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Joel startles awake, gasping for air. The sound of the back door slamming had woken him from a nap that he hadn’t intended to take.
“Hello!” Ellie calls, her voice ringing through the house.
Taking stock of where he is and knowing exactly who’s just come inside has an immediate effect on his tense muscles and he lets himself sink into the couch. There’s a book sprawled open across his chest, his hands are folded on his stomach, and a pair of cheaters are still on his face.
Joel estimates that he has less than ten seconds before Ellie comes barreling into the living room, followed by relentless teasing for falling asleep in the middle of the day.
“Joel, you home?” Ellie calls, followed by a quieter “Oh, shit, no! Fuck!”
There’s the sound of a struggle followed by something hitting the ground. The threat of being teased wasn’t enough to motivate him to sit up alert, but hearing Ellie swear and the unidentified noises activates his protective reflexes.
Next thing he knows, he’s halfway to the kitchen, ripping off his glasses as the book tumbles to the ground behind him.
“Ellie?” He tries not to let his panic show in his voice. They’re safe here, but the logical part of his brain won’t tell that to the emotional part even on a good day.
Joel finds himself on edge like this at least a few times a week, even though they’ve been back in Jackson for a few months now. It doesn’t help that there’s no telling what’ll set Ellie off. Some days she’s completely fine, others she spends hours unmoving, unable or just unwilling to make eye contact or speak.
“Don’t get mad!” She yells.
It’s a relief to hear her voice; it means that even if something is wrong, she’s still present enough to tell him what’s going on.
When he makes it into the kitchen doorway, he sees her crouched, turned away from him and struggling with something on the ground. While it doesn’t look or sound like she’s in any immediate danger or in the middle of panic, he knows the adrenaline pumping through his body won’t subside until he’s certain.
“Are you hurt?” He asks.
Ellie doesn’t respond to him, just keeps muttering and fussing with whatever she’s got in front of her.
Joel kneels down behind her, ignoring the creaking sound and resulting ache in his knees that always comes with putting his weight on the tile floor. “El?” He asks, wanting to be sure she hears him as he comes up behind her. He turns her around with a hand to the shoulder, and makes quick work of looking her up and down, scanning for any sign of injury.
“Joel, I’m fine! I’m okay,” she says, making brief eye contact before she turns back around. There’s a cardboard box in front of her, and she’s got a hand holding the flaps down to keep it closed. “But…well, just promise me you won’t get mad.”
She’s okay. He takes a steamy breath through his nose, trying to calm himself. “What’s in the box, Ellie?”
“Oh, c’mon man, you’re doing that voice I hate. It’s nothing bad. Please promise?” Ellie says.
A hiss comes from the box, which narrows the options of what’s inside down to two plausible options.
“Tell me you didn’t bring a snake into our house, Ellie.” He wouldn’t put it past her, but he hopes she's got option B instead. “I promise I won’t be mad. Just…show me what you’ve got?”
Ellie opens the box with a tentative smile, and he crowds his head next to hers to peer inside. Curled up on a ratty towel is a little cat that he can tell is dirty even despite its black coat.
“I heard it whining and found it scampering around by the coop. I think it’s got a hurt paw, look.” Ellie reaches into the box and tries to take the cat’s front leg in her hand, cooing “it’s okay, I’ve got you,” as she inches her hand toward it. It bares its teeth at her and yanks its paw out of her reach. “Joel, we gotta help it. Please?”
The moment he heard that hiss he knew he was done for, that whatever was inside the box was a new addition to their family. He’s just relieved it wasn’t the venomous kind of addition.
“Of course, El. Let’s get it cleaned up? Then we can find it some food and whatnot.”
The smile that spreads across Ellie’s face is one of the brightest he’s seen in months, and it’s such a relief to see her full of pure joy.
“Can we keep it?” She sounds so hopeful.
He has the general impression that Ellie was told no a whole lot growing up, so the fact that she’s so willing to ask him for things makes him feel like he’s doing her right. He’d do anything to keep that smile on her face; dealing with the god awful smell of cat pee is a price he’s more than willing to pay.
“Yeah, I think we can make that work,” Joel says.
“Promise?” Ellie asks.
“I promise,” Joel says. He claps her shoulder and uses it to brace himself to stand up, groaning as he does from the ache in his legs and back.
They work together to get the cat cleaned up, and Joel’s relieved to find that its paw is just caked full of dried mud and straw. He’s thankful there’s no underlying injury, and not only because it spares Ellie having to deal with a hurt animal; medical supplies are available but not abundant, and he’s not sure how the clinic staff would feel about relinquishing things for a pet.
