standing in the shadows.

…

Chapter Text

…

It should’ve been you.

The words replay in her head like a broken record for the rest of the day, drowning out everything else. Ellie barely touches her dinner, scooting the chicken and vegetables around the plate in an effort to make it look like she’s eating.

She thinks that Joel tries to talk to her, but she doesn’t hear a thing he says.

A glance at the other side of the dinner table reveals his weathered, tense face watching her. His eyes are big and wet and bloodshot, the crinkles in his skin standing out starkly in the kitchen lighting. He looks worn, and really old, older than she can recall him looking before.

She knows that she must be absolutely worrying him to death. Ellie can see it in the slightly hunched rigid line of his broad shoulders, in the hand that shakes around the fork in his grasp, in the way he can’t look away from her, scared to even blink and miss her.

They chose to eat at home today because neither of them could stomach even the idea of going to the dining hall and pretending like everything is okay. Too much noise. Too many eyes. Ellie didn’t want the questions or the pity. She doesn’t have the strength to do much of anything right now, and she knows that Joel isn’t any better. He’s struggling to keep it together, and she is too.

They buried a kid this morning.

Joel eats mechanically, fully on autopilot, while Ellie still can’t bring herself to take a single bite. All she can think about is that Amy will never have another meal with her dad again. That Jake is probably sitting alone at his empty dinner table, in his empty house looking at the chair across from him where his daughter should be.

If not for Ellie, she would be.

The thought sends her heart stuttering and her pulse racing and the next second, she’s lurching to her feet, not caring when her chair skids backwards and almost clatters to the floor. Joel exclaims in alarm, his fork clattering onto the table as he hastily stands too. Ellie nearly throws herself through the downstairs bathroom door, barely having the time to open the toilet lid before she’s hunching over it, vomiting into the bowl what little she did eat earlier that day.

The large, warm hand holding her hair back and the other settling on her upper back tells her that Joel followed her.

He’s saying something again but the roar in her ears mostly drowns him out.

She pukes until nothing but bile comes up and then she’s slumping back onto the tile floor, elbows perched on her bent knees, chest heaving from the exertion.

Joel is crouched beside her, in a position she knows will hurt his back and knees if he stays there too long, and it takes her a second to realize he’s holding out a warm washcloth to wipe off her face. When he had time to grab it, she doesn’t know. Ellie takes it with trembling hands, hating the sour awful taste on her tongue.

“Okay, baby,” he mutters, strained. “You’re okay.” They both know that isn’t true. It’s the farthest thing from okay.

He’s giving her that look again, like she’s slowly breaking him apart. Like he wants to fix whatever is wrong because he can’t stand to see her hurting this badly. He’s looking at her like he doesn’t know what to do and it’s eating him alive.

His fingers brush away the fallen strands of hair off her clammy forehead. He lingers like he’s reassuring himself. It’s easy to forget that the last two days have been difficult for him too.

“Think you’re gonna be sick again, baby?” Joel asks.

Still not up to talking, Ellie just shakes her head negatively as she finishes cleaning off her mouth. Joel releases an old man sigh, brows furrowed deeply as he considers her.

“Alright then, let’s getcha up, honey,” he murmurs, softer than she’s ever heard him outside of fucking Colorado. He usually pet names her to death when he’s feeling particularly anxious, after nightmares and bad brain days and when she’s hurt. He rises to his feet with a grunt and then he’s bending over again to get his hands around her arms, tugging her to stand with ease.

He doesn’t let go, doesn’t look like he is capable of it really as his eyes roam over her face. Whatever he sees must upset him because he opens his mouth to say something, lips thin with his concern, but Ellie doesn’t let it come out.

Instead, she speaks first. “I’m gonna go brush my teeth and hop in the shower.”

Ellie steps out of his hold, and he immediately drops his arms, careful not to cage her in as she slips around him, heading for the stairs.

“You holler if you need me, okay, baby girl?” Joel says to her retreating back. “I’ll be right here.” He sounds like he doesn’t even want to be a foot away from her much less a whole floor, but that he’s trying hard to honor her wish for space.

Even though it seems to be killing him.

For some reason his tone makes tears sting her eyes and it’s all she can do to throw a haphazard thumbs up over her shoulder and beat a hasty retreat, not stopping until she’s behind the door of her bathroom up the stairs. Only then does she let the tears fall, stifling her sob behind her hand.

God, she doesn’t know how to fucking deal with this. How to navigate this level of fucked up. Especially when it feels like it’s all her fault. Like some sort of cosmic bullshit kept her alive while Amy fucking died. It isn’t fair. It’s never fucking fair. Why the hell she always comes out okay while someone else pays the price, and how maybe one day she’ll get to stop standing by while someone else dies.

How maybe one day it will be her.

She doesn’t know how to tell Joel. He hasn’t asked for the details of what happened yet, knows that it’s not exactly dinner chitchat.

The truth beats in her chest like a war drum.

It should’ve been her.

Maria said it was a horrible accident. Tommy said that sometimes shit just happens. Joel said it wasn’t her fault. But they don’t know. They don’t understand how often and unfairly Ellie has cheated death while others have died instead.

They don’t get it.

…

She’s sitting in the window seat, reading a book that her mind isn’t really on, when Joel taps on her doorframe and hesitantly steps into her room.

His hair is damp from the shower like hers was earlier and he’s changed into a ratty t-shirt and sweatpants. His feet are bare, and it strikes Ellie as odd for some reason even though she’s seen him barefoot countless times in the last few months. But it’s also weird seeing him in everyday not on the road clothes. Both of their shoes stay in the cubby he built by the front door so she’d quit kicking them off wherever and he’d quit tripping over them.

They’re no longer on the verge of running, but there are still go bags under their beds, a bolthole in her bedroom closet, and a gun safe in Joel’s. They have an escape plan practiced and memorized if Jackson is ever invaded or they’re forced to make a quick exit. Others in town who have been there for years probably think they’re fucking crazy, but Joel’s hypervigilance has always been a source of comfort for Ellie, and it’s kept them alive this long.

“Hey kiddo, you feeling any better?” His eyebrows are scrunched and he’s doing that thing where he looks like he’s perpetually frowning. She wishes that she wasn’t stressing him out so much.

“Yeah, sorry I don’t know what the fuck that was earlier, chicken didn’t sit well with me or something,” Ellie tells him, even though they both know she didn’t even touch it.

But Joel doesn’t call her out on it. “No need to be sorry, kiddo. As long as you’re okay now,” he says, checking on more than just her upset stomach.

Ellie doesn’t know what to do when he is gentle with her. Even now, she has trouble getting used to it.

“I’m fine,” she assures even though her tone falls flat, giving up on her book, she shuts it and sets to the side. “Didn’t get sick again.”

Food is the last thing on her mind though, and quite honestly, sleep doesn’t sound a whole lot better. The nightmares will likely find her tonight. They’ll be awful so she should just as well not even try, but Joel won’t want her staying up all night. He’ll just stay up with her too, and it’ll be her fault that he’s exhausted tomorrow, and she doesn’t want to do that to him.

“That’s good,” he mutters, but it’s obvious he’s still worried. She hasn’t gotten sick like that in months, even if it makes sense that what happened today would be a trigger.

“You want me to make some peppermint tea?” Joel offers, rocking forward on his feet like he’s itching to come closer.

The peppermint was a gift from Maria during the worst of Ellie’s bought with nausea, leftover from her own battle with morning sickness. It helped settle her stomach. A godsend on the nights Ellie couldn’t keep even water down for very long.

Joel has steeped it for her countless times since, but that’s not what she wants tonight.

Ellie shakes her head, her real request on the tip of her tongue. The question sticks to the roof of her mouth, and she swallows to dislodge it, trying not to feel like a fucking baby for needing him, for wanting his arms and his hands and his voice. For wanting the world to fall away and for it to just be the two of them where nothing can touch them.

“I just wanna go to bed,” she says.

“Okay,” he replies. “Whatever you want, kiddo.” Joel says those words like they’re the easiest thing he’s ever uttered.

“Will– will you stay with me?” The request is mumbled and unsure.

Picking at her fingernails, she keeps her gaze on her lap, ready to pretend like he didn’t hear her and she didn’t ask if he doesn’t respond. But when she does dare to glance up, his gaze is soft and warm and as intense as ever, and he’s already coming further into the room, no longer loitering by the door like a weirdo waiting for permission. It’s still a new thing for people to respect her space, but Joel is especially obsessed with making sure she’s comfortable and safe.

I want you to be happy here, Ellie. He’d told her months ago. Don’t matter what I gotta do to make that happen. She’s never had someone care as much as Joel. Certainly no one that gave a fuck about whether or not she was happy.

“Course, baby,” Joel murmurs, and the relief in his shoulders says that he didn’t really want to leave her alone either. She hasn’t left his sight since it all went down, and the one time she did, he was edgy, and he paced until she returned to his side.

In its own way, today had to have been difficult for him too. She knows that he would’ve sat sentry outside her door just to make himself feel useful if she’d asked to be alone. He’s never liked feeling helpless, unable to fix what’s wrong, and he always acts like her problems are his too, and he fights like hell to make it better for her in any way he can.

He pulls back the covers on the bed, lets her climb in first and settle before crawling in after her, grumbling a little when his old man bones crack. “Dude, you’re fucking creaking,” Ellie mumbles, mostly for show because if she isn’t giving him shit than something’s wrong.

She feels his exhale against the top of her head as she burrows into his chest, settling half on top of him. “Watch it, punk,” he says, half-heartedly at best, way too much fondness in his tone. “It’ll happen to you one day when you get old. Just wait and see.”

It's reflexive, the reply that bubbles up.

The truth she’s believed for years rising in her chest. And even though it probably would’ve been true had she stayed in Boston, had she stayed a child fucking soldier or joined the stupid Fireflies, it seems especially cruel to say it now to the one person who’s only mission has been to keep her alive. On the road, she’d considered the likelihood of reaching adulthood, never fucking mind being old enough for her bones to crack as loud as Joel’s whenever he moves.

Ellie has cheated death often enough that she always figured one day it would catch up with her. Old age has always seemed unlikely. In some ways it still does.

“Man, I’d be fucking lucky if I ever reached your ancient age,” she says into the fabric of his shirt.

His body stiffens immediately, his arms freezing around her, the hand in her hair stops moving. Even his breath seems to catch in his chest.

“What–” Joel says, and pauses and starts again after he swallows thickly. “What do you mean by that?”

“I just mean that life expectancy during the fucking apocalypse isn’t exactly high,” Ellie replies neutrally, not really wanting to upset him but she also can’t help how she feels. “And growing up in a FEDRA orphanage and then being the Fireflies little miracle cure, I didn’t need it spelled out for me that I probably wasn’t gonna see twenty, much less live long enough to be old as dirt, like you, old man.” It doesn’t come off nearly as nonchalant as she’d like.

Ellie moves back when he tugs on her shoulders, twisting around so he can see her face, while he pushes up until he’s reclined against the headboard, and she’s sitting cross-legged right up against his side, toes brushing his hip. He looks so fucking gutted that she immediately shakes her head rapidly. The last thing she was trying to do was hurt him.

“Don’t look at me like that, man. I know things are different now, and I’m safe here, but it’s also fucking bullshit that even in a place like this death always just seems to find us,” Ellie tells him, feeling her face heat with the anger that rushes through her bloodstream the more she thinks about it. “What happened to Amy–”

“ – was a fucking tragedy,” Joel supplies firmly, but his eyes remain soft and his face stays tortured, filled with a whole lifetime of brutal understanding. “That ain’t on you, honey. Sometimes accidents just happen and it ain’t fair but there ain’t nothing for it.”

“But it is on me, Joel.”

He’s shaking his head at her, but she has to get this out.

“It should’ve been me,” Ellie whispers shakily, eyes slipping shut so she doesn’t have to see the look on his face, but she feels his grip tighten and hears his quick inhale.

“Hey, no,” Joel says instantly, desperate and sharper than he probably means to be, but the palm that settles on her cheek is infinitely gentle. “Ellie, baby, look at me.”

She dares to open her already watery eyes, and her own breath catches at the emotion bleeding from his expression and the tremble of his body against hers. “I don’t want you ever talking like that.” He presses a fierce kiss to her head before hesitating to pull back. “Amy’s father is grieving something awful right now,” Joel tells her, choking a little on his own words before he continues haltingly. “But I don’t want you taking to heart what he said earlier. That was just the grief talking. It ain’t your fault, you hear me? There wasn’t nothing you could’ve done to–”

Joel still doesn’t understand what she means.

“Amy took my turn,” Ellie forces out, feeling the tears start to fall down her face, and the sob sticks in her throat when Joel’s thumb immediately brushes them away. “That was supposed to be my jump but I let her go first because I was trying to be nice. If I had gone like I was supposed to... it would have been me and Amy would still be alive and–” Her breathing begins to pick up, shallow and fast, and her vision darkens at the corners until her chest is rising and falling rapidly.

She can hear Joel speaking soothingly, and she doesn’t resist when he snags one of her hands and lays it on his chest, right over his heart, so she can feel it beat, feel his steady breathing, and the warmth of his skin through his shirt. Ellie guesses that he’s probably having to quail his own panic so it doesn’t set her off further. “Whoa, hey, okay, you’re okay,” Joel rumbles out, but the trembling in his voice and the tremor in his hands betrays him slightly. “Deep breaths, baby, c’mon, you can do it. Breathe with me,” he instructs softly, thumb brushing along the back of her hand.

