Archive of Our Own ^beta

i.

Ellie’s quiet, in the wake of Silver Lake and David. 

Silent, really.

She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t make any shitty jokes. She doesn’t pester him with questions about anything and everything. She doesn’t make soft exclamations of awe at the tiniest thing. She… She doesn’t laugh.  

Other things have changed, too. 

They touch more now, with Joel hugging her when she’s distressed and tending to her wounds, and her actively seeking him out whenever they stop, pressing so close to him it’s as if she’s trying to crawl inside him— but before he initiates touch, he has to make sure that she knows he’s approaching and narrate what he’s doing or it’ll send her spiraling. She still eats whenever they stop— but he has to prompt her and she’ll only eat nuts or berries; she throws up any meat, and he knows she’s thinking about the bodies hanging in that shed. She walks, allowing them to keep moving toward Salt Lake City— but their pace is much slower, and she usually ends up reaching for his hand at some point during the day to help keep her steady.

She’s just… She’s just a silent, empty husk of herself, complete with hollow eyes and a stoic face: a mannequin in motion, a ghost in every sense of the word.

He tries to crack open that husk, God does he try. He points out animal tracks in the snow and bird nests in the trees. He stops to admire the view whenever they crest another hill. He keeps up a steady stream of chatter, telling stories from his past that he hasn’t shared in twenty years and dusting off his best dad jokes. 

Before, she would have eaten it up. Now, she just stares at him— not even at him, really, but at a point just off of his left shoulder. 

Before, at the very beginning when he had a different goal and she was just another piece of cargo for him to keep track of, he would have given anything for her to be this silent. Now, after months together and the realization that she’s managed to worm her way far enough into his heart that he thinks of her as his own, her silence feels like a death sentence. 

It’s the worst kind of ironic. 

And he— the worst part is, he doesn’t even know how to help. Doesn’t even know what really happened, though he has some guesses based on her injuries, the way she fought him off when he found her outside the flaming building, the way she’s so jumpy now, the way she can’t keep down meat. 

(Those guesses make rage burn hot and bright in his stomach, and he wants to turn around and raze that stupid fucking town and all the motherfuckers in it to the ground for hurting his kid. But he won’t, because this is where Ellie is, and he’s never leaving her again.)

He’s just… Helpless to do anything but ramble at her continuously, hoping that she at least registers that he’s speaking to her. Helpless to do anything but keep them slowly moving toward Salt Lake City, holding onto her hand— which is so little in his own, and it breaks his heart to think about what those hands have had to do— and keeping her steady. Helpless to do anything but hug her when the memories take over, hold her tight when she burrows in close, and whisper It’s okay, babygirl, I’ve got you over and over into her hair. Helpless to do anything but keep watch over her during the night, making sure no one and nothing hurts his girl again. 

It’s because of that last one that he knows immediately when the nightmares start. 

Surprisingly, they didn't start right away— perhaps she was so exhausted that she simply didn’t have the energy to conjure them, or maybe she was still processing what happened. 

Whatever it is, eventually it ends. The events of the past few days catch up with her, and she has a nightmare. 

He’s keeping watch with his rifle at his side and Ellie pressed against him tight, her head pillowed on his thigh and her hand knotted in his shirt as if to keep him from going anywhere— not that he has any intention of it. 

It’s a nice night, the sort of nice that almost makes one believe the world hadn’t gone to shit and then kept getting worse. It’s cold, but it’s the kind of cold that fills lungs with fresh mountain air and helps keep minds sharp. There’s a fire on the other side of Ellie, warming up her back and casting the rocky outcrop they’d nestled into for the night with a soft orange glow. The stars are shining bright above them, and the woods are quiet beyond the crickets chirping, interspersed with the occasional owl hooting and wolf howling.

It’s easy to let his head tilt back to look at the stars, identifying each constellation and making sure he remembers their stories so that he can tell them to Ellie some day, holding out hope that this too shall pass.

And then— then Ellie makes a soft noise, a discontented grumble of an exhale.

Instantly, he’s on high alert, dread turning the blood in his veins to ice— it’s the most noise he’s heard from her in days and unfortunately it’s familiar to him, having witnessed more than his fair share of her nightmares over the past several months.

Sometimes they pass before they get bad, though, and hoping against all hope that this is one of those times, he asks quietly, “Ellie? Ellie, sweetie, you okay?”