After Joel sets out bowls with water and a few scraps of chicken meat for the cat, he settles in on the couch with his abandoned book from earlier. He tries to focus on the mystery that's unfolding in the novel, but keeps finding himself distracted watching Ellie and the cat weave their way around the house. She spends an hour following it around from about five feet back, careful not to make too much noise or crowd it in.
It surprises them both when the cat jumps up on the couch next to Joel and curls itself against his thigh. For a stray that’s not used to humans, the cat has warmed to them both awfully quick.
“I never thought I’d have a pet,” Ellie says from across the room, her eyes glued to the cat as it licks its paws and rubs its face and ears. “People always told me they’re a waste of resources.”
Joel closes his book and sets it to his side; he's kidding himself if he thinks he'll be able to get any of it read with the cat next to him and Ellie staring him down with that intense, wide-eyed look of hers.
“Did you know that cats have like a hundred million scent receptors?” Ellie says. It’s not really a question, Joel knows, just her way of sharing something that she learned and stored in the back of her brain. She’s smart; she knows a lot of things like that.
“Yeah? So this thing can smell how stinky you are from across the room?” Joel pokes fun, unable to ignore the way she unwittingly set him up for it.
“Hah-hah,” Ellie says, pretending like she doesn’t think it’s funny, but Joel can see the way she’s fighting off a smile. “Did you ever have a pet? Before? Like growing up or…or with Sarah?” Ellie asks, her voice more tentative when she mentions her. It’s gotten easier—talking about Sarah—to the point that sometimes he even brings her up on his own, but Ellie’s still cautious around the topic.
“My mom was allergic, so we didn’t have one while I was growing up, no.”
“You can be allergic to animals?” Ellie asks in disbelief. “I thought it was just like…peanuts and pollen and shit.”
It’s a stark reminder of how different the world is now, that Ellie wouldn’t know how common it was for people to be allergic to pets because no one keeps them anymore. Joel’s grateful that Ellie doesn’t push on his answer to the second part of her question. This is one of the little ways he’d failed Sarah, and it weighs on him.
Ellie might not know why this question hit particularly hard, but she must sense his hesitance in answering, and gives him the space to decide if he wants to. She creeps silently toward the couch, her attention on the kitten, but he can tell she’s got a laser focus on him in her peripheral vision.
Joel sighs. “Sarah brought home a puppy once,” he tells her as she kneels down on the floor in front of the couch.
“Ooh! What was its name? Was it a boy or a girl?” Ellie asks, her excitement getting ahead of her hesitance around the topic. “I’ve never met a dog that didn’t have a job, it must have been so different to just have one like…for fun.” Her eyes flicker away from him, a hint of embarrassment at her enthusiasm evident on her cheeks.
“I—I don’t know.” Joel replies. “Don’t know if it was a boy or a girl, or what its name was, let alone the breed. It was just a little lumpy thing when she brought it back, and I—” He feels himself get choked up. “I made her give it back. Said we couldn’t take care of it right.”
“Oh,” Ellie says. Her eyebrows scrunch together and she looks down at the kitten, struck with worry. “Will I have to—”
“No,” Joel cuts her off, a little too loud. “I promised, Ellie. I said you could keep it, and I won’t go back on that.”
“Thanks.” She smiles a weak smile and turns her attention back to the cat.
“If I got another go at it, with Sarah, I’d let her keep the dog.” He hadn’t planned on saying more, but the truth falls out of him anyway.
Ellie looks up at him again, a curious but reserved look on her face, questioning without pushing.
“It would have stretched things—money was tight. I worked odd hours, woulda been hard to commit to the routine a dog needs. But I could have made it work. She wanted to keep it so badly, and I just…I didn’t even try, I just said no. She didn’t talk to me for a week afterwards.”
“Well. I know it’s different now,” Ellie says, cautiously tip-toeing around the I know I’m not your daughter that she sometimes qualifies things with, that she says less and less which he hopes means she understands that it’s not true anymore. “But you get the chance to be a cat dad.”
“Kiddo, if anyone around here is this thing’s parent, it’s you.” He’s glad for the humorous way out of the conversation that she’s offered, and finds it easy to take it with a shared laugh. “You decided to bring it into the house, it’s your responsibility.”
Ellie beams, clearly delighted with the idea of being a caretaker.
The kitten yawns, baring its huge teeth, and a grin fills Ellie’s face. “Aw, but look, she’s so cute! Sure you don’t want to help clean up her litter box?” Ellie reaches out a finger and the cat nudges its face against her.