“It’s not okay,” Ellie gasps, a sob breaking free before she can stop it.

Joel’s heart is hammering in his chest, but his breathing is calm and even, almost forcibly so, and nothing is fucking okay. A kid is dead because of Ellie, and it’s Riley and Sam all over again and she has no idea what to fucking do. Her body shakes harder, and Joel can’t seem to stand it, and so he adjusts his grip, sliding his hand gently around her wrist and tugging her back towards him until she’s sinking into his embrace once more.

“It’s not fucking okay,” she repeats wetly, face now pressed against his shoulder. “It’s my fault Amy’s dead. It should’ve been me. It was supposed to be me.”

He cups the back of her head in one large hand, shushing her and rocking her as best he can on her full bed with her almost entirely in his lap. “Baby, no,” Joel says, sounding fierce and broken all at once. “It ain’t your fault. It was not supposed to be you.”

“It was,” she insists, choking as her hands fist in his t-shirt.

Warm lips press to her head and linger. “No, it wasn’t,” Joel counters firmly, just as stubborn. “I swear. It was an accident, honey. It wasn’t meant to be you or Amy or anyone else for that matter. I need you to believe me when I say that. It ain’t your fault. It was not supposed to be you.” He says it again with his mouth against her hair like it’ll seep in if he’s touching her.

Ellie wishes that she could believe it as easy as he says it.

But it’s so fucking hard.

She clings to his shirt tighter and buries her face in his neck, crying harder.

“I gotcha, baby girl, I gotcha,” Joel murmurs into her hair.

When he makes no move to let her go even once she calms down, she lets herself rest against him, lets him rub her back and hum the tune of My Girl under his breath. Ellie lets him comfort her as best he can until a restless, uneasy sleep finally takes hold and pulls her under.

She prays for a dreamless sleep.

But every time she closes her eyes she sees Amy, grinning toothy and wide, and Ellie hears Jake call her his sunshine girl.

It’s only when Jake turns cold, steely eyes on Ellie and tells her that his sunshine girl doesn’t belong in the ground with the dirt where the light cannot find her that Ellie wakes with a scream caught in her throat, eyes burning with unshed tears and her chest on fire.

Joel is right there, and he holds her nearly too tight and altogether not tight enough when Ellie realizes the hands on her are safe and familiar and home. She soaks his shirt and neck with tears and snot, and he doesn’t seem to care, he just tucks her closer to his chest.

Dawn breaks, but the anvil on her chest doesn’t budge.

Joel cooks her breakfast that she only picks at, and even though she can tell she’s freaking him out, his hovering just makes her cranky as fuck.

It’s fine, she tells him when he asks, even though it’s not. I’m okay, she assures whenever she catches him watching her and worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, even though she feels the farthest thing from okay. Back off dude, she snaps when it feels like he’s fucking smothering her.

He lets her skip school but it doesn’t help much. Ellie spends most of the day locked in her room, while Joel lurks in the hallway outside her door, finding bullshit reasons to check on her. She banishes him downstairs but she’s pretty sure he just moves his anxious pacing to the bottom floor. He cooks dinner again and she doesn’t touch that either. He doesn’t force her to eat, but she can tell the self-imposed hunger strike is turning him inside out. Joel hides it behind making her more tea that she sips just to get him to unclench a little.

Ellie overhears Tommy talking to Joel on the front porch that evening.

“I need her to be okay, Tommy.” Joel sounds strange; tired and old, and she fucking hates it. “Don’t know what I’m gonna do if she’s not.”

“Just give her time, Joel.”

Ellie, personally, doesn’t think time is gonna do shit.

…

Jake approaches her at the dining hall a week later. Her appetite and Joel’s hovering having gotten only marginally better, but they’re working through it.

She thinks it was strategic, waiting until Joel and every other Miller had stepped away from her.

Dread curls in her stomach and her veins flood with ice, and her hand automatically reaches for the handle of the switchblade in her pocket, the one she never leaves the house without because any time a strange man comes near, her skin still prickles with unease.

Considering the last time they spoke had been the funeral where he fucking blamed her for everything, Ellie hasn’t got a clue what he could possibly want with her now. She doesn’t think he’d hurt her, but grief can really fuck with a person, and make them capable of anything.

A good look at Jake reveals just how well he’s been handling his child’s death. His clothes seem unwashed and haphazardly thrown on, and his cheeks are unshaven and sunken, his blue eyes dull and glassy, but the hostility from last week is shockingly absent. His stance is slightly unsure, but not aggressive. Jake swallows hard, rocks back on his heels and sniffles, coming to a stop a good foot from her.

Ellie’s grateful for the distance, and her gaze can’t help but seek out Joel over Jake’s shoulder, or even Tommy and Maria, someone to rescue her from this awkward as fuck encounter.

“H-hey,” Jake says, voice halting and slow and obviously uncomfortable. “I just wanted to say I was–”

He’s interrupted before he can finish by Joel, who seems to have appeared out of fucking nowhere and teleported to Ellie’s side, standing slightly in front of her, like a guard dog. His arms are crossed over his broad chest, and his posture is giving fuck around and find out. Jake blinks owlishly at him for a second, clearly startled, his brain struggling to process the abrupt appearance.

“Everything okay over here?” Joel’s got his asshole expression firmly in place, and Ellie knows that all he’s looking for is a signal that Jake upset her again and he’ll snap the guy in two. She knows he will. That he doesn’t need motivation when it comes to her.

Jake clears his throat and seems to steel his nerve against Joel’s demeanor. “Jus’ wanted to ‘pologize for what I said last week.” His blue eyes settle heavily on Ellie, and she tries not to twitch under the attention, the ever present intensity and desperation in his gaze. “Shouldn’t‘ve said it. I was outta line.” His hands tremor at his sides, and it vaguely reminds her that Joel’s does the same thing whenever he’s upset or triggered. She’s not sure what it could mean for Jake.

For some reason the apology makes Joel bristle further even though Ellie can tell Jake is being sincere. No one speaks for several long agonizing seconds. Ellie senses that Joel is gearing up to go all protective asshole with a bone to pick, and because she doesn’t want this to turn into a fight of some kind she decides to intervene. The last thing Jake needs is a busted lip to go with that fading black eye Joel already gave him.

“It’s fine,” Ellie assures Jake quickly. “Right, Joel? It’s fine.” She snags his sleeve and gives it a careful tug to remind him that they are in the middle of the dining hall and people are starting to look.

The twist of Joel’s mouth and the flare of his nostrils say just how not fine it is, but he does manage to illicit a grunt that could be taken either way. Joel stares hard at Jake, arching his eyebrows until the fucker finally gets the message and backs away, shoving his hands deep into his coat pockets as he heads towards the door.

“Dude,” Ellie says when Jake is gone, casting a pointed sidelong glance at Joel. “He was apologizing. Why’d you have to be such a dick to him?”

She doesn’t really feel a particular way about Jake. Mostly she just feels really fucking awful about Amy, and how that man lost his fucking kid. She’s not a fan of the shitty way he spoke to her, but she sort of gets why he said it, and it surprises her that Joel isn’t more understanding. He should get it better than most, even if it’s perhaps fucked up for her to make the comparison at all.

Joel looks to her, dragging his gaze away from where Jake disappeared through the doors of the dining hall. He almost seems a little surprised she’s asking. “He should’ve never blamed you for what happened,” Joel murmurs, brows furrowing. “Saying it – it should’ve been you instead, that ain’t at all okay.” He stumbles over the words like he’s got cotton in his mouth but his dark eyes are wrathful.

Ellie scrunches her nose, a frown pulling at her mouth. “Yeah, but he came over to apologize, Joel. Not make it fucking worse and that shit counts for something. You said it yourself, he’s grieving, man. I’m gonna cut the guy some slack for being an asshole. Why won’t you?” She really wants to ask why he of all people can’t show some fucking mercy for a dude mourning his dead daughter, but even she knows how fucking insensitive that would be.

His jaw works hard. “’Cause that ain’t no excuse for how he talked to you. Death –” he shutters to a stop, clearing his throat before starting again. “It’s - it’s a heavy thing to put on anyone’s shoulders. Especially a kid.” My kid, his eyes seem to say even if his mouth doesn’t. “Jake had no fucking business laying that on you, kiddo, and I wasn’t gonna let him paint over it with a shitty apology.”

She doesn’t mean to ask it, but the words are out of her mouth before her brain catches up with her. “Would you – would you have blamed Amy if it had been me who died?” This isn’t the time or the place to bring this up, but she won’t lie and say she hasn’t thought about it.

What Joel might do if she was gone. Would he be like Jake? Walking about as a broken, shell of a man? Would people worry about his time spent at the Tipsy Bison? Would Tommy take all the possible weapons out of the house just to be safe? Ellie isn’t stupid; she knows that she’s not Sarah. She knows that she’d never leave such a gaping hole in anyone’s life. That she would never matter that much, not even to Joel, but she has wondered in a fucking morbid sort of way if he would miss her. If he would cry for her the way Jake did for Amy.

But she’s never been anyone’s sunshine girl.

It’s fucking foolish to think she could ever be loved like that.

Her attention snaps back to Joel, noticing his silence. He’s gone stiff and vacant on her, hands clenching hard at his sides, jaw locked tight enough to make his teeth ache.

“No,” he answers her finally, his voice raspy and guttural.

His gaze stays firmly away from her, face white as a sheet, fingers twitching like crazy, and she can tell that he’s suddenly itching to be anywhere but here, surrounded by strangers. The next thing out of his mouth is said so lowly that she almost doesn’t catch it. Almost like it wasn’t meant for her ears at all, but she swears that she hears him mumble under his breath, “I’d blame myself.”

“Give me a minute,” he says abruptly, barely glancing at her as he heads for the door, and it’s only after he’s gone that she realizes that neither of them ate yet.

Against her better judgement, Ellie only leaves him for a moment before trailing after him outside. She stops short when she finds him with his back to her, one hand braced on the streetlight pole. From the set of his shoulders, the rapid, stifled puffs of air, and the silent quaking of his muscles, she knows exactly what’s happening.

Shit, she set him off.

Ellie is more than familiar with the signs of a panic attack. He was obviously trying to hide it from her, not wanting to appear weak.

She’s not good at this. They aren’t good at this.

Ellie should leave him be, leave him to collect himself and save face, but if this were her having a fucking moment, he wouldn’t hesitate to be there for her in whatever way she’d let him. She can’t leave him here after she fucking triggered him. It probably reminded him too much of Sarah, and the guilt she knows he will always carry about the way she died.

Before she can think better of it, she gravitates towards him. “I’m sorry,” she tells his back, voice cracking painfully and the droop of his shoulders says he heard her. Tentatively, and so unsure that it’ll be unwelcome, Ellie reaches for the hand that’s down by his side. She tangles their fingers together, and he doesn’t shake her off or pull away.

His hand clings tightly to her.

He breathes through it, attempting to steady himself, doesn’t speak for several long moments, and she breathes with him.

Joel turns his head in her direction, and Ellie’s heart clenches when she sees the redness of his irises, the extra wrinkles around his eyes, and the tenseness of his jaw. His hand squeezes hers though and the lines around his mouth soften. He swallows hard. “Just needed some fresh air is all, I’m alright now, kiddo,” he assures her like she didn’t just basically send him off the deep end.

He's still absentmindedly rubbing at his chest with his other hand, and she feels absolutely fucking horrible about asking that stupid question in the first place. She had no right to ask it.

“Sorry I like caused you to freak out or whatever. That was a dumb fucking thing to ask you,” Ellie whispers, mouth suddenly dry as sandpaper. “I didn’t mean to make you think about Sa– about her. That was super shitty of me and–”

The shaking hand on the back of her head makes her stop talking abruptly. “I wasn’t thinking about Sarah,” Joel says gruffly, stuttering like the words are razor blades on his tongue. He takes another second just to breathe and the hand cupping her head pulls her closer and she goes, if a bit unsteadily until she’s leaning against his side.

“…I uh was thinking about you,” Joel admits, nearly inaudible from where his mouth rests against her hair as he releases her hand in favor of slipping his arms around her shoulders and tugging her further against him.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

The realization halts the breath in her lungs.

It wasn’t time that did it.

“I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you,” Joel whispers against her head, spoken so softly, she’s not sure the words were actually meant for her. Ellie tucks her face further into the fabric of his shirt and breathes him in, lets herself have this moment without questioning the realness of it. Without wondering if he’s imagining holding another girl entirely. One that deserves this devotion.

He squeezes her tighter.

They don’t let go for a long while.

…

Across the dirt road, Jake can’t make himself look away from their embrace. He white knuckles the edge of the building, breathing erratic and heart pounding in his ears as he imagines his baby safely wrapped up in his own arms just like that, protected and unharmed. The sob catches in his throat, licks like fire raging in his stomach.

He just wants his little girl back, and the last person to see her alive was Ellie Miller.

Maybe… maybe he can do something about that.

…

Chapter Text

…

Ellie can’t stop thinking about Jake.

It’s not her business and it’s not her place, but she can’t stop from feeling responsible for his grief.

She knows there’s nothing she can do, nothing anyone can do really to fix it or make it even a little bit better. But it doesn’t stop her from thinking about it. From watching him out of the corner of her eye whenever she spots him in the dining hall or from finding herself walking by his house even though it’s very out of her way.

It's wrong perhaps, but every time she sees him, her mind tries to superimpose Joel on top, as if she could even imagine what things were like for him after Sarah. As if she could jump back in time and provide even an inclining of comfort, to hold Joel the way he holds her. Take care of him in way that probably no one did. To stop him from putting that scar on his head.