She grumbles again, louder this time, and between one breath and the next it turns into a keening wail that splits his heart right in two.

“Ellie—” he says urgently, but he barely gets it out before she begins thrashing.

Her limbs are flailing everywhere in choppy, desperate bursts— the movements of someone in a fight— and her head slips off his lap as it starts twisting side to side.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he curses, shoving the rifle aside and going to his knees beside her. “Ellie!”

And then—

“No,” she howls, voice ragged as much with pain as with disuse. “No, no, no! Get off me!”

“Ellie!” Joel shouts, hands fluttering over her uselessly. She’s always hard to wake from nightmares, and now she’s thrashing so much that it’s almost impossible for him to find an opening to grab her shoulders and shake her awake. “Ellie, wake up! Come on, kid, come back to me!”

“Stop!” She screams, and suddenly her fists come up swinging, fighting off an enemy that exists only in her mind. “Stop, stop, get off me! Help! Help! Joel!”

Hearing his name spill from his girl’s lips, it’s like a sheet is pulled from over his eyes. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter that she’s thrashing, or that her fists are flying around in a way that’s more than likely to give him a black eye, or that she’s so far into her nightmare that it’ll take a Herculean effort to wake her up. Nothing can keep him from getting her out of the confines of her own mind.

“Ellie!” He roars, shoving his hands through the swinging mess of her arms and scrambling for a grip on her shoulders. “Ellie, come on kid, you need to wake up!” He finds her shoulders, then, and they’re— they’re so tiny in his hands, so frail, so undeserving of the burdens they bear. 

He wants to destroy everyone who ever hurt her. 

His touch must register in her dream, because she begins fighting even harder. Now, instead of swinging wildly, she’s scratching at his arms, trying to pull him off of her. He sees her legs kick out, too, and shudders when he realizes it’s a move to get someone much larger than she is off of her.

“Get off!” She screams again, voice like sandpaper. “Get off, get off, get off! Joel, help!”

“Ellie, wake up,” he shakes her shoulders, rougher than he ever wants to be with her but desperate to pull her out of her nightmare. “It’s a dream kid, come on! It’s me, it’s Joel, I’m here! I’m here, baby girl, wake up!”

Her eyes shoot open, unseeing, and before he has time to move back, she swipes for his face. Her nails slice through his cheek and he hisses, reeling away.

“Fuck,” he curses, knowing that she definitely tore through skin. But he can’t worry about it right now, with her chest rising and falling rapidly and her eyes darting around in a panic. He shifts to his knees again, raises his hands so that when she finally sees him she won’t feel as threatened, and says pleadingly, “Ellie, hey, hey, it’s me. It’s Joel, sweetie. You’re fine. You’re safe. It’s just me, baby, just me.”

He repeats a few more rambling reassurances until her eyes find him; they’re still wide and panicked, but he at least sees a flash of recognition in them, and a tiny piece of his heart knits itself back together.

“There we go,” he sighs, voice settling a little. “Hey, kiddo, good to see you. It’s just me, alright, just me. I got you, baby girl, yeah?” She takes a shuddering breath, eyes fixed on him, and he takes it as permission to keep going. “You’re alright, Ellie. It was a dream, that’s all. He’s not here, I promise. Just you and me, and I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you. Can I touch you, sweetie? Just want to make sure you’re okay, that’s all. I promise.”

She searches his face for a moment, then nods jerkily, and he sighs in relief.

“Okay, that’s good baby, thank you. I’m just gonna check you’re not injured anywhere,” he says, gently taking her hands in his to check them for any bruises or cuts from swinging so wildly. They’re all clear, so he slides his hands up her arms, then to her shoulders, making sure she never winces or makes any sign of discomfort. She seems fine, luckily, and he relaxes another tiny bit. “Okay, you don’t seem injured from what I can tell. Does anything hurt, sweetie? Something I missed?”

She shakes her head.

“Okay, good. That’s good.” He lets out another sigh of relief, and pauses to take a moment to figure out what to do next. Usually Ellie would tell him what she needed after a nightmare but she doesn’t seem inclined to speak again, and he doesn’t want to push her.

He’s trying to decide if he should guess or just ask her and hope she responds when he notices she’s nestling in closer to him, staring at him expectantly.

“Oh,” he says softly. “Do you want me to hold you?”

She nods and shifts even closer to him, despite already being as close as can be right now, and his heart breaks all over again.