“Her litter box?” Joel asks. He resigned himself to helping clean up cat shit the moment he saw what she brought home, but Ellie doesn’t need to know that.
“No balls, dude.” She says, and focuses her energy on giving the cat scratches under its chin, so gently, like she’s afraid touching it any harder will hurt it.
Joel rolls his eyes and picks up his book, going back to pretending to read, not bothering to hide the smile on his face.
It feels like such a win, being able to say yes to keeping an animal this time around.
—
They have a routine: Joel meets Ellie at the schoolhouse every day to walk her home. It’d been a struggle to get her to go in the first place, which he attributes to a lot of things, but especially to her nightmares. It took several nights in a row of him waking to her screams and running down the hallway before Ellie had finally told him about the images plaguing her sleep. The ones where she shows up to class to find David at the front of the room.
Learning that David had been a teacher made Joel want to pull Ellie out and homeschool her, but Tommy had convinced him otherwise. Tommy doesn't know all the details, doesn't even know half of them, but he knows enough that he was able to assuage Joel's fears and help broker a deal with the teacher so that Ellie could leave anytime she's overwhelmed.
Still, school has been a challenge. More often than not she leaves early, goes late, or stays home completely, but on the days that she does go and stays until the end, Joel is always there five minutes before they’re let go, waiting outside to meet her. He always stands a respectable distance from the door, far enough away to not be accused of being a helicopter parent, but close enough that she can spot him on her first scan of the street when she exits the building.
It’d been a tough week with several sleepless nights, so he’s proud that she’s made it through the whole school day, and prouder still that when she walks out of the school, she’s holding court with a classmate.
"Yeah!" He hears the energy in her voice when she gets within earshot. "We, uh, me and my..." Ellie clears her throat. “Me and my roommate adopted a cat yesterday, if you’d, um…want to come meet her this weekend?”
“Oh wow, yes of course!” The girl says, and Joel sees Ellie smile her little pleased look, like she’s trying but failing to hide how excited she is. “But…did you just call your Dad your roommate?” She adds. Ellie’s face goes tomato red as she makes eye contact with Joel, realizing that he definitely just heard her conversation.
There’s a warm feeling in his bones when Ellie doesn’t refute the familial label, but that doesn’t make him feel much better about being referred to as her roommate. It’s not the first time that another student has called him her dad, but he’s never heard her use the term on her own, and roommate is a new one.
Belatedly, he realizes that this is the first time Ellie has invited someone over to their house, and he's so pleased that it’s finally happened. As much as she insists that she doesn’t want any friends and prefers to spend all of her free time stuck to Joel’s side, he’s caught her watching groups of other teenagers with a wistful look in her eyes on more than one occasion. So it’s big, Ellie wanting to invite someone else into the sanctuary that is their house—it had taken weeks for her to feel comfortable with Tommy and Maria stopping by.
Ellie walks swiftly past him after saying goodbye to her classmate, not pausing next to him to start their walk together as she normally does. “Hey kiddo,” Joel greets her as he speeds to catch up with her.
Ellie just grunts in response. He can’t tell if she’s embarrassed, exhausted, or something else.
“How was school?” Joel asks a minute or so into their walk, his voice low in case there are any nosey teenagers listening in.
“It was fine. Not the worst, but…” Ellie trails off, glancing behind her in a move he now recognizes as her checking if the coast is clear. She wraps her hand around his bicep and pulls him close to her. Not an easy day, then, but clearly not awful either. “I want to get home and check on Mileena.”
“You named her?” Joel puts his opposite hand on Ellie’s and squeezes it once before letting it go, a silent acknowledgement that her day was difficult.
“I’m…trying it out, seeing if it fits her.” Ellie says. “It’s from Mortal Kombat two, you know?”
“She a ferocious fighter like you, then?” He teases, realizing a second too late that he maybe shouldn't have brought up the touchy subject that is her capability for violence, something she hasn’t fully reconciled with yet.
“What’s that thing people say about the apple?” She asks, either ignoring or not affected by Joel’s comment.
“Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?”
“Exactly.”
It’s been less than a day since Ellie brought home the cat and Joel’s already so glad for the positive impact it’s having on Ellie’s mood. On a day like today—one where she goes for physical comfort before they make it inside their house—sometimes it might be hours before she’s present enough for a conversation.
The cat hasn’t just solved all the pain she’s been through, he knows that. She’s not just suddenly going to be better forever.