And that comparison always brings worry with it, remembering what Joel did.

Ellie doesn’t mean to, but she looks for signs that Jake might do something similar. She can’t bring herself to ask Joel or even Tommy if anyone is keeping an eye on Jake, if they check on him at all. She doesn’t want to poke at old wounds. To bring anything up that is better buried.

So, she settles for watching him as best she can from a distance whenever they cross paths.

She never follows him anywhere, too afraid of getting caught or being alone with him, but she breathes a tiny sigh of relief every time he shows up at the dining hall or someone mentions his name in passing. There’s been no talk of him going back on patrol any time soon, Maria saying something about personal leave, and Ellie’s grateful for the one less worry, but it also means that Jake has time on his hands. A lot of it. She wonders how he’s been passing it. If he’s coping. She’s seen the bouquets on the porch and overheard about the list going around town of people providing him food for the upcoming weeks. As far as she knows he doesn’t touch the flowers and most of the food goes in the trash. Ellie watches the petals wilt and fall to the wooden floor with each passing day.

It just makes her feel worse. She’s restless with it.

Ellie spends most of her time when she’s not in school or at the stables, wandering the town with her sketchbook and pencils. Sometimes she sits by the pond or climbs up into her favorite tree and draws until her hand cramps and her fingers ache. She shakes out the digits and goes right back to it unable to stop.

She doesn’t realize until it’s nearly finished what exactly she’s drawn. It’s of Amy lying in the meadow outside the walls in a field of flowers with the sun shining high above, the sky a crystal clear blue. She looks nearly golden under the light that Ellie transcribed. Reverent almost.

Jake’s sunshine girl.

Ellie nearly crumples the drawing and tosses it away, feeling the overwhelming guilt clawing inside her chest. Her fingers refuse to destroy it, and her eyes cannot look away from the kindness in the girl’s face. The sweetness that was always there.

This picture that somehow manages to reflect even a fraction of Amy’s beauty.

It hits her like a ton of bricks.

Looking into the bright eyes of a girl gone way too fucking soon, Ellie trails her thumb over her delicate features and she knows exactly what she could do with this drawing. She could frame it and leave it on Jake’s porch. So he would never forget what his baby girl looked like at her happiest, in her favorite place in the world, surrounded by light. Vibrant and alive and thriving. And so good.

Maybe it wouldn’t change anything, but it would be something. Ellie would stop feeling so damn useless and so damn guilty. Maybe she could give Jake a piece of his daughter back to him again. She knows how Joel reacted to the drawing of Sarah. The look in his eyes, like she’d give him a gift. Like she'd given him something back that he missed.

It could mean something. Ellie has to try. It’s all she’s got to give as inconsequential as it is.

Decided, she hops down out of her tree and heads for the supply store where she can hopefully trade for a decent picture frame for the drawing. Then she’ll run by Jake’s place on the edge of Jackson and drop it off. Won’t even knock on the door, she’ll just leave it and split.

No one will be any the wiser.

She should be home in time for dinner. Joel won’t even miss her. It’ll be fine.

…

It’s all going according to plan.

Ellie finds a lovely green frame still in decent condition that is only slightly too big for the sketch paper she tore out of her book. The only defect in it is a tiny chipped edge on the top right corner. Glancing at the setting sun just over the walls tells her how long she has before the dinner bell. Joel won’t worry too much because they do often meet at the dining hall when one of them is running late unless he beats her there and has to wait. Joel has never been particularly great at waiting.

And, if he gets there first and she isn’t there, he’ll ask where she was so, it’s better that doesn’t happen. She doesn’t want him fretting and she doesn’t want to have to explain why the hell she would go anywhere near Jake’s place, especially alone.

She can already picture the little frowny face Joel would make. The disapproval in his brow. The worry lines that would pull his face tight, making his old man wrinkles stand out against his skin. The nervous wringing of his hands and the way his fists would clench to get them to stop. The muscle in his jaw that would tic. But the thinly veiled fear in his brown irises would be the thing that would threaten to swallow her whole.

Logically, Ellie knows this isn’t one of her brighter ideas, but she really doesn’t think that Jake is dangerous. He’s just grieving right now. This is Amy’s father she’s talking about. He would never hurt her. He’ll probably ignore the drawing just as he’s ignored everything else that’s been left for him on the front porch. No harm done.

She books it to the far side of town onto Jake’s little spot of land. As one of the residents that have been there the longest of Jackson, he’s gotten one of the bigger plots of land. Mostly it’s do to the garden on the property, responsible for many of the crops traded and shared with the townspeople. It had been a passion of Amy’s especially. Tommy always said that family had a hell of a green thumb, not that Ellie has any idea what the fuck that means even though Joel says it’s a compliment.

Ellie trots up the pathway to the farmhouse, unable to keep from noticing just how quickly the garden as fallen by the wayside in the few weeks since Amy died. The weeds are overgrown, the flowers wilted, the vegetation remaining unpicked and wild.

It’s clear that Jake hasn’t stepped a foot out here. It makes Ellie wonder why no one has tried talking to him about it. As awful as it is, she doesn’t think the garden should go to such waste. Not with the crops that would be lost soon or the beauty that she knows Amy would’ve hated to see wither away. She bites her lip and sets her shoulders, knowing that’s a worry for another day and continues on up the creaky wooden stairs, wincing at the squeak and groan it makes with each step.

She’s just setting the frame leaning up against the wall next to the door when sudden movement from the otherside makes the breath leave her in a rush.

Before Ellie can turn and flee or do much of anything other than freeze dumbly, the front door swings open and Jake appears through the screen door, crystal blue eyes narrowed in confusion.

He looks just as rumpled and exhausted as he has every other time she’s seen him.

There’s a beat where they just blink owlishly at each other.

Then Jake mumbles, a gruff, taken aback, “Ellie?” He squints at her like he can’t believe she’s standing on his porch. “What are you doing here, kid?”

Rocking back on her heels, Ellie flounders for something to say. “Uh, I was just... um.” Her gaze unwittingly darts down to where she’d left the picture frame and because Jake isn’t stupid, he follows her line of sight and frowns down at what he sees. “I brought you something,” she says, lamely, bouncing nervously on the balls of her feet, already itching to scoot backwards towards the yard. Maybe pretend like she was never here. She wasn’t supposed to get caught dropping the gift off. If it even really counts as a gift. It’s just a stupid drawing. Probably doesn’t even really favor Amy all that much. He’ll probably hate it and throw it away right in front of her and tell her to get lost.

“It’s just something I drew earlier and I thought – I thought,” she stops here, swallowing hard, her eyes skittering away when she glances up to find him looking at her. “It’s dumb but I wanted you to have it. Anyways,” Ellie finishes, shrugging and gesturing awkwardly to the frame. “There it is.”

Before she can make her hasty exit, Jake bends down with a grunt and picks up the chipped green frame with shaking hands, face twisting into an expression impossible to read as he slowly takes it in. The breath leaves his lungs in a mighty shudder as his blue eyes widen and he raises a trembling finger to run over what must be Amy’s face. He makes a weird choking noise and his chest starts rise and fall faster, and then his face crumples further.

“Oh, my baby,” he mumbles, tears leaking from his bloodshot eyes.

Ellie almost takes that second to slip away, wanting to give him his privacy and hating to see him in so much pain. The misery leeches into her bones and makes her own eyes sting. Her own body fights a tremor as she watches him grieve his dead daughter.

Of course, the wood beneath her foot groans ominously when she shifts her sneakers along the floor, and Jake’s watery, aching eyes shoot to her. He stares and she hardly breathes for a prolonged second and then he seems to blink and shake himself a little, heaving in a tremulous breath and wiping at the moisture that’s gathered on his weathered face. He clings to the frame in his hands like a lifeline, but he doesn’t look away from Ellie.

She squirms under the intensity, feeling for the first time slightly uncomfortable.

She wanted to do a nice thing and now she has, and she just wants to get out of here. Let the man grieve in peace, but Ellie can’t bring herself to move a muscle.

Jake licks his cracked lips and clears his throat, swallowing several times before speaking in a low, grating voice. “You made this?” He’s sounds broken and awed all at once. His eyes a swirling liquid depth, nearly silver in the evening light.

Unsure what to say, Ellie just nods.

“It’s... beautiful,” Jake murmurs, lips quivering as he glances back down at the drawing. “Awful kind of you to bring this by.” The words sound like blades on his tongue. His piercing eyes flick back up to meet hers, and the smile he offers is brittle at best.

He chews on the inside of his cheek like he’s considering something.

“Would you–” he starts and stops, jaw working hard. “Would you mind coming in and sharing some stories about my Amy?” It’s said so tentatively, without expectation. “I know you were good friends. She – she liked you. Spoke of you a lot. You were... good to her.”

He must sense her hesitation because he adds, “Just for a moment, I wouldn’t wanna make ya late to dinner. I’m sure your old man will be waiting on you.”

Ellie really shouldn’t do this. Joel would absolutely throw a fit, and to be honest, the thought of going into this man’s house alone with no one around, out on the edge of town, it sounds pretty fucking bad. But she also knows that this is Amy’s dad. Ellie knows from how much she’s mentioned him that Jake is a damn decent one. Amy spoke highly of him, like he’d hung the damn moon or some shit. No one in town ever spoke ill of him either. He's a hard worker, fair and polite, always doing his part for the community, pitching in and doing his duty. He isn't fucking Dav- him. Down to her bones, she knows that this isn’t anything like the Hell she went through before.

This guy is safe. He wouldn’t hurt her, and it’s not like he’s asking for much. Just some stories of his daughter, and that’s something Ellie can give. She’ll tell him whatever he wants to know if it provides even an once of relief, of reprieve from the overwhelming agony of loss.

She’ll be a little late to dinner, but Joel will just have to get over it.

It’ll be fine.

“Okay,” she says, voice wavering. “But just for a moment, I wanna beat the dinner rush. You know how it is. A lot of those dudes are ravenous and don’t leave anything good.”

“Yeah, for sure, I won’t keep you,” Jake assures with a nod, stepping back and pushing the screen door open for her to step through. Heart in her throat and pulse beating wildly, Ellie goes inside, briefly wondering how much trouble she’s going to be in if Joel ever finds out she did this without him here.

Looking around at the home that’s so obviously filled with love, Ellie’s sure that everything will be fine. Amy would want her to do this, help her dad in whatever way Ellie can. It’s the least she can do after basically letting the other girl die.

Jake’s living room is brimming with signs of Amy everywhere, and it pulls Ellie’s heart up into her throat. It makes her wonder about Joel’s house back in Texas, if his home had been just as overtaken by Sarah as this place has been with Amy. It’s so clear how much Jake loves her, how he cherished the ground she walked on. The pressed flowers and the crafted knickknacks and the books strewn about like Amy had only just stepped out for a moment. It’s clear that Jake hasn't touched or moved anything of hers. He’s left it as a shrine, a museum, a forever reminder of his girl. Ellie’s throat tries to close up but she fights through her own private grief that tries to take her over.

She’s gonna push through this for Amy. She has to.

Ellie takes the offered seat on the sofa, and Jake sits across from her in the lounge chair, a good distance away from her and she’s secretly grateful. “Tell me about my girl,” he murmurs, eyes glittering, and she does, stumbling over the words at first, but then growing stronger and more confident the longer she goes and the more interested Jake seems.

She recounts all the things that she believes he would want to hear, the little anecdotes that would make him crack a smile or force a brittle laugh. Ellie wants to give him something nearly as precious as the daughter he lost.

It’s not long before Jake pauses her storytelling to offer her a cup of tea. Floral, Amy’s favorite.

Ellie isn’t much of a tea drinker, but she tries to think of what Amy would do to see her father smile, and she finds herself agreeing, knowing she’ll be gritting her teeth through some lavender or jasmine tasting shit, that at least isn’t as bad as Joel’s coffee.

Jake goes to the kitchen to steep the tea, and Ellie takes that time to scope the place out a little more, looking more closely at the objects littering the living space. It doesn’t even occur to her to be watching Jake a little more closely as he pours her a cup. He’s a dad. He’s harmless.

A glance out the windows proves that it’s getting kind of late, and so she decides to drink that cup of weird floral tea, finish her story, and then leave.

“Careful, it’s hot,” Jake says when he hands her the mug.

“Thanks, man,” Ellie says, eyeing the liquid with more trepidation than she means to, unable to hide the face she makes whenever she forces herself to take a cautious sip.

Surprisingly, Jake’s lip curls up in faded humor at her expression. “It took me a while to get used to this stuff too, but... Amy.... she swore by it.” A million different emotions flood his eyes and he glances down at his lap, clearing his throat and the moment is broken.

It really does taste really fucking strange, but Ellie shrugs it off.

She goes back to her story, and it takes a few moments of rising confusion to realize that she suddenly feels really fucking weird. It’s not until her vision starts to swim sickeningly in and out of focus, her world tilting on its axis that she realizes something is very wrong.

Ellie hears the shattering of the mug as it hits the hardwood floor, the pounding beat of her heart in her own ears, and the far away, fading voice of Jake. “I’m sorry, Ellie.”

Sorry for fucking what? She wants to scream at him as terror rushes her veins, clogging her throat of all coherent thought. She feels like she can’t breathe. She can’t move. She can’t do anything. And then Ellie knows nothing at all as she slips into oblivion.

The darkness swallows her, down, down, down into a blissful, horrifying nothing.

...

Ellie stirs gradually. Her head pounding and her body aching.