“Yeah, okay. Come here, kiddo, I got you.” He scoops her into his arms easily— and he’s struck again by just how small she really is under all those layers of steel she wraps herself in— and shifts so that he’s sitting back against the outcrop with her cradled against his chest. “I’ve got you, baby girl, you’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

They’re close enough that he hears Ellie’s breath hitch when he speaks again, and then he feels her shaking in his arms, crying for the first time in days.

“Oh, Ellie,” he whispers brokenly, “it’s okay. Let it out, sweetie, I’ve got you.”

Her cries turn to violent, angry sobs that tear through her body and pierce him right in the heart. Every part of him longs to be able to make it stop for her, to be able to remove all the pain that’s led her to cry in this way. But he also knows she needs to get it all out, so he just lets her go. He cradles her to his chest with one hand and strokes her hair with the other. He keeps up a litany of nonsensical reassurances so that she can hear his voice and know he’s there. And he just lets her sob. 

Eventually, the sobs dwindle back into soft cries, then die out completely once she has no more tears to shed and no more energy left to cry.

Even then, he just keeps talking, waiting for her breathing to slow and the small hitches he can hear with each inhale to die out. 

“There we go,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to her temple. “That’s it, you’re okay. I’m right here with you, baby girl. And I ain’t going anywhere, I promise… I bet that felt good, getting that out of your system, huh? You were so brave. I’m so proud of you, kiddo.”

She nestles into him further, leaning into his touch a little heavier, and yawns.

He chuckles despite himself. “Yeah, all that crying will do that to you… Go back to sleep, baby, I’ll look after you. You just get some sleep.”

She sighs heavily and he sees her eyes slip shut, breaths coming slow and steady, and his eyes close in relief, too.

He keeps them shut for a long time— not because he’s tired, God knows he could never sleep after that, but just so that he can focus on listening to her breathing and reassure himself that she’s okay now. 

Her breaths have just evened out enough that he thinks she’s asleep again when he hears her mumble thickly, “‘M sorry, Dad.”

Immediately, his eyes fly open, flooding with tears, and his heart lodges itself in his throat as he tries to— tries to process that this is the first time Ellie’s spoken to him in days, and she’s apologizing for… Well, he doesn’t even know what, and she’s calling him Dad, and—

— and he hasn’t been a dad in a long time, and suddenly it’s 2003, suddenly he’s holding a different kid, suddenly it’s a different world and he’s a different man, suddenly it’s—

— it’s twenty years later, and Ellie is here now, and she’s calling him Dad, and it hurts, it hurts so damn bad, it feels like he’s cracking open from that one single word, it feels like it’s tearing through him and reminding him of how he failed the last little girl who called him that, and—

—and he loves Ellie with a fierceness that scares even himself, and hearing her call him Dad has mended something at the very same time that it’s broken something else.

He remembers back in Jackson, when he so cruelly said You’re not my daughter, and I sure as hell ain’t your dad.

Oh, how wrong he’d been— how foolish, to think he could ever give her up.

He swallows hard, but his voice is still thick with emotion when he asks softly, “Sorry for what, kiddo?”

The only answer he gets is the soft hoot of an owl, Ellie having fallen asleep between one breath and the next.

He sighs, tears still pricking at his eyes, and presses a long kiss to her temple. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You’ve got nothin’ to apologize for, anyway.”

In the morning, he’ll have to look at the wound she left on his cheek, and they’ll have to keep moving towards Salt Lake City. Maybe they’ll talk about this, or maybe she’ll be so exhausted she won’t even remember. 

But that’s the morning. 

For now, Ellie sleeps, and Joel keeps watch over her.

ii.

The hospital is miserable.

Well— that might be a little dramatic. Because really, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that bad. The Fireflies feed them, they have shelter, they don’t have to sleep in shifts, and they don’t have to worry about raiders or Infected or any of the other shit they dealt with to get here. 

So it’s really not that bad.

But Joel still hates it, because his kid is still getting hurt.

For weeks now, the Fireflies have been poking and prodding at Ellie as they try to figure out how to synthesize the vaccine. It’s been weeks of blood draw after blood draw, operation after operation, scan after scan, test after test. There are bruises on her arms from all the IV’s and syringes. She’s had biopsies and bone marrow harvests and spinal taps. She’s spent more time under anesthesia than not. Her cheeks are gaunt from the number of times she’s had to fast before an operation or test. 