Maria gifted him a book in their first week back, one he’s read cover to cover several times now, one he keeps on a shelf in his closet because having it out in the open feels too vulnerable. It’s a book about trauma, about captivity and abuse and violence, but also about healing. He had scoffed when Maria handed it to him, told her that they didn’t need a book to get better, but she’d insisted he at least try it, and he’s happy that she did. It’s helped him learn a lot about Ellie, but also about himself.
So he knows, then, that the cat isn’t going to just fix the hurt for either of them. But if it keeps Ellie smiling on a day like today, he’ll take that win.
“So…roommate, huh?” He teases.
“Shut up!” Ellie responds, the smile on her face growing. “I knew it wasn’t right as soon as I said it.”
They make eye contact, and Joel can only hope that she’s thinking the same thing he is, the thing he’s too shy to say; that her classmate was the one who had it right when she called him her dad.
—
Joel startles awake at the sound of his creaky bedroom door opening. He’d thought initially that he’d want to grease the hinges, but now he’s thankful for the noise because it tells him when Ellie’s on her way in.
“Joel?” Her voice is weak, wavering, like she’s trying not to cry, or trying to hide that she was just crying. Hearing it makes his heart ache.
“Yeah kiddo, c’mere,” Joel says, still groggy from sleep. “Nightmare?” He hadn’t woken to her yelling, but not all of her nightmares go that way.
Ellie nods and he lifts the blanket to make it easier for her to slot into the bed next to him, and then rolls onto his back to give her space if she wants it.
“Careful, Mileena’s down by my feet.”
Ellie lies down on her side facing him, pulling her legs up and holding her arms close to her chest. He’s careful not to make any sudden movements that could startle her, aware of what her physical distance might imply about the subject of her dreams.
“Why doesn’t she ever sleep in my room?” Ellie asks, her voice petulant. “Why does she always pick here?”
“Well, kiddo, so do you sometimes.”
It’s been a few weeks since Ellie brought home the cat, and it’s true that Mileena defaults most nights to sleeping in Joel’s bed, but it’s something Ellie’s only complained about in a joking way.
Well, he’d thought she was joking. Maybe he was wrong.
Either way, she's just woken up from a nightmare bad enough to want to sleep in his bed, so probably the cat is just a way to deflect what she’s really feeling.
When she doesn’t respond, Joel rolls on his side to face her, and finds that her eyes are filled with tears. Expecting it doesn’t make it any easier to see, and it always makes his heart ache to see her upset.
“Wanna talk about it?” He asks, keeping his voice soft.
“I just feel like...” Ellie swallows and scrunches her eyes tight. “Like things are safe, right? And they’re okay.” She takes a deep breath like she’s trying to convince herself that what she’s saying is true. “But sometimes I have dreams that feel so real where I’m all alone and you—” she cuts herself off. “You die in that basement and then I’m all alone, and they find me anyway.” her voice breaks at the end, sobs threatening to take over.
“Oh baby girl,” Joel says. "We're both safe. You're ok, I'm ok." He fights the urge to take her in his arms, not wanting to overwhelm her.
“People are always leaving me," she whispers. "And now—" Joel hears the anger rising in her voice. "Now my stupid cat won’t even sleep in my stupid room!” She grits out, accompanying her complaint by kicking her feet under the covers.
Mileena startles at the motion and jumps off the end of the bed, which only makes Ellie thrash harder.
“She hates me!” Ellie wails.
With that, Joel does lay a hand on her shoulder, careful to be gentle to give her the chance to reject the touch if she needs to. He’s certain Ellie’s rage isn’t about Mileena, but dredging up Silver Lake at this hour when Ellie’s clearly trying to push away her memories wouldn’t help either of them get back to bed.
“She loves you, Ellie,” Joel says, trying to placate her. When she doesn’t throw his hand off, he moves it to her upper arm and squeezes. “You saved her.”
He doesn’t add the obvious, but he hopes she hears it anyway; just like how you saved me.
Ellie tucks her face against Joel's chest and he pulls her close with a hand on the back of her neck.
“It’ll be okay, baby. Try to get some sleep.”
He strokes her hair for a while, until she stops crying and her breath evens out.
Mileena eventually returns to the bed and he smiles when she curls up in the V-shaped spot made by Ellie's bent knees.
—
Joel’s getting too old for scavenging jobs. Being on horseback for so long makes him ache for days, and he spends the entire time away from Jackson worried about how Ellie’s getting along back home. It's just that he doesn’t know how to say no when he’s asked to join. Old habits die hard, and all.