She wakes to unfamiliar fabric underneath her searching fingers, foreign smells tickling her nose, and a scratchy pillow beneath her cheek she knows is not her own.

It all comes flooding back to her at once, and the delayed adrenaline coursing through her has her body fighting to sit upright even as her eyelids still feel glued shut. With cotton mouth and cracked lips, she turns and dry heaves over to the side of where she’s laying. The hand on her back startles her into recoiling sideways, almost falling all the way out of the bed. “Easy, sweetheart,” a voice mutters, and the hair along her arms prickle and sends her heart galloping inside her chest.

That voice isn’t the one she wants to hear. It doesn’t feel her with safety or warmth. Its tone is soft, but it does nothing to comfort her. It’s not right. This is all fucking wrong.

Her eyes fly open as she finishes emptying her stomach, and then she’s lurching out of the hold that’s around her shoulders. “Whoa, you’re okay. Just take it easy.” Jake is crouched beside the cot she’s sprawled across, his hands still hovering in the air around her trembling, gasping form.

Panic spreads through her like a hot iron on her skin. This isn’t right. What the hell happened? Why does she feel like shit? What the fuck is going on here? Did she swallow cotton?

His look of careful concern just pushes her further into the spiralling terror. The instinct that tells her to reach for her pocket knife and fight her way out of here. Fuck being nice. That went out the fucking window when she lost consciousness for no damn reason.

“Everything’s okay,” he assures before she can muster the coherency to speak. “You just passed out and I carried you to bed. Thought you’d be more comfortable.” The fact that he picked her up while she was unconscious makes her stomach heave dangerously again. “I don’t think the tea agreed with you,” he adds, guilty as he scratches at his chin and frowns at her.

That sets her teeth further on edge, outrage singes across her spine. “What the fuck did you do to me?” she stammers out, already attempting to get out of the bed, sending as fierce a glare as she can muster in her foggy state when he acts like he might touch her again.

For his part, Jake’s face screws up with confusion and then horror. “I’m not – you know I would never hurt you.” To prove it, he immediately backs away from her, arms raised in supplication. “You scared the devil outta me passing out like that. I just wanna be sure you’re okay, darlin’.”

Ellie’s eyes narrow, her heart still hammering. Now, she’s confused as shit. He doesn’t even know her hardly. How could he be worried – and then she gets a better look at his face, the expression, the very real fear, but how his eyes are glazed, and really fucking weird.

It automatically makes her scoot further away from until she’s on the edge of the cot. He’s a little twitchy too. Jittery even as he shifts back and forth on his feet.

A quick glance around proves that she’s not in the living room anymore. It’s some sort of empty space, maybe a basement judging my the musty, stale air, and layer of dust on the windowsill in the corner, Jake blocking the only door out. How is she supposed to get the fuck out of here? This is bad. Really fucking bad.

“You believe me right, Ames?” His eyes are a little wild, beseeching.

The bottom drops out of Ellie’s stomach, and she does fear that she might get sick again as the revelation of what’s going on here slams into her like a freight train.

Fuck, this was a terrible idea. God, she’s so stupid for agreeing to come inside alone.

Jake has obviously had some sort of fucking break from reality or something because he’s looking at her in a weird ass way, none of the grief that had been present earlier is there now. He’s looking at her like she’s the center of his whole world, and honestly, it’s freaking her out. Because that look isn’t meant for her, it’s meant for a girl that’s never coming back.

Another man mistaking her for his dead daughter. Great.

This is what she gets for trying to make up for all the shit she can never get right. All the people she keeps hurting. For trying to make this one thing better and somehow screwing that up too. Now, she’s stuck here with Jake who she guesses has finally lost his marbles and thinks she’s Amy which is not conducive to her leaving and going home to Joel who is probably – definitely – freaked the fuck out by her not showing up by now.

Despite the unorthodox circumstances, this isn’t really ideal like at all. And even though the whole mistaken identity thing is really unnerving her. Scaring the shit out of her if she’s being real, she still doesn’t think Jake would hurt her. He’s just really fucking confused. She’ll just wait until he steps out and then she’ll sneak away or something.

Get the fuck outta here before he goes even crazier.

Sooner rather than later.

She’ll also have to figure out how to stop Joel from absolutely wringing Jake’s neck when he finds out what he did to her. Awesome.

...

When Ellie doesn’t show up at the house before dinner, Joel tries not to worry too much about it. They do meet at the dining hall often enough that it’s not odd. His kid does have a habit of losing track of time, especially lately, head stuck in the clouds, lost in deep in her own world.

She hasn’t been herself since the accident at the lake a few weeks ago.

Quiet and withdrawn in a way that splits his heart in two every time he catches sight of the little frown on her face, her distant eyes, the way he’s noticed her watching Jake whenever she doesn’t think anyone’s paying attention. The furrow between her brows and how she glances away and picks at her fingernails until they’re bloody no matter how much he’s scolded her about that habit.

Things have been really hard lately, and they’ve only gotten marginally better since they had a talk about how she was feeling about all of it. He knows that one conversation wasn’t going to fix the problem, but he’d sort of hoped that it at least helped her to know that it isn’t her fault. His girl can’t be held responsible over a damn accident. Something that just as easily could’ve taken her away from him in the blink of an eye. Not a thought he likes to dwell on for too long when it makes his chest go all tight and his breathing go harsh and stunted.

Joel wishes there was something he could do to ease the pain he sees in every line of her face. The weight she seems to carry on those slender shoulders.

It isn’t fair. Not for any kid. Especially not his own.

This life that just keeps taking people from them until all it feels like loss and grief, when it seems like they just can’t catch a damn break. It always seems to hit his kid harder, determined to tear her down again and again while he can do nothing but watch.

It won’t stop him from trying, doing whatever she needs him to do. He’ll go at her pace, and he’ll stay right by her side through it all. He’s gonna take care of his baby girl the way she deserves. The way no one has ever done her whole young life, but he’s gonna be different. Ellie’s got a family now, people who love and support her, and they’re not going to let her fall apart. He’s not going to let this world chew her up and spit her out anymore. They’ll get through this just like they’ve gotten through everything else. His girl is tough, and she’s strong, more than she knows, and he’s got her back.

This rough patch won’t last forever.

His mind refuses to settle as Joel reaches the dining hall already brimming with people, and he doesn’t immediately see Ellie in line. Anxiety instantly rushes up his spine. She’s hardly ever late, and when she is, someone always lets him know because she knows he worries.

But when he continues to look around and no one approaches him, his hands start to shake and he grows a little more urgent, only hesitating briefly when Tommy spots him and calls out. “Joel, hey–” He must get a look at his face because he adds a slightly alarmed, “What’s the matter?”

Joel barely spares him a look, too busy scanning faces as they file into the hall. None of them are a familiar messy ponytail or bright brown eyes.

Where is she?

Absently, he rubs a hand over his chest, the frown marring his face pulling his skin tight. “Have you seen Ellie?” A glance at Tommy shows how he’s now also frowning, mustache dipping down.

“Not since this morning,” Tommy says, eyes roaming over the crowd now too. “I’m sure she’s probably just running late. You know how she is, girl ain’t never been timely.”

Joel inhales shakily, agitation building with each passing second even as he tries to tell himself that his brother is most likely right. There’s absolutely no reason to sound the alarms here. Jackson is safe. Even as easily as Ellie seems to find trouble, there is little to find in a town as closely guarded as this one. And he knows that if something had happened to her someone would’ve fetched him by now. Everyone treats the children here like the special rare gift that they are. They get looked after pretty damn well. The people in Jackson watch out for the babies, fully aware of easily they could be taken away.

Someone would tell him if Ellie had gotten hurt or fallen sick.

Besides, his kid isn’t that late.

But it does nothing to soothe his fraying nerves that he can’t lay eyes on her.

Tommy seems to understand the inherent need because he puts a hand on his shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll go check the stables. Maybe she fell asleep with the horses again.” That has been known to happen. The girl has a knack for being able to nap just about anywhere. But she especially loves laying in the hay with Shimmer, sketching or reading.

He tries to tell himself that’s all this is. That she’s okay. Joel won’t be able to breathe if he doesn’t convince himself of that otherwise.

“I’m gonna head to the house,” Joel says, already moving because he’s not gonna just stand around wait, he’s never been good at doing nothing. “See if she stopped to clean up before dinner or something.” His voice wavers like he doesn’t quite believe it.

Tommy tries to smile. “I’m sure she’s fine, Joel.”

He just nods, not having the space of mind to verbally agree, but he appreciates the optimism. He could certainly use it right now because he’s currently trying hard not to run through every worst case scenario and freak the fuck out.

Tommy lets Maria know where they’re going, and she promises to be on the lookout for Ellie in case she does happen to show up at the dining hall and then they’re off.

Clenching his hands to stop the tremors running through them, he knows sooner than later he’s going to have to get a handle on this increasing level of anxiety. The kind that’s bad enough sometimes that he has a difficult time even letting Ellie out of his sight. The kind that wakes him in a cold sweat because his dreams loop his worst fears through his mind until he feels like he’s finally losing it.

He knows that it’s not on Ellie to soothe his irrational thoughts. That it’s important he give her space to grow and be a kid, to live a full life outside of his presence. But it doesn’t stop the ache behind his breastbone every time she leaves. When he goes hours without checking on her or knowing for certain if she’s okay. It doesn’t help anything that she’s expressed similar issues with being away from him. He knows that he shouldn’t encourage her wanting to constantly be at his side, but he can’t lie and say it doesn’t make him breathe easier to have her there where he knows she’s safe.

It’s something they’re trying – sort of – to work on. The accident with Amy really put a dent on all the progress they were making. Ellie has gone right back to being his shadow whenever she’s not at school or the stables, and he’s found himself hovering now more than ever.

It’s also why he knows that this random disappearing act of hers is even more alarming. She would know better than to leave him wondering like this. Even as spacey as she’s been lately, Ellie has continued to trail after him, sticking close whenever possible.

So, whatever is keeping her away now, it must be beyond her control. And that’s what terrifies him more than anything else. The thought turns his stomach sour.

...

The house is dark and quiet when he enters it, and Joel knows even before calling out that she isn’t here, but compulsively he checks anyway.

When he pokes his head into her empty room, he has to take a second to brace his hand on the wall and breathe through the anvil that’s settled firmly on his chest, pressing down harder with each passing moment that he doesn’t find his kid. He tries to hold onto some rational explanation for how she could just suddenly not be here, but he can feel his mind scrambling for a purchase that isn’t there.

He claws at the will to hold onto his composure, to the hope that Tommy will say he found her in the stables or hiding away up in her favorite tree because she simply needed a breather. Joel will scold her for scaring the hell out of him, maybe hug her and threaten to never let go, and then everything will okay. They’ll opt for dinner at the house because Joel needs that moment of peace and quiet with his girl, just the two of them.

But Joel finds his world slowly crumbling apart when Tommy comes to find him, breathing heavy from where he must’ve ran from the stables. His brother’s face finally revealing a little bit of the panic that’s been stirring in his own veins for nearly an hour now.

“She wasn’t there,” Tommy states the obvious, shaking his head and catching his breath. “I’ll snag some radios and get a group together. We’ll split up and search the town.” Perhaps under different circumstances it would be unnecessary to call in the cavalry so soon, but his brother seems to get that this is really fucking serious. That Ellie doesn’t do this. That something bad must have happened.

“I’m gonna go check her favorite spot,” Joel says, feeling untethered and gritting his teeth harshly against the calmness he can sense slipping away like running water. Ellie calls it the thinking tree, a place she often goes to be by herself, to put things into perspective.

She’ll be there. She has to be.

“We’ll meet back here,” Tommy says, and then he’s off towards the supply room where they keep the radios and flashlights. It’ll be getting dark soon after all.

Joel brings a shaking hand to his mouth once he’s alone.

Please God let me find her.

...

They search the whole town in under an hour and find absolutely nothing.

It’s confirmed that no one has seen her since stable duty that afternoon which is a good two hours ago now. In Joel’s opinion, a long fucking time. There’s a murmuring suggestion among the people who’ve been helping them look that maybe she ran away.

Tommy has to step in between Joel and the man who suggested it before he can get the chance to knock his teeth out for saying such a thing. But kids don’t just go missing. Not around here. It doesn’t leave a whole lot of other explanations. None that anyone dares say aloud.

“Ellie didn’t run away,” Joel insists lowly, agitated. “She gets spooked sometimes,” he adds roughly. “and hides until she feels safe again. She’s here somewhere, we just gotta find her.”

It’s the theory he’s been working on. That she’s just scared, that she had some sort of flashback, and the only thing that felt right was to hide herself away somewhere in one of her little bolt holes. There are plenty of small spaces in town that would be perfect for that.

Tommy looks pained. “And we will, but Joel, we do need to consider that she could’ve been disoriented enough to try going outside the walls. I mean, if she was really upset, is it possible she would?”

Joel runs a calloused, trembling hand through his hair. “Maybe, I don’t– fuck – I don’t know.” The panic threatens to overtake him, and he fights the urge to throw something. To put his fist through a wall just to feel something besides this encompassing terror. He supposes that anything is possible. Ellie’s a clever girl and very resourceful when she wants to be.

But going outside the walls still doesn’t sound right. He can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t adding up. He just can’t figure out what it is.

“I’ll have a patrol group run a perimeter around the wall just in case while we keep looking here,” Tommy decides, watching Joel with a fair amount of his own worry. He knows that he probably looks half crazed with how many times he’s run a hand through his hair or yelled himself hoarse calling out uselessly for his baby girl. Desperate for her to hear him and answer.