She’s a goddamn lab rat, and he hates it.

She hates it too, he knows; even without all the times she’s whispered it to him late at night, he’d be able to tell simply based on all the winces and sighs and deep frowns that she lets out. With each little hint of discontent, his heart aches with the desire to make it easier for her.

But he’s— Really, he’s done all he can, at this point.

He made sure only the best doctors and nurses interact with her (it took far more threatening and maiming than he would have liked, but he did what he had to do). He made sure they know that when either he or Ellie say she’s done for the day, they’re done (this also took a significant amount of threats and gun waving, but eventually they caved). He made sure she gets at least three days free from testing a week so that she can get some actual peace and rest. He made sure they know not to take more blood than they absolutely need to, and to have food waiting for her when her fasting period is over. He made sure no one makes a decision about what they do to her without talking to them about it together and then getting Ellie’s explicit consent.

After that, after making sure that the vultures up in that lab aren’t going to drain her dry and wring her out and take more than she has to give, there’s not much he can do other than hover around her protectively.

She makes fun of him for it, chiding him for being an overprotective old man more often than not, but he doesn’t care.

Because when it comes down to it— when he’s staring down at her in a hospital bed and waiting for her to wake up from anesthesia, like he is right now— all he can think is that that’s his kid laying there, and if he doesn’t protect her, who will?

She looks so small, swamped in the gown and bed like this. And innocent, too, with the worries of her daily life smoothed away by the drugs. She looks like any other teenager, and that almost makes it worse— that she only looks like that because she’s bearing a burden no teenager should ever have to.

He sighs and rubs his thumb across the back of her hand that he’s holding.

“I thought seeing you like this would get easier, you know,” he says to her, even though he knows she can’t hear him when she’s under like this. “You’re gonna wake up soon, I know you are, and it’s just the same thing we’ve been doing for weeks now, but I still don’t like it.”

He can hear her response in his head— It was just a biopsy, Joel. Stop hovering. You’re cramping my style.

He laughs to himself and squeezes her hand. “Just a biopsy… You're a tough kid, you know that?”

The door swings open then and Sherry— a nurse in her mid sixties with her own Southern roots, a no nonsense personality, and the only one who can draw Ellie’s blood without making her wince, which makes her the only person Joel actually semi-trusts to take good care of her— comes bustling in with her clipboard and a tray of bandages. With her arrival, Joel knows it’s only a few minutes until Ellie will wake up.

“Afternoon, Joel,” she greets, immediately setting about getting everything ready to make sure Ellie’s good to go. That's something he likes about her— she’s straight to the point. “You eaten anything yet today?”

“Nah, I was waitin’ for her to wake up,” he says, jutting his chin towards Ellie. “You know how she is when she wakes up, she’d just drag me to get food anyway.”

“I suspected as much,” she says, taking Ellie’s other wrist in her hand to check her pulse. “Well, there’s food waiting for you both in the canteen, whenever you’re ready.” She jots down a quick note on her clipboard, and continues, “Her pulse is at her normal resting rate, so it should just be another few seconds—”

As if on cue, Ellie stirs and lets out a sleepy little grumble. Her brow furrows almost immediately, in that oh-so-familiar Ellie way, and Joel can’t help but reach out and press his thumb to the space between her eyes. She always hates it when he does this while she’s awake, but as sleepy as she still is, she just leans into it.

Joel dimly registers Sherry chuckling at them, but his gaze is fixed on Ellie, her eyes beginning to flutter a bit.

“Hey kiddo,” he says softly, rubbing circles into the back of her hand. “Welcome back.”

“Hngh,” she says like the eloquent being that she is when waking up from anesthesia, clearly fighting to open her eyes all the way and get her bearings.

“Uh-huh. Tell me all about it.”

Ellie lets out another grumble in response.

Sherry chuckles as she looks up from recording Ellie’s vitals. “She’s disoriented today, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. I thought she might be, she didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Ah, that’ll do it… Nightmares?” Sherry asks sympathetically.

“No, actually,” he snorts. “She kept telling me stupid jokes.”

“So she was being a menace. I see! Well, let's get her all situated so she can get some food in her to help.” Sherry steps back over to the bed and unhooks her penlight from her pocket. “Hey, Ellie, how are you doing? Ready to do our checkup so you can go get some food?”