It’s been an uneventful expedition, apart from a delay because of a day-long thunderstorm that no one wanted to ride in. He knows that Ellie is probably out of her skin with anxiety.
The couple of times he's gone on overnight or multi-day outings, she’s always fuming mad when they say goodbye: pissed she can’t go with and upset that Joel makes her stay with Tommy or Maria while he’s gone. He knows because Ellie puts up a huge fight each time.
Being gone an extra day has been agony for him, and he imagines it’s probably been the same for her.
Joel sticks his hand into his saddle bag, checking for the tiny model of the Sojourner rover that he’d found. It’s still there, not having moved from the last time he checked less than an hour ago. He spins the wheels on the model and it feels meditative in a way, being able to hold something in his fist that he knows Ellie will love. He doesn’t know much about the rover mission to Mars, and he’s looking forward to her telling him all about it when he returns.
It’s unlikely that anyone else in the party would have noticed the thing, sitting on a child’s desk amidst rubble and a thick layer of dust. It’s even less likely that they would have thought it worth bringing back.
It’s finding things like this that remind him why he does this. It’s not just about providing for the town, it’s about being able to give gifts to Ellie that mean something. Trading for something impersonal that someone else brought back just isn’t the same as scoring the perfect thing on his own.
The Jackson gates come into view as dusk starts to turn the sky a deep blue, and Joel itches to take off in a gallop and get back quicker, but in addition to it being bad manners to ride ahead of the group, it’s not procedure. They ride together, and it’s slow going getting back, everyone and their horses exhausted from the days away.
Stars start to fill the sky when the group finally makes their way inside of Jackson, and Joel’s surprised not to see Ellie pacing near the main gates, and starts to feel worry in his chest when she’s not in the stables either.
Footsteps echo around the corner as he starts to untack his horse, and Joel looks up, eager to see if Ellie’s come to meet him. His face falls when it’s Maria who comes into view instead, the baby wrapped up in a sling against her chest.
“She’s at home,” Maria says, knowing what he’s wondering without him having to say. “Tommy can take over for you, go see her.” Maria puts one hand on the saddle and gestures homeward with the other.
“Thanks,” Joel says, not willing to pretend he’s not going to take the offer. Of course he’d rather be home. “She okay?”
“She will be.” Maria smiles and gives him a short nod, dismissing him.
Joel returns the nod and slings his backpack over his shoulders, getting only a few steps away before he realizes his gift for Ellie is still in the saddle bag. He turns on his heels, dips his hand in to get it, and gives Maria another smile, showing off what he’d found.
“Sojourner?” Maria says.
“Yeah, she’s going to love it.”
“I agree. Does she know about its namesake?”
“If she doesn’t, I’m sure she’d love to learn. Got any books on her?” Joel’s found that school, while good for Ellie’s social and emotional development, is not where she tends to learn the brunt of the academic stuff.
Maria’s given them books on all sorts of topics that Ellie tears through—her current favorite is a math book narrated by a little illustrated devil. He can only be re-taught the fibonacci sequence so many times by a teenager pretending to be a demon, so he’ll be glad for her to have something else to focus on.
“I’ll see what I can scrounge up. Now go, she’s been in a state since you left, worse with the delay.” Maria shoots him an encouraging smile and turns, presumably to look for Tommy.
Joel hurries back home, anxious to reassure Ellie that he’s okay and start the process of making it up to her for leaving in the first place.
The door opens to let him in as he's walking up to their house, Ellie standing there waiting in a t-shirt that's definitely his. "Joel!" Ellie calls out to him, an urgency in her voice. He can see the bags under her eyes from this far away—she clearly hasn't slept well in days.
He waits until he's all the way inside to drop his bag and scoop her up in his arms, holding her with a hand on the crown of her head.
"Hey El," Joel says, not wanting to let her go. He knows she's safe when he leaves, that Maria would never let something happen to her, but he's always worried about her when they're apart, he can't help it. "Surprised I didn't see you at the stables."
"Maria told me they spotted the horses, told me to come home and wait," she mumbles into his shoulder. "I was worried that meant someone was hurt…or missing. I thought…maybe Mileena would need someone to comfort her if it was true, so I came home to be with her."
Ellie's similar to him in a lot of ways, and this new tendency she has for avoidance is familiar. If she thinks someone has bad news, she's started hiding away to avoid hearing it as long as she can. He knows it wasn't comforting the cat that kept her here. More likely it was the other way around, Ellie relying on Mileena to help her through the paralyzing fear that something had happened to him.