He’s teetering on the edge. They both know it.

“We’re gonna find her, brother.”

...

The sun sets fully and night falls with the chill of a new spring and they still haven’t had any luck. The patrol scouring outside the walls doesn’t find anything either, and Joel feels his sanity start to slip further out of his reach. The dreadful drop into oblivion looming closer than ever.

A particularly awful thought sends Joel dry heaving into the bushes while Tommy tries futilely to keep him from completely splintering apart.

He’s wiping his mouth with the handkerchief his brother offers when he says, low, gutteral, brittle in a way that makes Tommy’s face twist with grief, “what if someone took her, Tommy.”

Tommy’s face darkens, jaw tightening.

They both know that no one here would do that. Every single person allowed into Jackson is carefully vetted. People have been tossed out for way lesser shit. Certainly not for anything as despicable as fucking child abduction.

But he’s gotta do something. Maybe he can start knocking on doors or get a list of older men from Maria, anyone new to town that hasn’t built enough trust in this town yet. He’s antsy with the need to release the pent up anxious energy. To put himself to work at what he’s good at. A look at Tommy knows they’re not going to allow that.

“We don’t know that,” Tommy says calmly.

Joel glares harshly, a growl building in the back of his throat.

“Someone could’ve snatched my kid right out from under my fucking nose,” Joel insists, his body nearly quaking and he shrugs off the hands that land on his shoulders.

“Joel,” Tommy tries, at a loss. “What are you gonna do? Start breaking down doors and interrogating people until you find something?”

Joel narrows his eyes, throwing his hands up in the air. “If that’s what it takes to find her, I’ll do whatever the fuck I gotta do.” He’l make as many enemies as he has to as long as he gets his girl back safe and sound. Nothing else matters.

“We can’t just start busting heads when we don’t know that anything like that happened,” Tommy says, sighing. “Let’s not jump to worst case scenarios, okay? Please, Joel, don’t go there.”

Joel’s face crumples and he has to turn away when a few traitorous tears leak out. He runs a hand over his mouth, stifling an aborted something, feeling like he’s drowning slowly. Hanging his head, his chin drops to his chest as he tries to inhale through the blades stabbing his chest. He sniffles and slams his eyes shut, not reacting when Tommy braces him again, holding him up.

“...it’s been fucking hours,” Joel says, voice cracking painfully. “Where could she be?”

“I don’t know, but we’re gonna find out. I fucking swear, Joel. We’re gonna find your girl,” Tommy murmurs fiercely, fingers tightening where they grip him.

Joel knows down to his marrow that someone did take his baby away from him, there won’t be anywhere to go, no where they will be able to hide. He’ll make them fucking wish they had never been born if anyone lays a single finger on his kid. He won’t be responsible for his actions.

...

At first when Jake offers to join the search party, Joel doesn’t think anything of it. He can’t afford to make a fuss about who’s helping when it means more man power on the ground.

It isn’t until he really looks at Jake that he picks up on some oddities. How different he is from how he’s been since the accident. Joel has gotten used to the haggardness, the obvious signs of grief picking him apart piece by piece. So, it can’t help but strike him as odd when Jake shows up in clean clothes and a freshly shaven face, eyes clearer than Joel can recall seeing them in weeks.

For some reason, this sets a million alarm bells ringing in his head.

What could’ve caused this out of the blue behavior change. It isn’t until Jake slips up and mentions something about how worried he’d be if this happened to his own baby. The present tense of it hits Joel over the head and suddenly he just fucking knows.

Jake did something with his kid.

...

Chapter Text

...

Ellie manages to pick the lock on the shitty pair of cuffs Jake placed on her wrist.

Thank God for learning new skills she never thought she’d need.

After that, it’s almost too easy figuring out how to get out of what she now sees is definitely the basement of the house. She tries the door at the top of the stairs, and it’s no surprise to find it dead bolted shut, and she breaks the hairpin trying to get it open. Why the hell the basement door would need to be fucking reinforced is beyond her.

What in the world did he keep down here? Jesus. Fuck.

Her only other option of possible escape is the window on the outer wall, positioned high enough that she’ll have to drag the cot over and stand on it to even reach the windowsill, but it’s doable.

She’s certainly not going to wait around for Jake to come back, off his fucking rocker as he is.

Her only thought is getting back to Joel before he burns the town down looking for her. She can deal with the whole drugging and abduction thing later when she’s got optimum Miller protection. Once she's fully processed everything that's happened.

For now, her first priority needs to be getting the hell out of here. Keeping her breathing controlled, and her head on straight, knowing there’s no time for her to lose herself to the past. She can’t afford to panic her way into getting stuck here, waiting for something worse to happen. She can freak out later once she’s away from here. Somewhere safe. Or safer than this place anyway.

Decision made, Ellie gets to work, pulling the foldout cot across the floor, wincing at the loud scraping noise it makes against the stone floor. Lining it up as best she can with the window against the wall, she’s frustrated to learn that no matter how much she tugs the latch doesn’t budge. Not even an inch. Checking her pockets, she can’t believe that she didn’t realize it sooner. She’s still got her pocketknife, something Jake must have clearly overlooked. She could use it to jimmy it loose. It’s not one of her better ideas but it’s all she’s got, and right now, she can’t afford to be particular.

She’s gonna have to break the glass.

...

Before anyone can so much as blink, he’s got Jake by the throat.

It takes four men to pull him off of Jake, his chest heaving and spittle flying, lips curving into a snarl as he feels Tommy’s arm wrap across his shoulders, yanking him back. Gravel and dirt kicking up as Joel digs his heels into the ground.

Still Joel strains to reach for the blubbering mess of a man on the ground.

“Where is Ellie?!” he shouts, uncaring when Tommy jostles him, whispering harshly at him to calm down. He doesn’t give a damn about anything other than finding his kid.

She’s missing. It’s the middle of the night and his child is missing and no one’s seen her for hours and last time she disappeared like this, something awful happened to her. She’d been taken right out from under his fucking nose.

He was too late then, and what if he’s too late now–

“What’d you do with her? Where is she?” Joel repeats, desperation coloring his tone as he thrashes against his brother’s iron grip, but Tommy does not release him. “Tell me, you son of a bitch!” Baring his teeth, his menacing step forward is aborted by the many hands still on him. “Where’s my kid? I know you musta done something and you’re gonna fucking tell me. I ain’t gonna ask again.”

“’m sorry,” Jake gasps out, blood mixing with the snot and tears on his face. “’m sorry. She’s gone.”

“What does that mean?” Joel demands, voice rising in alarm, the bottom falling out of his stomach as ice floods his veins. A chill settles over him. Jake can’t mean – no. The implication crawls its way up his spine. A rattle inside his ribcage like the clanking of blades against sensitive muscle and tendon. He nearly bends double under the force of it. Bile climbing in his throat, eyes stinging, body tensing so hard it aches sharp and intrusive.

Jake does nothing but shake and cry in response, continuing to mumble under his breath and drop his face into the ground, fingers scrambling in the dirt for purchase. Snot drips from under his nose and onto his quivering upper lip.

“Hey! Answer me, dammit!” Joel shouts, voice cracking like a whip through the evening air. “What the fuck do you mean she’s gone?”

“She’s– she’s d-dead and it’s m-my fault.” The rest of Jake’s response is lost to hiccupping sobs. “It’s all m-my fucking f-fault.”

A moan slips from Joel’s clenched teeth, a whine trapped beneath the swell of agony that rushes over him. He sinks onto the ground, knees pressing into jagged rocks and damp earth. Tommy’s hand fists itself roughly into the back of his shirt collar, making the fabric bite into the skin of his neck. Joel barely feels it, barely feels anything at all beyond the roaring in his ears, the muffled voices circulating around him, the racing of his heart, the tightness expanding in his chest like the weight of an anvil. His vision closes in like the shuttering of blinds on a window, he gasps for air that refuses to come.

He can’t breathe. He can’t fucking breathe.

“Take Jake to the bank,” Tommy instructs two of the men closest to him. “Don’t do anything without my say so. Wait for my call on the radio.” Two of the men standing closest are quick to haul Jake up, having to nearly drag him upright when he doesn’t keep his feet under him. “If he makes trouble, restrain him.”

“You got it, Tommy,” One of the men Joel patrols with sometimes asks. He’s not in the frame of mind to recall his name. “What are y’all gonna do?”

“I’m gonna search his house.” He vaguely hears Tommy reply from somewhere far away. “And find my niece.”

The colossal mess that is Jake gets carted away. Joel is too busy trying to remember how to breathe, how to make his limbs work again. How to somehow quit flipping his fucking shit. Not when they can’t find Ellie, and she could be anywhere, maybe hurt or scared or both and he can’t get his ass up from the grass. Can’t get his body cooperate. His brain is foggy, and his attention scattered. He feels both everywhere and nowhere.

He feels Tommy’s blunt nails dig into the sensitive flesh of his neck and shake him a bit.

“Joel.”

The reply sticks like super glue in his throat, tangled within the confines of the panicked inhale that never made it past his throat. He can’t do this. He can’t fucking do this again.

“Joel,” Tommy repeats, pleading and sharp, crouching down a bit so he can get a look at his face. “Hey, he was wrong. You hearing me, big brother? Jake wasn’t talking about Ellie. She ain’t –” Tommy’s throat works hard, tendons and muscles jumping. “We’re gonna find her.” Despite the fear on his face, his brother sounds sure. Joel wishes he could ever learn to be that optimistic.

Tommy’s hand eases up on his grip and palms the back of his neck, his jaw set and his dark eyes wide and determined, swirling with the same emotions Joel can feel still sitting beneath his breastbone. “Now up you get, you old fucker. We gotta job to do.” I need you with me on this is what Joel hears, an echo of all the times before.

“We’re gonna get her back, Joel.”

The promise rakes down his spine like hot coals.

“Okay,” Joel rasps.

All he can think about is that Amy died on a night like this one.

The sky clear and the stars blinking down, the air pleasant, ripe with the smell of wildflowers and sunshine, of hearty earth. Rich with life and beauty. He can hear that sweet giggle, his favorite sound, ring inside his head. Her bright excited voice spouting a fun fact and a joke about space, probably something silly like why did the astronaut bring a ladder with him? To reach for the stars! He can picture her now, moaning and groaning about his inevitable piss poor rating scale. Her head knocking into his shoulder from where she’s seated next to him around the campfire, her gaze above on those same stars that she’s always reaching for. What she’s got him reaching for. For her.

Joel wants her back. He needs her in his arms.

It writhes inside him like a wounded animal. He swallows the sob that threatens to build in his chest, sniffling as he swipes at his face and clears his throat. Finally, he lets Tommy pull him up, grunting when his bad knee twinges.

He thinks if he loses Ellie tonight, there won’t be a thing left in this world that he will ever find beautiful again.

...

They turn Jake’s house upside down.

A pot of tea sits cold on the stove. An empty cup rests on the coffee table while another is still full on the counter. A hastily thrown blanket across the couch, a cushion halfway on the floor. No signs of a struggle but the sight of two mugs and an open bottle of sleeping pills have Joel grinding his back molars, setting him further on edge.

Tommy’s the first to spot the green frame with the hand-drawn picture inside on the carpet, partially hidden under the sofa leg. Joel gets one look at the familiar shading and stroke marks, and he knows Ellie must have drawn it. He snags it out of his brother’s hands, tracing a finger over the front of it, imagining the care she must have taken with it. His kid and her big heart. Always worried about other people and trying to look out for them. Make sure they’re okay. Like she was seemingly doing for Jake even when that fucker didn’t really deserve it.

Knowing his girl was over here in an attempt to make a kind gesture towards a grieving man has his already sour stomach twisting further into itself, churning violently at what might have happened after she handed the drawing off to Jake. The endless possibilities make him nearly sick.

If that bastard laid one fucking finger on her, he’d–

“Joel,” Tommy calls from the hallway, snapping him from his increasingly morbid thoughts. Joel turns to see him standing next to a locked door. Tommy makes quick work of jimmying it free with his pocketknife and pushing it open with the toe of his boot. The light switch on the wall works well enough, lighting up a staircase leading down.

It’s most likely just storage space or maybe even left empty since the end of the world, having little use for such things now. Still, it doesn’t stop him from calling out for her just in case.

No one answers.

In fact, there’s very little sound at all beyond the hum of the air circulating throughout the old house’s bones. He very carefully doesn’t think anything at all about what they might find, refusing to allow his mind to wander to the darkest places. He can’t let himself to travel down that path, not when he needs to keep it together for Ellie’s sake. They need to find her right fucking now. He needs her. Clenching his fists, he digs his nails harshly into the skin of his palms, needing to feel the pain to ground him. Nostrils flaring and hands on his hips as he tries futilely to keep his shit together.

Joel takes the stairs at a near hazardous speed with Tommy on his heels.

The back corner reveals the water heater while the opposite wall has nothing, but an old foldaway cot pushed up below a small window.

Joel gets distracted by the sight of the handcuffs discarded on the mattress, a bobby pin still jammed into the lock, and he knows without a doubt that it was his kid’s doing. His smart, bright and capable child figured out how to get herself free from whatever fucked up thing Jake tried to do – that he did do.