Ellie lets out an intelligible grumble, though Joel can see her eyes flicking around, looking for something.

“What was that, sweetheart?” Sherry asks.

“M— M’ Dad,” Ellie says thickly. “Where’s— Where’s my dad? I want my dad, I want Joel. He promised he’d be here, where is he?”

Joel’s hand tightens around hers at the name— she hasn’t called him Dad since that first nightmare after David, what seems like ages ago now, and he feels his heart trying to leap out of his chest at hearing her call him it again. 

It makes him think of when Sarah was twelve and had to get her appendix removed, how she’d immediately searched for him when she woke up, how he’d painted her nails as she recovered, how he’d fed her ice chips and Jello, how she’d woken him up in the middle of the night crying in pain because her meds wore off—

He blinks away the memories before they can spiral— Ellie needs him, now.

Before Sherry can say anything, he shifts from his chair to the bed so that he’s more directly in her sightline. 

“I’m right here, baby girl,” he says, grinning when she catches sight of him and smiles loopily. “How ya feeling?”

“‘M silly,” she slurs.

“Yeah, you are. You’re a silly goose.”

“‘M not a goose,” she gasps, looking at him in shock. “Joel, ‘m not a goose. Unless—” her eyes go comically wide, and it’s all he can do to hold back his laughter. “Did they turn me into a goose?”

“They sure did,” he says morosely. “The silliest goose of them all… Now, how about you let Sherry look you over to make sure the silly goose transplant worked, huh?”

“Yeah, okay,” Ellie says, still aghast, but she lets Sherry begin directing her through their usual post-op routine.

They get through the check-up quickly, even with Ellie as loopy as she is, and Sherry ruffles Ellie’s hair when she’s done.

“All right, Miss Ellie. I’ll be back to check on you in a few hours, but for now you’re all set. Good job today, sweetheart.” To Joel, she says, “Once she’s a little more alert, you can take her down to the canteen to eat. Wheelchair’s in the corner if you need it.”

“Thanks, Sherry,” he says, and she smiles warmly before making a swift departure from the room.

“Joel,” Ellie says seriously, once the door has shut behind Sherry. “How am I going to eat if I’m a goose? I have wings now.”

He laughs hard enough that he snorts, and it sets Ellie off giggling too, though he’s not sure she’s alert enough yet to know why she’s laughing. 

As he watches her giggle, he’s hit by a sudden wave of affection so fierce he thinks his heart is going to crack open, and he’s struck once again by just how much he cares for her. 

And for her to call him Dad, for the second time now… Well, it could just be her instinct as a fourteen year old girl, scared from her nightmares and exhausted from her procedures, to seek out the comfort of a father. It might not mean anything. 

But he’s pretty sure it’s not that. After everything, he thinks it’s deeper than that. He thinks— hopes— that she cares about him, too, that she looks at him and feels the same thrumming sense of my person, my family, my world that he feels when he looks at her.

He wants to ask her about it, wants to take her little hands in his and make sure she knows how much he loves her, wants to make it clear that they’re family and he’s always going to look after her. 

But… Well, he’s never been the best at feelings, and she’s still loopy from the drugs so she probably wouldn’t remember it anyways. 

He decides not to say anything about it. 

Instead, he pushes her hair back from her face and asks, “Alright, how ‘bout some food, kiddo?”

iii.

For a while after they leave Salt Lake City, Joel feels like they’re untouchable.

It’s a bad mindset to have, he knows it is— their journey to get there had proven there were far worse things out there than just the Infected, and that won’t have changed just because it’s been a few months. 

But it’s just… It’s been so long, and Ellie has been through so much, and now they’re done. They’re heading toward a new life in Jackson, the two of them at each other’s side, with the understanding that that’s where they’ll be staying. They’re one world-saving mission lighter and two cases of vaccines for the folks in Jackson heavier. Joel has the vaccine coursing through his veins, and Ellie is giddy with relief at having finished her mission and not having to be anyone’s lab rat anymore.

They have a future to look forward to.

So he thinks, as they begin their drive back to Jackson in a car gifted to them by the Fireflies— “Is it really a gift if I already gave them everything?” Ellie had asked him when Marlene handed them the keys, and Joel had wondered if maybe they spent too much time together— that maybe they can have this. Maybe they can get to where they’re going without having to go through the same shit they did to get there originally. 