"I'm glad Mileena had you, honey, but everyone's okay. Storm kept us away an extra day,” Joel says, squeezing her tighter before letting her go. “Show me what you got?" He spotted s a bunch of what must be chicken feathers tied to a stick on the ground behind her, and he's curious to learn about its origin.
Joel kicks off his boots as Ellie picks it up and proudly displays it.
“Maria helped me make this for Mileena a couple of days ago, isn’t it cool? She loves it."
Like she's been summoned, Mileena wanders in from the next room and rubs her face against Joel's ankles. Ellie flicks the stick a few times, and the feathers catch Mileena's attention. She moves it around until the cat pounces.
"Good girl!" Ellie says, kneeling to pet the cat briefly before she sets down the toy and returns to standing, sending an expectant look at Joel.
“Very cool,” he says. "Nice handiwork, kid." Ellie beams. "So…how was everything back here?”
“It was…” Ellie’s face falls for a moment before she plasters over it with a brave look. “It was fine. Mileena missed you. She...she had trouble sleeping with you gone.” Ellie says it matter-of-fact, like she won't tolerate any dispute about it.
Joel knows they’re not talking about the cat, but he’ll play along. He leans down to rub his hand down Mileena’s back. “Did she have nightmares?”
“Yeah…She was really worried you weren’t going to come home.” Ellie gulps audibly. “After all, who’d clean up her hairballs?”
Joel can tell her heart isn’t in the joke, but he knows that when sincerity overwhelms her, humor is her crutch.
“I got something for you, to make up for being gone,” Joel says. He can't wait to see her reaction. He's pretty sure that she'd love any gift from him, but this one feels so perfectly Ellie.
“You did?”
“Of course, you know I only go out so I can find treasures for you.”
“And to ‘pull my weight here,’” Ellie says, putting on her deep Joel voice and quoting him from the fight they’d had before he left.
“That too.”
“There are other ways for you to do that, you know,” Ellie says. “Stuff here in town, if you can’t convince them to let me go with. I’m fine without presents.”
Joel doesn’t really know what to do with this level of vulnerability from her. It’s as close as she’ll get to asking him to stay home. Usually their fights are about wanting to go along or about not being allowed to stay home alone while he’s gone, not about asking him to stay back completely.
“Really? I guess I’ll just go throw this away then,” Joel stands back up and pulls the toy out of his pocket.
“No, don’t! You already got this one, don’t waste it!” Ellie reaches over in a clear bid to try and pry open his fingers, but he’s faster and taller, so he holds his fist out of reach.
“If you really want me to, I’ll say no next time they ask, okay?” Joel says, wanting to make sure Ellie knows he heard what she was really asking.
“Only until I’m allowed to come with you, then we can go together.” She's got a timid smile, relief clear in her eyes.
“Deal,” Joel says. As much as he wants to shelter Ellie here in Jackson forever, that’s not the world they live in. He knows that Ellie’s got a protective streak just as wide as his own, so keeping her back from patrols, hunting and scavenging missions isn’t going to happen. She wants to help in the same ways he does, and he’ll be damned if he lets her go off alone to do so.
Ellie smiles and makes grabby hands toward the present. Joel obediently brings down his hand and opens his fingers, revealing the little toy.
Recognition spreads on her face when she sees it, and she’s so careful when she lifts it out of his hand, like she’s afraid she’ll break it.
“Is this the Mars rover?” she asks, her voice reverent. “Sojourner?”
Joel nods.
“I’ve read all about this! Did you know it’s like,” she holds her arms wide open, “this big?”
“I didn’t,” he says. “Why don’t you let this old man finally sit down and then you can tell me all about it?”
Ellie grins, and he can practically see the gears of her brain moving behind her eyes, ready to spout out all the knowledge she’s got stored up.
He can’t wait to hear it.
—
“Why didn’t you tell me that’s what it was, Joel?” Ellie storms her way through the front door, not waiting to be inside before she starts berating him.
“Honestly, Ellie, I thought you knew!" Joel follows her into the living room. "I really don't see what the big deal is."
"If you don't see what the big deal is then something's seriously messed up in your head, man."
He's missing something big here, he knows. He can’t think of a reason why Maria saying she's happy that family dinners are a routine again should prompt this big of a blow up. He's gotta be missing something.
Joel wracks his brain for any possible indication of what’s going on when Ellie notices that Mileena is curled up on the couch atop a discarded flannel of Joel's, and she goes still.
"You traitor!” Ellie turns to Joel and yells at him. “She's my cat and you didn't even want her and now you stole her from me!"