It is rage that makes his hands shake this time, gnawing at his gut ferociously. The audacity that fucker had to try and trap a child down here – his child. It has him positively seething. The room spins with the level of primal hysteria that bubbles up in his veins, filling him with the kind of wrath that turns his eyes dead and his fists unforgiving. The kind that causes his mind to go eerily blank, body numb except for the prickling up his spine. It makes him both ill and angry. He quakes with the need to go find Jake in the bank and put his hands around his throat and squeeze. His heart thunders with it.

Clutching the handcuffs in one white-knuckled fist, Joel attempts to take a fucking breath.

He glances up to see Tommy taking a closer look at the window slightly above their eye level, shards of glass crunching beneath his boots as he runs a finger along the dusty sill.

His heart lurches when his brother’s fingers come away tacky and crimson. Chest seizing up again at the sight of her blood, fresh and precious on Tommy’s skin.

“She musta climbed out the window,” Tommy says, voice careful but grim. “Clever girl.”

He can’t speak past the lump lodged in his throat.

“You hearin’ me, Joel? Ellie ain’t here.” Tommy’s hand lands heavy on his shoulder. “C’mon, let’s have a look outside. See what we see, maybe we’ll be able to spot a direction she went.”

Joel gives a jerking nod and slips the cuffs into his pocket.

...

There’s more blood on the outside of the window, and the grass too. The glare of their flashlights make the drops gleam. It’s not a lot, not enough to be super worrisome, but that matters little to Joel considering whose blood it is, he’s pretty damn prickly about it. He’s twitchy, antsy to figure out where the hell his kid would’ve gone off to in the state she was clearly in. They don’t know where she’s been hurt. She could’ve hit her head, might be stumbling around confused and scared in the dark. Could find all sorts of trouble; even in Jackson there are less safe areas like the lake. He hasn't had a chance to teach her out to swim just yet.

It’s getting later and later.

Half the town is up and on high alert until she’s found.

He’s never liked her being away from him after nightfall, and he hates it even more right now. He can hardly stand it.

His knuckles ache from hard he’s been clenching them.

“We’ll check everywhere. All her hiding spots and usual haunts again,” Tommy murmurs. “We won’t stop until we find her.”

Those words are starting not to bring nearly as much comfort.

“I’m sure she’s just hunkered down somewhere safe,” Tommy keeps talking. “Waiting on our slow asses to catch up.” Despite everything, the sentiment behind the statement and their familiarity to something Ellie’s said to him before manages to make his lips twitch.

“Reckon we better not keep her waiting, big brother.”

“Yeah,” Joel musters, the syllable dragged out of him along with a gust of air, banging around hollowly inside his chest.

And then Tommy hops on the radio that stays clipped to his belt, instructing some familiar faces that Ellie will recognize to check out the stables and the treehouse again. Next, his brother alerts the clinic too just in case Ellie is hurt worse than they guessed when they find her. Joel doesn’t want to even consider the possibility.

“Where would she go to feel safe?”

It takes Joel almost too long to realize that Tommy is talking to him again, the question floating its way to his ears like an echo.

It’s on the tip of his tongue, the instinctive response that rises. She only feels safe when she’s with me. Joel chokes on the emotion that clambers around his ribcage, a wrecking ball splintering bone and organ alike. His eyes burn, and his vision swims. He grits his teeth, biting into his cheek hard enough to draw blood.

“Joel?” Tommy says when he doesn’t reply.

“She’d – uh – Ellie would go home,” he responds, strangled.

“Then that’s where we’ll go,” Tommy decides, as sure and firm as ever. Joel wishes he were in a better frame of mind to appreciate it.

As it is, he’s too preoccupied with getting back to his house like a homing beacon. Where he hopes – prays – Ellie is. No doubt, she'll be burrowed under a million blankets, her own little pillow fort on his bed. She’s always felt safer in his room, surrounded by his stuff, constantly stealing his shit. Sometimes if she’s real scared, he’ll find her hanging out in his closet, her nose buried in his shirts.

That’s where she’ll be, he knows it.

…

Joel can’t help it. He’s a damn bull in a China shop, barreling into the living room of their house, shouting her name.

If she’s scared, the noise is probably not doing any good.

It doesn’t mean that he has it in him to stop. He takes the steps two at a time, yelling louder when there’s no answer.

“Baby, you here?” He tries to soften his tone but his desperation leaks through, it pours out of him like running water. “Honey, please answer me. I need to know where you are.”

“Ellie?”

Joel searches her room first, finding her bathroom and closet empty too. Her bed still unmade from that morning and her sketchbook partially open on top of the comforter. The giraffe stuffed animal he got her lies sideways on the pillow. She named him Gandalf after Tommy showed her that movie with the wizard and the funny looking kids with the hairy feet. Lord knows why, but for some reason she finds it amusing.

The sight of something that has made her happy, brought her comfort nearly brings him to his knees now.

“C’mon, baby girl, where are you?” He mutters under his breath.

He halts in the doorway of his own room, chest rising and falling rapidly with growing agitation as he continues to come up empty handed. His kid couldn’t have just disappeared. She’s still within the walls. She’s still – still here. Joel can feel it in his gut, down deep in the marrow of his bones. Jake didn’t know what the hell he was talking about saying she was – no. He got it wrong. Joel knows that. He refuses to take into consideration any other alternative.

When he checks the closet and she’s not there either, the panic starts to fully set in once more.

A braced hand on the folding door is the only thing that keeps him mostly upright. Joel works his way through yet another anxiety attack, his vision spotting as he gasps for air through a constricted chest. He leans forward until he can press his face into the back of his hand, muffling his stuttering pants. His heart feels like it’s trying to beat right out of his chest. It’s sharp and painful.

His breathing comes so fast and shallow that he fears he might actually black out.

It is not until his good ear catches the sound of a familiar whimper that Joel startles, turning on his heel away from the closet to face his bed fast enough to make his head spin.

“Ellie?” he tries again, low and brittle, pleading.

An answering sniffle is all he needs and he’s getting down onto the floor, his bad back and achy knees ignored entirely. Not when he can hear her, but he can’t fucking see her.

Joel has to put eyes on her and see she’s okay. Right now, or he’s gonna lose his mind.

The floor isn’t comfortable and it’s hard to see under the bed even with the bedroom light on but he gets enough of a glimpse of her to just about stop his heart. She’s got blood and dirt smudged on her face, her hair half falling out of her ponytail. There are tear tracks drying on her cheeks and from what he can make out of her; her whole body is trembling. She’s shoved herself as far back as she can get. Her eyes are glassy and unfocused, staring at something unseen.

It takes him another second to realize she’s got one of his flannels clutched in her hands.

Still, the sight of her well and whole and almost within reach has him trembling all over too. Leaning forward as far as he’s able, he stretches his arm out towards her.

“Baby, hey,” he whispers, purposefully keeping his voice soft despite the shake in it. “Hey, look at me.” His phrasing unintentionally brings him back to a different time. A different day when he’d nearly lost her before. A reminder that steals the air from his lungs even now. He recalls too that she did better when he didn’t say her name, at least until he knew for sure she was back with him.

“It’s me,” Joel murmurs. “You’re safe now, honey. I gotcha. Okay? I promise you’re alright.”

There’s a drawn-out moment before finally she blinks like a wide-eyed doe. “Joel?” she asks, voice barely audible and broken.

The chuckle he lets out is half a huff and half a sob, wet and garbled. God, he just needs to hold her. “Yeah, baby, I’m here. Right here and I ain’t going anywhere.” He swallows hard. “Can you come out here for me, kiddo? So, I can see your face and know you’re okay.”

He wiggles his fingers at her, and it’s like that’s all the invitation she needs. She scoots her way slowly out from under the bed, and the instant she’s within his grasp, he’s gently tugging her the rest of the way until he can fully get his arms firmly around her. Joel doesn’t stop until his nose is buried in her hair and one hand lights on the back of her head while the other lands between her shoulder blades. His breath hitches in an aborted cry that gets caught behind his teeth.

Joel clings to her, soaking in the relief of her in his grasp and feeling her slender arms come around him in return. Her face burrows into his neck, fresh, warm tears soak into his skin. He rocks them from side to side as best he can from their position on the floor. His ass is going numb, but he pays it no mind.

“I gotcha, baby. I gotcha.” A helpless, gasping refrain spoken into the top of her head.

The hug is for both of their sakes it seems because it’s a while before either of them find the strength to let go.

Even then, Joel pulls back just enough to get a look at her and try to see where the blood is coming from, his palms cradling her face. “Where’re you hurt, kiddo?” He brushes a few loose pieces of hair off her face, thumb pausing on the smudge of blood crusted under her eye.

“I cut myself on the glass getting out of the window,” she tells him, haltingly.

“Did Jake – did he do anything to you?” Ellie shakes her head within his grip, not flinching at all despite the sudden harshness of his tone. “Nothing? He didn’t hurt you?” he double checks urgently.

“He gave me something that made me really fucking sleepy,” she admits, biting her bottom lip, still sniffling softly, a stray tear caught in her lashes. “But like he didn’t do anything else.” Ellie pauses again like she’s considering something. “Not really, I mean mostly he just talked to me like – like I was A-amy,” she stutters the last part out.

“You sure?” he asks, stricken and insistent because she’s shaking like a leaf in his arms and her eyes still carry that glint she’d had for days – weeks after Colorado. There’s guilt too lurking in her sweet face, like she believes any of this could possibly be her fault.

“Yeah,” she answers, giving a jerky nod. “I just wanted to go home. To come find you but – but he wouldn’t let me leave and I just – I’m so fucking sorry, Joel. I thought I could help but all I did was make it worse and he – and I –”

Joel shushes her before she can work herself up again.

“Okay, baby. It’s okay,” he soothes, bringing her head back to his chest. “You did so good. Got yourself out and some place safe. You got yourself home and that’s what matters.”

Jake can be dealt with later once Joel knows his kid is alright.

The floorboard creaking has his head snapping up to find Tommy lurking in the doorway to his bedroom, his expression awash with relief. Bless him, his brother looks about as worn out as he feels. The worry lines in his face standing out starkly in the harsh bedroom light.

“And now we’re gonna get you to the clinic so we can make sure you’re really okay.”

Ellie’s immediately shaking her head.

“No,” she says, fierce and riddled with fear she’s trying to hide. “No clinic. I’m fine, I swear. It’s just a few scratches. Can’t you guys just patch me up here or something?”

Joel exchanges a look with Tommy over her head, not wanting to upset her unnecessarily, but not at all liking the idea of never knowing what kind of drugs were given to his kid. It could still be in her system judging by the cloudiness in her gaze and the clumsy, sluggish movements. She’s moving her head like it’s too heavy for her shoulders, her eyes wincing every time the overhead light catches them directly. There’s even a slight delay and slur to her words when she speaks, pausing throughout like she needs to search for what she’s trying to convey. It could be nothing, but he doesn’t want to take that chance.

An allergic reaction would have happened by now but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be long-term effects. He’s worried about her falling asleep and not waking up. Of it slowing down her heartrate or messing with her breathing. There are so many fucking variables that he just doesn’t know.

And frankly, it scares the hell out of him.

“Getting you seen to by a doctor ain’t up for debate,” he tells her, tone brooking no argument. “I’m sorry, honey, but I ain’t taking any chances. Not when I don’t know what he gave you.”

Like a bird with its feathers properly ruffled he can see her gearing up for a fight, digging her heels in and bearing down but thankfully, Tommy has the good grace to intervene before this can escalate into a disagreement that he has no desire to have with her. Especially after what they’ve been through today. Joel would like to go one night without butting heads with his strong-minded child.

“How ‘bout I send for the doc to come over here and check on you?” Tommy offers. “That way you’re clinic free, but your old man can still get some peace of mind?”

Joel feels Ellie deflate against him, and he knows even before her nod that it’s a yes.

“Alright then, sounds like a plan, rubber band,” Tommy says because his silly sayings always have a way of making Ellie smile even if it’s just her making fun of him for it.

Tommy unclips the radio and puts his mouth to the microphone.

“I’m gonna fetch the tea pot and that sleeping pill bottle we saw at Jake’s too,” his brother adds after calling the clinic, aiming the statement at him this time. “See if somebody can’t figure out what he mighta done to our girl.” Tommy taps the doorframe once, jaw set, brows pulled low. The line of his shoulders remains rigid. The tell-tale sign of tension in the fidgeting of his hands. “Y’all take a breather until the doc gets here, but holler if you need me.” The look in his eyes tells Joel just how serious Tommy is about that.

Joel nods tightly, and then Tommy disappears from the doorway, boots clomping down the hallway, gradually fading away until there’s nothing but the sound of their breathing and the gentle swing and hum of the ceiling fan.

He keeps his hand on Ellie’s back, compulsively checking her breathing.

“Alright, let’s getcha cleaned up, kiddo,” Joel says, softly, unable to keep himself from pressing his lips to her head, reveling in the warmth of her skin.

As much as it pains him, there’s nothing he can do for her being drugged right now, but he can do something about the cuts and scrapes. Joel makes himself focus on what he can fix, otherwise he’s likely to drive himself mad. He knows that she must be out of it when the crack of his knees as he stands up doesn’t get a single peep out of her, not even a snarky look. It pangs inside his chest.

Joel ushers her into the bathroom and tells her to pop a squat on the closed toilet lid while he gets the first aid kit from the hall closet. It’s not much, but it is something when the phrase makes her roll her eyes and crack the tiniest of grins.

The knot that’s been a noose around his heart since the moment he realized she was gone begins to loosen with each gentle swipe of the alcohol swab across her skin. Once he’s able to squint and get a really good look at the scrapes along her forearms, making sure that the glass is out and exhaling a sigh when none of them seem deep enough to need stitches. Only one particularly nasty cut by her elbow actually requires a bandage. His hand encircles her wrist after he’s finished, fingers delicately brushing over her pulse point.