For a while, it seems like that’ll be the case— it’s only a five hour drive on a road that’s clear for as far as the eye can see, and they have more than enough gas in the trunk to refuel. They have a CD of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours that Ellie found in the hospital, remarkably still intact and unscratched, blasting through the speakers. She’s laughing more than she has in… Well, as long as Joel has known her really, these long peels of bright, joyous laughter that make him feel like there’s a glowing ball of warmth right where his heart should be.

From the corner of his eye, he can see her staring out the window with a slight smile and mouthing along to the music, and it makes him think of— of Sarah, riding shotgun when they went on a road trip to Guadalupe Mountains National Park, the summer before everything went to Hell in a handbasket. 

He expects the comparison to hurt and it does, the way it always hurts to think of Sarah. But it also makes him happy, in a way— Sarah had just turned thirteen when they took that trip, and she had been so excited to go on her first trip as a teenager. But no matter how old she’d felt, he’d only been able to look at her and see his little girl.

So now, to see Ellie like this and be reminded of Sarah... It’s almost reassuring, in a way, because it means Ellie looks like a kid. It means that she looks light. Happy. Innocent. 

And it makes Joel happy to see her that way, after everything she’s been through. Her slender shoulders have held more than their fair share of the world, have held a heavier burden than even Atlas himself. She deserves the chance to laugh, and smile, and act like the kid that she is for once. 

So maybe that’s why he misses the ambush, until it’s too late for them to avoid it.

Maybe seeing her so happy makes him relax too much, or maybe he’s too comfortable being in a car, or maybe he’s just old and tired and ready for a comfortable life. Whatever it is, it makes him sloppy. Oblivious. Vulnerable.

They’re somewhere along the border between Idaho and Wyoming, and he’s explaining the long and dramatic history of Fleetwood Mac to Ellie, figuring she should know the story behind the songs she’s singing. He’d glanced over at her to gauge her reaction— wide eyed fascination, the way Sarah would always get when gossiping— and it’s when he’s turning back to the road that he sees it.

There’s a bright spot up ahead, the reflection of the sun off a scope.

“Fuck,” he curses, eyes darting around as he tries to find some way to avoid the ambush.

“What is it?” Ellie asks, instantly dropping her feet from where they’d been kicked up on the dash.

At the same time that he’s proud of her for reacting so quickly, he’s also sad to see that same old line of tension making its way back into her shoulders. Goodbye childhood, once again.

“Ambush,” is all he says, though. “There are raiders up ahead. I don’t know how many, but I can see—”

“The reflection off the scope,” she interrupts grimly. “Yeah, I see it… What do we do?”

They don’t have a lot of options— Joel is driving fast, and slowing down at this point would be a dead giveaway to the raiders that they were spotted. There’s nowhere to turn off, really— there’s just flat fields to one side, and mountains cushioned by thick forest to the other, with each posing their advantages and disadvantages. If they keep going straight… Well, there’s no telling how good their sniper is, so that could either be fine or be really bad.

And after Silver Lake— well, Joel has always been wary of raiders and ambushers, especially since he knows all of their tricks. But since Silver Lake, he’s extra wary.

Even if their sniper is terrible and they manage to blow through, there’s no guarantee that they won’t get followed. No guarantee that they won’t come after them and follow them to Jackson and jeopardize their new life—

He sets his jaw, suddenly terrified. He knows what he wants to do, but Ellie… He has to check with her. “Okay, here’s what I’m thinkin’… We either peel off here and try to get around them, with the knowledge that we’re easy pickings for gunning down or following. Or we head straight towards them, let ‘em think we’ve fallen into their trap, and end up being the ones doing the ambushin’.”

His accent comes out thick in his fear, and he knows that Ellie notices and picks up on what he’s afraid of when she inhales sharply.

“Ambush them,” she says, quiet but sure. “No one follows us.”

“Alright then,” he says gruffly. “Then you grab the vaccines, you get your pack on, and you follow my lead. Okay?”

“Okay.”

She leaps into action, somehow managing to make it look like she’s just patting around in the backseat for something instead of preparing for an attack, and before he knows it she has both of their backpacks and the cases of vaccines ready to go. If they do have to ditch the car— which Joel imagines they will, since the sniper means their tires will likely be shot out— there won’t be much they can do about the food or other supplies in the back. But Jackson is well supplied, Joel reminds himself.

Their lives are far more important right now.