Ellie goes over and picks up Mileena. The cat already doesn't take well to being held, doubly so when combined with being woken up—and she starts to struggle against Ellie’s hold as soon as she’s lifted.
Mileena makes an awful yowling noise but Ellie just starts walking toward the staircase, not letting go.
"Ellie, put her down before you both get hurt!" Joel snaps at her. As a rule, Joel tries not to raise his voice at Ellie, even when she’s yelling at him, and he regrets the volume and tone of his voice the moment it comes out.
"Ow, fuck! Fucking cat!" Ellie drops her and looks down at a series of scratches on her forearm. "I hate you both!" She yells, looking between them both before scampering up the staircase.
"Ellie, you need to clean those cuts!" Joel calls up to her, just getting the words out before her bedroom door slams shut.
He takes a deep breath and watches as Mileena saunters back to the couch and sits down on his flannel again. Joel assumes she’s fine, since she starts grooming her face, looking unbothered.
This isn't the first time he's heard I hate you from a teenage daughter, but it's been twenty years since the last time it happened, and it stings just as much now as it had when Sarah said it.
He knows Ellie is just upset, that later she'll calm down and sheepishly wriggle her way under his arm or lean against his back, relying on physical contact to do the job of an apology. It’s something they’re both working on; being better at communicating and actually using words for their feelings, but apologies are still difficult.
They'd left Tommy and Maria's just as plates were being set down on the table, and without a full meal Ellie is certain to make a stop in the kitchen before bed.
He'll just have to wait it out, and they'll talk, or else she’ll just give him a hug, and everything will be fine. He sits down next to the cat, settling in to wait.
It's only a little while later that there's a knock on the front door. Tommy stands on the other side with a casserole dish—their uneaten leftovers from family dinner.
"Dunno what it was that set her off, but if she takes after you, she'll be hungry before bedtime. Thought it'd be best for you to have this on hand." Tommy hands it over and turns to go.
Normally, Joel would let him go, wanting to stick close while still giving Ellie space to feel the big emotions, just in case she needs him.
“Hang on,” Joel calls, putting the dish down inside and stepping out of the door to stop Tommy from getting too far. “I gotta ask you something.”
“Okay, shoot.” Tommy turns back, a concerned look on his face.
“No, can we—'' Joel waves his hand toward the street and Tommy nods, understanding what he's asking.
Joel dips his head back inside. “El?” He yells loud enough that he knows she’ll hear, even if she’s got her walkman on. “I’m going on a walk with Tommy, I’ll be back in ten minutes, okay?”
There’s no response, and even though he’s pretty certain she heard, he jots a quick note on the pad of paper they keep by the front door to keep each other apprised of their whereabouts. Out w. Tommy, back in ten. - J
They walk in companionable silence for a bit, before Tommy shoots him a scrutinizing glance.
“Well?” Tommy prompts. “Ain’t got all day, Joel.”
Joel takes a deep breath, steeling himself. "She said she hates me."
"And you believed her?"
"She freaked out about Maria calling it family dinner. If she hates me, that at least makes more sense. I thought she was starting to enjoy having a…a family." He catches himself before saying Dad; it feels too personal. Too intimate, even though he's talked about it with Tommy before, the desire to make it official, how unsure he is about how to ask. "I guess that's not what she wants anymore. Y'know, she called me her roommate a few weeks back?"
Tommy's decent enough not to laugh at that, even though Joel suspects he wants to.
Joel rubs his face. "God, I can't believe I didn't realize what was going on."
"Are you sure you're not just assuming you know what's going on in her head?"
"Well—"
"C'mon, Joel. You know what Will Livingston would say about assumptions."
Despite it all, the comment brings a smile to his face. The fact that Ellie’s gotten comfortable enough with Tommy to inundate him with the pun book says a lot about how far their relationship has come.
"Seriously, though.” Tommy sobers. “We talked about this ages ago. You said you were going to ask her about—"
“It’s not like Jackson’s got a fresh supply of adoption papers laying around, Tommy!” Joel says, trying not to raise his voice. “How am I supposed to…” His voice flounders. "What if I’m too late?"
“If you’re waiting for Ellie to just call you Dad, that day might not come." Joel's heart sinks. If Tommy sees it too, there's no way he's got a misread on Ellie's feelings on the matter.
"I’m not done,” Tommy continues. “ I know you’re scared. Scared she’ll say no. Scared she'll say worse. Just because we don’t have the formal paperwork doesn’t mean this isn’t a big deal.”