He gives her arm a gentle squeeze.

Swallowing roughly, Joel clears his throat. “If you wanna talk –”

“I don’t,” she cuts across him, hugging her arm to her chest and out of his grip, not quite meeting his gaze.

“Baby girl, what he did to –”

Her dark eyes shoot up to his face, blown wide and bloodshot. Her lip trembles as her shoulders hunch further down, seeming to shrink inside herself. “I said I don’t want to talk about it,” she reiterates, sharply, voice a painstaking wobble. The crack of a whip within the confines of the bathroom. “Not – not right now.”

She sounds so upset that Joel wishes he could just wrap her up in his arms and never let go. Never let anything hurt her ever again. It twists like the edge of a blade in his gut.

“Okay,” he agrees, relenting. For the moment anyway.

The doorbell rings, interrupting them.

“C’mon then, that’ll be the doctor.”

After she’s on her feet, Joel tries to take comfort in the fact that she immediately leans into the arm he places around her shoulders, tucks herself into his side, into her spot beside his ribcage. His kid huddles extra close like those days on the road after – after she went through hell. When the only thing that made a lick of sense, made anything better, even a little, was proximity. She stands practically underneath him now, and he doesn’t even care that it makes walking a fucking chore because he can feel her breaths puffing out along his collarbone, feel the tug of her fingers tangling in the hem of his shirt.

He just holds on tighter, needing the point of contact too.

...

They go to bed after the doctor deems Ellie fit as a fiddle despite the sleeping pills in her system. After some instruction to drink lots of fluids and be on the lookout for possible common side effects.

Well, Joel tries to get Ellie to sleep while his own mind keeps him wide awake.

It takes a good two hours before he feels her eventually drop off. He only knows this because her head is on his shoulder and her hand situates itself right over his heart.

Joel doesn’t get a wink of rest, but he keeps watch until the early morning sun’s rays filter through the window blinds. He lets Ellie sleep until she wakes on her own, miraculously nightmare free, but the shadows beneath her eyes speak of a restlessness that has yet to fully scamper away from her subconscious.

Like any other day, he cooks a late breakfast for them both. Food that neither of them eats all that well. Their minds most likely lingering over the same thing, hovering along similar lines.

Tommy will be back sometime today to check in on them and update them on the… situation.

Joel is trying feebly not to be worried out of his mind about what the consensus will be concerning Jake. He assumes the council will discuss consequences and necessary measures. He knows punishment will be a part of that too. Even though he’s not real clear what exactly happens when certain rules are broken. The father in him longs to be the one to dole it out. His muscles twitch it, his molars grind down, his hands flex with the need to finish the job and make sure his kid is safe.

He's also fairly sure they will never let him close enough.

He gets her set up in the living room with a pile of blankets and pillows, puts The Princess Bride on the television. She’s got a book in her lap, dog eared and worn.

A well-loved copy of Oliver Twist. A story Ellie has always found fitting. Just a few weeks ago she’d told him something he hasn’t really stopped thinking about since she said it.

“You know, me and this Oliver dude have a lot common,” she’d said from her place next to him on the bed.

“That so?” he’d wondered, thinking then that she had just been talking about both of them growing up orphans and dealing with a lot shit and bad cards in life.

Oh, how wrong he’d been.

“Yeah, we both got kickass adopted dads out of the whole deal,” Ellie had whispered the words like she’d been afraid to say them, breathe any kind of life into them. He hadn’t known then how to express just how much they’d meant to him.

Before he’d been able to ask how she knew what it meant to be adopted, she’d grinned up at him, elbowing his side playfully. “No need to thank me, by the way,” she’d joked, impishly.

“For what?” he’d asked, snorting.

“For adopting a grouchy old fucker like you, dude.”

Maybe she hadn’t known what the word meant after all or maybe she had just been fucking with him. Either way, he hadn’t the heart to correct her.

He'd just pressed his lips to the top of her head and let it be.

Seeing her reread the book for the umpteenth time, especially as a source of comfort to her, eases his mind just a little.

So, when Tommy’s familiar footfalls land on their porch outside, Joel doesn’t feel as bad about stepping away for a moment to speak with him alone, leaving Ellie to her book and her movie.

Brushing a palm on the back of her head as he goes, leaving with a gentle, “Be right back, baby.”

The instant the screen door shuts behind him, Joel feels himself start to get fired up once more. Hands flexing at his sides as he takes in his brother’s facial expression, pulled tight with mirrored exhaustion.

Tommy juts his chin towards the house. “How’s she doing?”

“A little banged up,” Joel tells him. “And drowsy from the sleeping aid that was given to her, but Laney said it was probably half a dose since it wore off so quickly. Least, that’s what they figure. No lasting effects or permanent damage. I’ve been keeping a close eye on her just in case.” As if anything else would’ve been expected of him. They’d told him that she was fine to sleep as long as her breathing was still clear and she remained responsive. Still, he worries.

Tommy blows out a heavy breath. “Good – that’s good.”

With that covered, Joel starts in on the other thing that’s plagued his mind in the last fifteen hours or so. “Jake still at the bank?”

“Joel –” his brother says, raising his hands like he’s trying not to spook a damn horse.

“It’s a simple yes or no question, Tommy.”

Tommy huffs, but it sounds grating and forced. His eyes are as red as Joel’s must be. “Yeah, well, we both know why you’re asking, and I’m telling you right now, Joel, you can’t – they’re not gonna let you see him. They wouldn’t even let me see him, and trust me, I tried. He’s on full lockdown until the council comes to a decision. They ain’t letting anyone near him. For everyone’s safety.”

Joel arches an eyebrow high on his forehead, moving to perch his hands on his hips. The indignation rises in him, molten beneath his skin. “There ain’t no decision to make other than where we’re putting the fucking bullet,” he bites, feeling his pulse climb, skin itching with agitation.

“They’re not going to sanction murder,” Tommy says sharply, very nearly a rebuke, shaking his head. “Ain’t how we do things around here. You oughta know that by now.”

“Oh, it ain’t?” Joel challenges, the tension of the last day and lack of sleep getting to him a bit. “What happened to getting rid of the people who try us, huh?”

A muscle in Tommy’s cheek tics as his eyes narrow. “You damn well know there’s a big difference between self-defense and cold blooded killin’, Joel. In case you fucking forgot. This ain’t like the QZ or outside the walls. There has to be some kinda order. It can’t be kill or be killed anymore. We can’t play god with who lives and dies. It ain’t – ain’t right.”

Joel takes a step toward him at that, his chest heaving up and down faster and faster with each passing second. The blood in his veins practically humming with rage, with disbelief, with frustration. It makes him quake all over, the need to put his fist through something more evident by the minute. Preferably Jake. His vision spots at the corners and his world tilts a bit on its axis.

“What ain’t right is how that fucker hurt my kid,” Joel spits fiercely, vibrating hard enough to nearly make his teeth rattle. Hands going up to his hair, ruffling through it before gesturing wildly. The emotions building up inside crescendo without his say-so. “Far as I’m concerned that is self-defense. I have to –” he chokes off suddenly, swallowing past the lump in his throat and shaking his head to clear it. “I gotta protect her, Tom. I gotta do better – I gotta –”

Tommy’s face spasms at that, shoulders releasing abruptly as hurt breaks through. His throat works hard as he replies, “I know. I know, okay? And I agree with you, brother. I do. We’ll protect her, you hear me? We will do right by her, I swear. But that ain’t gonna be by going into the bank guns blazing and puttin’ a bullet in his head, alright? Much as I’d like to, as much as he deserves it. That ain’t the way.”

Joel feels his brother snag his arm and grip it tight. “We ain’t going there unless we have to.”

“All I’m saying is – they ain’t gonna let you do nothing until a verdict has been reached. There’s a chance they’ll sentence him to death if they think he’s dangerous enough, prove he’s a growing threat to this community, or they might choose to exile him. I don’t rightly know. Probably won’t know for a few days, if I’m honest. Any details that Ellie could give, if she’s up to it, might help speed things along.”

Tommy gives his arm a shake and then lets him go. “Either way, we’ll see him get punished for what he did. Ain’t gotta worry about that none.”

“I don’t want Jake to die.”

Ellie’s voice startles them both, coming from the other side of the screen door.

They turn to look at her, Tommy’s eyes widening a fraction as he sucks in a breath. She’s dressed in one of Joel’s shirts and children’s pajama pants with monkeys on them. Her eyelids are still droopy, but her eyes are clear now. She’s watching them carefully. “I don’t want you to kill him.”

She’s hugging her injured arm close to her again. Her feet are bare on the threshold.

“I know what he did was like really fucking awful, and I’m not saying he shouldn’t get in trouble or whatever. I just don’t– I don’t want him to die for it, okay? I just don’t.”

Joel sighs, heavily, scratching at his beard. This isn’t a conversation he really wants to have out on the porch, not when she could get a splinter in her foot. Not when they should probably be sitting down. And especially when he isn’t sure what he’s even going to say.

“Okay, kiddo. Why don’t we take this inside?”

Tommy seems to sense that this is something they need to discuss alone because he excuses himself with the promise of returning once he has more information for them, but not before he tells Ellie that he’s glad she’s okay. The small barely-there smile she gives him in return is brittle and unsure and damn near breaks Joel’s heart.

Once he’s through the door, Joel shuts and locks it behind him, mostly out of habit.

He takes the reclining chair by the fireplace, so Ellie won’t feel crowded while she plops back onto the sofa cushions, tucking her feet underneath her. Leaning forward a bit, Joel braces his arms on his knees and takes in the sight of her burying her fingers in her stuffed giraffe’s fur. She must’ve snagged him from upstairs at some point.

“Honey,” Joel begins.

She continues to pick at the fur even though he’s told her not to do that or poor Gandalf will go bald.

“You want Jake to die for hurting me,” Ellie mutters. It’s not a question. There’s zero doubt in her tone.

It’s not exactly a secret, how he is when it comes to her. “Yeah, I do.” There’s no reason for him to mince words about it. Not when his kid knows him so damn well. She’d call bullshit if he tried to lie anyway.

“Are they gonna kill him?”

Rubbing a hand down his face, he chews on the inside of his cheek. “I don’t know.”

“Are you gonna do it anyway if they won’t?”

“Ellie–”

Her fingers clinch compulsively around the stuffed animal in her lap until her knuckles go white and bony. “No!” she interrupts sharply, voice nearly shrill. “He can’t fucking die, okay? He can’t. Not after what I–” the words come tumbling out, shaky and insistent.

Joel’s spine straightens at that, snapping to attention. “After you what, baby?”

“I tried so fucking hard to help but I – I didn’t know what to do. That’s why I drew the picture of Amy and brought it to him yesterday. He asked me about her, wanted me to talk about her. I thought it would make him feel better, so I did. But I fucking – I messed up. I was so stupid to actually think I could help. That I could make any kind of difference. That I could do anything right.”

The guilt swarms him faster than a herd of infected. She should not have been taking this on alone. It ain’t right. Not when she’s a kid. Not when she always seems to feel like she has to save everybody.

He wishes that he could blame Marlene for putting these kinds of thoughts in her head about martyring herself, for carrying a weight no one should have to, especially not Ellie. Since the moment he met her, she’s been laying every death around her own shoulders, blaming herself no matter how much he keeps telling her otherwise. It’s only gotten worse since the hospital. And then the accident with Amy.

Joel ain’t exactly a shining example of how to not carry that shit around either, but he doesn’t want that for her. The guilt to eat away at her too.

“You ain’t stupid,” he rebukes gruffly, automatic.

“Dude, I got myself drugged and fucking kidnapped. That feels pretty stupid to me,” she says, morose and angry at herself. “I know you told me to steer clear of him, I just didn’t actually think he would try to hurt me.” His girl is too empathetic for her own good.

The instinctive bite of protectiveness, of parental frustration sing inside his veins all the same. He can’t quite stop the scolding that rises to the surface. “Not only did you not stay away from him, you went into his house. On your own, where anything could’ve happened. Hell, the worst nearly did happen. And you can’t – you can’t be doing things like that. Taking on responsibilities a kid has no business handling by herself–” It seems they’re both determined to not allow the other to finish a damn sentence today.

“We’re a part of the same community and he’s Amy’s dad,” Ellie insists, stubbornly setting her jaw. “That makes it my fucking business. Besides, I had to make it right–”

“You didn’t do a damn thing wrong,” he replies firmly, unyielding on that front because he knows where her head has gone again. “I’ll keep telling you till I’m blue in the face, kiddo. What happened to Amy is not your fault. It was never on you. He was the only one in the wrong, putting his hands on you, drugging you–” His nostrils flare and his hands flex, feeling himself get worked up all over again just thinking about it, saying the words out loud. A wrong dosage of those sleeping pills could’ve easily killed a little girl her size.

“I know that shit was wrong, Joel, but that doesn’t make him bad. He was– he was just hurt and confused and – and he misses his daughter. People do shitty things when they’re hurting.”

His jaw tightens. “That don’t mean he ain’t dangerous. Grief can also make people unpredictable, and I can’t take a chance like that. You ain’t something I’m willing to risk.”

And that’s the true sticking point in why he can’t just let this go. Because he knows better than anyone what grief does. All too well. What it makes a person capable of and if Jake isn’t in his right mind, there’s no telling what he could do. What already happened was bad enough. Joel can’t take another call as close as this one.