Joel opens his mouth to speak, but Tommy puts a hand on his shoulder and interrupts. “Joel, that girl loves you. You’re her dad in every way except for the two of you fucking stating it out loud.”
"You’re sure?"
"I've never been more positive. Now get your ass home and ask her to be your daughter." Tommy shoves him in the direction of his house, and Joel jogs back, not wanting to wait another minute.
Joel’s only slightly out of breath when he cuts across the yard to their front door, but he takes a moment to collect himself before going inside.
"I’m home!” Joel calls out as he pushes the door open, loud enough to reach upstairs.
He’s a little bit shocked to see Ellie; he’d expected that she’d want more time to stew in her bedroom. “Oh, you’re right here. Hi.”
She’s on the couch, Mileena curled up and purring on her lap, and he’s glad to see it. Ellie needed a win after everything.
“Hi.” Ellie says.
“Hi,” Joel says again, crossing over to her. Closer up, he can see that Ellie’s got his flannel draped across his lap. If that method works to get the cat to sit on her, he expects he’ll never see the shirt in his drawers ever again. It’s a worthy sacrifice, he thinks.
“Are you hungry?” Joel asks, sitting down next to Ellie and Mileena.
“Are you sending me to live with Tommy and Maria?” Ellie replies, the words tumbling over each other in quick succession. There’s pain in her face, eyebrows furrowed and forehead wrinkled with stress lines.
“What? No, absolutely not. Where’d you get that idea in your head?” Joel reaches out and takes her shoulder in his hand, which he’s relieved that she leans into rather than shying away from.
“I just thought…All the dinners, I thought they were trying me out, maybe.” Ellie looks away. “I thought family dinner meant their family."
“We’re all family, Ellie, I thought you knew that.” Joel says. It’s starting to sink in just how serious of a mis-step he made by not having this conversation months ago.
“Well, you never told me how I fit into that, did you?” She asks, a bitter note to her voice. “You just told me what I’m not. I’m not your daughter, I’m not your roommate. I’m nothing to you, but you expect me to know that I’m family?”
“You are not nothing to me.” Joel moves his hand to Ellie’s head and gently uses his thumb to turn her to look at him. “Y’hear me?”
Ellie nods, just a miniscule thing. “But you can’t blame me for getting confused, Joel.” She says, the heat almost completely gone from her voice. “You tried to pawn me off on Tommy before, why wouldn’t you do it again?”
The thought that Ellie’s been worried about Joel dumping her with his brother again all this time breaks something in him. He scoots in close and drops his hand to wrap around her shoulder, soothing her.
"El, baby girl. You're never, ever getting rid of me, do you understand? We're family, you and me. And Mileena,” he adds, nodding at the cat.
Ellie leans the last few inches in, burying her face against his neck and wrapping her arm around his back, careful to not disturb the cat still dozing in her lap.
“I’ve been trying to figure out how to ask you if you’d let me…” Joel swallows, not wanting to let his nerves get the better of him. “If you’d let me adopt you.”
Ellie perks up at the word, twisting under him to meet his eyes.
“I wanted to make it official,” Joel continues. “There wouldn’t be none of the paperwork and court dates that it used to require—”
“Really?” She interrupts.
“Really,” Joel says. “Been planning for months now, I’m just…I’m bad at the follow through. I shoulda said something, but I figured you sorta knew.”
“I thought maybe…” Ellie says, just a whisper. “But I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”
“Ellie, I love you so much. You don’t have to call me Dad or anything, but if it’s okay, I want to tell people you’re my daughter.”
“Obviously it’s okay with me, old man.” Ellie hides her smile against his shoulder. After a moment more of their side hug, Ellie picks Mileena up and sets her down on the couch next to her.
Ellie turns to him and opens her arms in invitation, to which he scoops her up in the tightest hug they’ve shared in some time. It’s a life affirming embrace, in a way. Family affirming, which is pretty much the same thing.
Joel squeezes her tighter and presses a kiss into her hair. “That okay?” He asks.
“Yeah.” Ellie nods against him. “I love you too, idiot.”
They stay like that for a little longer, until Ellie’s stomach grumbles loud enough that they both pull away in laughter.
“Hungry?” Joel asks. He stands up from the couch and holds out a hand for her.
“Absolutely starved,” she replies, taking his hand to pull herself up.
“Well then. Care to join me for our first official family dinner?” Joel crosses over to the door and picks up the casserole dish he’d left there earlier.
“I’d love that.” Ellie smiles.
Mileena begs for scraps under the table as they eat, and despite the chicken and potatoes being cold, it’s a family dinner, and there’s nothing better than that.