Ellie huffs like he’s being difficult on purpose. “Then you guys can just keep him away from me, but we have to at least try to help him. We can’t just do nothing.”

“Like Tess said, we save who we can save, right?” There’s a hint of challenge in her tone, nearly the same one he’d taken with Tommy earlier. “And I thought I could save him, so I fucking tried.”

He’s about to open his mouth and tell her that ain’t the point. It’s the fact that she felt like she couldn’t come to him, that she had to deal with this alone. That she was reckless about it.

The next words out of her mouth make everything fall out of his head.

“I didn’t know if – I thought it would maybe make him change his mind about – if he was thinking about you know –” she winces, stumbling over what she’s trying to say. Finally, seeming to decide to just bring her fingers up to the side of her head, touching the mirrored spot where his own scar is at his temple.

The breath freezes in his lungs.

She bows inward like melted plastic, collapsing into herself, the anger leeching out of her. “I know it’s not the same, like at – at all but he reminded me of y-you. And I thought, um –” Ellie shrugs, not quite meeting his gaze. “I wasn’t around to save you that night, but I’m here now, and you told me it wasn’t time that did it. And I figured if he could just live long enough, he’d see that you can find new things to fight for. That – that Amy wouldn’t want him to fucking die. Especially not like that.”

Joel covers his mouth with a shaking hand, his eyes slipping shut as he attempts to breathe through the sudden constricted airway. His own body deflates, caving in under the weight of guilt he didn’t think could possibly get any heavier. He can scarcely inhale past the fucking boulder lodged in his throat.

The idea that his child could think something like that would ever be made to sit on her slender shoulders. How his baby could ever get it stuck in her head that his baggage could ever be hers to take on. That she’d looked at Jake and seen him? Recognized something that seemed familiar and maybe even frightening.

He never would’ve wanted to put that on her.

It makes him wonder just how long she’s been thinking this way. Feeling this way.

“Baby girl, when I told you that story,” Joel musters, guttural, eyelids fluttering, cheek twinging. “I, um, I didn’t mean for you – that was never your burden to carry.”

He’d told her that to make sure she knew that things do get better. It’d been meant as an encouragement, an instruction to hang on just a little longer. To not give up.

Instead, it seems she’s made it her life’s mission to try and save everyone. Even at great personal cost.

Her glistening brown eyes slide up to meet his own. “It’s not a burden,” she whispers. “It was never a fucking burden. You made me realize that I had to find my reason, man. A reason to fight. A reason to keep going. To live. I thought if you did that for me, maybe I could do it for someone else.”

“I know it’s fucking stupid but giving up on him felt too much like I’d be giving up on you.” This admission is mumbled so low, he has to strain his ears to hear it. “And I – I couldn’t do that. Not when I’m pretty sure you’re my fucking reason too.”

It rolls through him like thunder. The crackle of lightning, jolting all the way through to his fingertips. The noise that reverberates from the back of his throat makes both of them startle. He attempts to stifle it, just like he does everything else.

It doesn’t really work.

Joel hoists himself to his feet, unable to sit still any longer. Ellie falls silent. He can feel her gaze heavy on him even as he turns away.

It’s the farthest thing from stupid.

Pressing the heel of his palm roughly into his breastbone, he tries to reorient himself around her words and around their meaning. The tears that spring to his eyes fall unbidden down his cheeks.

Ellie’s inhale is sharp.

“Fuck,” she says, harried and beginning to back pedal hard. “I should’ve never told you that. We can totally pretend I didn’t just say all that shit to you and –”

And then bad knee fucking be damned, he turns and rushes over to the sofa, crouching in front of where she’s seated and all but tugging her into the cradle of his arms. She makes a little oof noise against his chest but goes willingly, molding herself to his embrace. He presses fierce lips to the top of her head. Thanks his fucking lucky stars that the universe saw fit to bless him with this precious girl and her sweet heart. He’s reminded yet again how much he doesn’t deserve her.

“So, uh, not stupid?” her voice checks a few minutes later, muffled and unsure from where she’s squished into the fabric of his shirt.

“Not stupid,” he confirms, feathered.

Jesus, he loves this kid.

…

Joel turns their waiting game into a movie marathon to pass the time, and despite the circumstances, Ellie really can’t say she minds it so much.

They spend most of the day splayed out on the sofa, her head on his shoulder while Lord of the Rings plays on the television. She’s already seen it like a million times but it’s one of her favorites, so there’s a certain level of comfort that comes with being able to lose herself in something familiar.

After Joel fixes them both egg salad sandwiches and freshly squeezed juice, it’s mid afternoon and Ellie’s dozing fully reclined on the couch. Caught somewhere between Merry and Pippin getting swallowed by that tree in the Fangorn Forest and the warm weight of Joel’s arm slung across her side.

She can feel Joel fighting sleep from where she’s made him her pillow, his hand going momentarily slack and his breathing slow and even before he seems to snap himself out of it. No amount of poking him in the side and commanding he take a nap does a bit of good though. Ellie can’t decide if he's staying awake for her sake or his own. He’ll only sleep once he knows that she’s safe.

It's been half a day now and he’s still compulsively checking her pulse and her breathing, making sure the crushed sleeping pill continues to have no lasting side effects. He cleans and re-bandages the cut by her elbow even though it really didn’t look all that bad.

He's a little anal about it, asking memory-based questions that hit a little too close to what the Fireflies made her recite after she got bit, but she lets it slide because of how like crazy worried he’s been.

They play Boggle and she absolutely kicks his ass, and a round of Slap Jack before that gets abandoned because she’s too damn enthusiastic about smacking the shit out of his hand in her race to reach the card first. They even try another card game called B.S., but Ellie is so enthusiastic about crowing bullshit and totally wiping the floor with him that Joel admits defeat and they move on to some games that are a little less competitive and don’t involving yelling.

When Tommy finally swings back by their house around dinner time with homemade chile relleno and pie, Ellie sort of forgets about anything beyond peppers stuffed with cheese and fried apples dashed in cinnamon surrounded doughy fucking goodness. She eats it all fast enough to earn a half-hearted scolding from Joel and a snort of amusement from Tommy.

But then the food is gone, and Tommy is ushering Joel towards the porch like they’re gonna discuss this without her, and it pisses her off.

“I’m not a fucking baby,” she says. “I can handle whatever you’re gonna say.”

Tommy’s eyes flicker over to Joel who releases a sigh before giving him the go ahead which just manages to irritate her further because it’s not his decision, it’s hers.

“The council hasn’t made a final decision just yet,” Tommy says around a sigh as he runs a hand through his mess of curls. “They’d like to speak to Ellie first and hear her side of the story, just to clear up a few details and what not. Might do a world of good in expediting the process of getting him the hell out.”

“Tommy,” Joel says, quiet but firm, a warning.

“You don’t gotta do it in person, if you don’t wanna,” he hastens to add under the weight of Joel’s stare. His eyes soften when they land on her. “Maria thought a letter might work just as well. Explain what happened and what we can do to make you feel safer in Jackson. ‘Cause that’s the most important part, darlin’. Making sure you understand that the safety of our kids is top priority. We take threats against y’all very seriously. Ain’t something this town fools around with.”

“Just say the word, Ellie girl, and he’s good as gone.”

He seems to be under the impression that she’d want Jake’s sorry ass to get thrown out of Jackson or maybe even beaten within an inch of his life for what he did. She thinks of Amy. Of Jake calling her his sunshine girl because she lit up his whole world. And how that world has gone dark now.

And then she thinks of Joel. Of how he hasn’t left her side since he found her camped out underneath his bed. Or of how his hand has rarely strayed from her back, palm between her shoulder blades like he needs to feel each breath leave her body, the reassuring beat of her heart beneath his fingertips. She can still feel the phantom tear drops on her skin because he’d fucking cried when he finally found her.

Well, Tommy’s shit is definitely about to get fucking rocked.

“I don’t want him gone,” she states, plainly. “I want us to find a way to fucking help him, Tommy.”

He sort of just blinks at her, stunned into silence, clearly taken aback by her request. Ellie doesn’t think she’s ever seen him speechless, but her words seemed to have knocked it right out of him.

Another shared look with Joel has her rolling her eyes and huffing.

And because he’s kind of the dumber Miller a lot of the time, he repeats, “help him?” like she’s speaking an entirely new language or something.

“Well, shit,” Tommy mutters under his breath. Joel covers his snort with a cough.

From that tone alone she knows that he’s gonna do whatever he can to help her figure this out. How to convince the council that Jake can be saved. It feels sort of like a promise.

Even if they don’t necessarily agree. They’ll try. For her.

…

Two days later, Ellie gives the letter to Maria so she can take it to the council meeting where they’re going to decide Jake’s fate.

It had taken her a while to decide on what to say and even longer to find the right words. She lets Joel read it when she’s done, surprising them both with what she’d actually settled on writing. More than anything, Ellie had talked about Amy and the version of Jake that loved his daughter and loved this town. A man with a good heart, capable of violence but also of showing great kindness.

It’s that night that she truly begins to understand how people are never just one thing. Never all good or all bad, all pretty or all ugly, and writing them off that way really does a disservice. Ellie knows better than most that a peaceful heart can know violence just as well as a violent one can.

And yeah, maybe some people are lost causes. Not all of them can be saved. But she’s met ones who are worth trying for, fighting for, waking up for.

The world might have fallen apart a long time ago, but it’s a long ways from ending.

There are aspects of it that deserve to be preserved.

Family. Community. Kindness.

Ellie doesn’t know a whole fucking lot about purpose or whatever, and she sort of thought she lost hers after the Fireflies couldn’t figure out how to make a stupid cure, but she remembers what Joel said to her on their way back to Jackson after narrowly escaping the hospital with their lives.

“A cure was never going to save the world, was it?” she’d asked, thinking about the horrible way the Fireflies and raiders, and fucking ex-FEDRA soldiers had been fighting over dibs. It had been bloody and brutal, no quarter given. No mercy. All of them dying for a fucking maybe.

“No, kiddo, I don’t think it was,” Joel had replied, meeting her sad, tired gaze in the rearview mirror with his own. “I reckon it ain’t that easy, but from what I’ve found, people are persistent. Got a way of surprising ya when you least expect it.”

“You think it’ll always be this bad?” she’d wondered, her gaze on the window, watching a world that had long since crumpled passing by in a blur of greens and browns.

“I think…” he’d said, careful, “that no matter how bad it gets, there’ll always be room for the good. Even if it takes a while to show up.”

“How do you know?”

“’Cause I’m looking at my good right now.” He’d said the words simply, like they hadn’t been absolutely everything to her.

She hadn’t known exactly what he meant back then.

But now, Ellie thinks that she gets it. This saving the world thing might look a hell of a lot different than she first thought it would.

So, fucking what that she’s not the cure. That doesn’t mean that she can’t do what she fucking can to help make this world a little less shitty. Saving who she can. Being a part of a family that’s trying to find a better way, striking a balance between what came before and what’s here now. To her that sounds a whole lot like purpose, and it’s more than enough for her.

They’re broken people in a broken fuckin world, but she’s learning that doesn’t have to mean it isn’t worth living.

And Ellie has never wanted to live more than she does right now.

...

The council rules in favor of showing Jake mercy. He’s given a second chance.

Barring quite a few strict rules and stipulations, he’ll be allowed to stay in Jackson but will remain under heavy observation until further notice. He’s been made to steer clear of Ellie and all other children, no longer allowed work in any capacity that contains access to weapons or sharp tools. He’s mandated to attend some form of counseling to help him process his grief in a healthier way. Jake will have no strikes left, so if he steps out of line at all, he will be thrown out of their community.

Ellie knows that they’re a long ways away from forgiveness, and that the punishment itself could have been a lot worse, but it’s a start.

Joel makes homemade pizza that evening after they get the news.

Well, he calls it apocalypse pizza because it’s not exactly like what he used to eat before, but Ellie doesn’t really care because there’s a fuck ton of cheese and bread, and she doubts anything could be wrong with that killer combo.

And because Joel is kind of an awkward old man, and he picks the weirdest times to bring things up, he randomly blurts out, “I’m, uh, real proud of you, kiddo.” All big, sad as fuck puppy dog eyes, pooling with moisture and tenderness that she has never known quite how to acknowledge.

And because she’s never been great at taking compliments and having mushy conversations, she redirects with a, “I’m fucking proud of you too, dude.”

When that gets her an arched eyebrow, she adds, impishly, “you know, for not murdering Jake like I know you wanted to.”

He sighs at her; his brow furrowed and mouth all pinched and grumpy.

“What?” she wonders, all faux innocence. “You had your fucking murder face on and your asshole voice. Which is like a deadly combination by the way.”

“I did not,” he argues, pained.

“You totally did,” Ellie counters, more than a little gleeful. “But that’s okay because all I had to do was tell you not to because I have ultimate Joel power.”

“You don’t.” He’s scowling at her now, pizza slice still in hand.

“Keep telling yourself that, buddy.” She pats his arm, and he makes no move to pull away.

Another long-suffering sigh. “Just… eat your fucking pizza, brat.”

…

Later, once they’re cuddled up for another movie night, because she can’t let it go unsaid, she whispers it into his shirt.

“I hope Jake stays alive long enough to find his reason again.”

Joel’s lips are warm against the top of her head, his arm around her shoulders is secure, grounding. “I hope so too, honey.”

Ellie falls asleep ten minutes into Indiana Jones, even though she promises not to, her nose burrowed into Joel’s ribcage where she can count his breaths and hear his heartbeat too.

...