“Good,” Joel says once Ellie’s settled back in her seat, casual as anything. If anyone’s watching them through their scope, they wouldn’t suspect a thing from her. “Now I expect they’ll do something to our tires— shoot ‘em, have spikes on the ground, somethin’ to slow us down— so I need you to hold on tight to something, okay? You got your seatbelt on?”

He knows she does, but he remembers Outbreak Day and Sarah lurching forward when they crashed, and— and he needs to check.

She humors him, thankfully, and gives her seatbelt a few good tugs to make sure. “Yeah, it’s on.”

“Atta girl… Okay. Once we stop, we’re gonna stay in the vehicle. They’ll expect us to be hurt with how fast we’re going, but we’re expecting it so we’ll have time to brace ourselves and it shouldn’t be too bad. They’ll come up to us to make sure we’re dead before they try to take our stuff. It's then that we’ll spring the trap.”

“Got it,” Ellie confirms. “Wait here, then spring the trap.”

“And Ellie?” He looks directly at her.

“Yeah?”

“You do what you have to.”

He sees her swallow thickly, knows she’s remembering the winter and the horrors she’d seen, but she just gives him a sharp nod. “Okay,” she says quietly. “Do what I have to.”

“We’ll be fine, baby,” he says. “I ain’t gonna let anything happen to you.”

He knows it doesn’t change what he’s asking her to do, and he feels guilty as all get-out for it, but— but he needs her to be safe. 

“I know, Dad.” 

There’s a beat of silence as they both process her words. Joel imagines she didn’t mean to do that, since she’s never called him it while this alert, but he doesn’t even care— it still makes his heart ache with fondness and his throat tight with emotion to know she trusts him not only to keep her safe, but also love her the way only a dad could. 

He wishes he could respond, but there’s a glint of metal ahead— another gun, he’s sure— and there’s no time.

“Ready?” Is all he ends up saying.

“Ready,” Ellie responds.

And then there’s a gunshot and the pop of a tire, and their car skids out of control towards the forest.

Joel has just enough control to wedge them between two trees, rather than wrapping around one, but the impact is still painful. He ends up slamming his forehead against the wheel, and he hears Ellie’s breath go out of her from where she gets caught on her seatbelt.

“Fuck,” Joel grunts when he touches his forehead and his fingers come away bloody. “You good, kiddo?”

“Yeah,” she responds promptly, though she’s definitely breathless. But at least she’s not… Well, at least it’s not worse. “That fucking sucked.”

“Yep. And it’s gonna keep sucking.” He catches a glimpse of figures approaching the car and reaches for his gun. “Alright, you ready?”

“Let’s kick some raider ass.”

And then… Well, then there’s a lot of gunfire, and a lot of yelling, and a lot of fighting like hell.

They make it in the end, though, and while their car is ruined, they end up finding what must have been the raiders’ stashed in the forest a little ways away.

“Hey, kid,” Joel asks, looking over at Ellie. She already has a bruise blossoming on her jaw from taking a punch and there are scratches on her palm from catching herself when she fell, but she’s— she’s still here, still breathing, still moving toward Jackson right beside him. “FEDRA ever teach you how to hotwire a vehicle?”

Her eyes light up like a little kid on Christmas morning, and he grins.

They don’t talk about her calling him Dad.

iv.

Jackson is nice.

Which is… It’s weird, living somewhere nice after so much capital-b-Bad.

It’s an adjustment for both of them.

Joel, for his part, hasn’t been around this many good people in a long time, and he knows that he’s rough around the edges. Knows that he’s bristly, and sharp, and intimidates everyone except Tommy. Knows that he’s difficult to be around, with how private he is. Knows that he’s hard to talk to, with how closed off to everyone except Ellie he is. He’s trying, but everyone is so nice, and people haven’t been nice for a long time and neither has Joel, and it’s tough relearning it. Like working out a muscle that he forgot he had.

As for Ellie—

Well, Ellie is a tough kid; Joel knew that from the first time she tried to stab him, and she’s proven it to him a million more times since then. He doesn’t know another kid— doesn’t even know another adult— who could have survived all that she has. And that’s the problem: the kids in Jackson are just too… Innocent. 

Many of them were young when they got to the commune, if not born there, and while they may have seen an Infected, they’ve never had to kill one themselves. They’ve sure as hell never had to kill a person.

Even the kids who are older, though— and many of the adults, too— seem so soft compared to her. They’ve been living in comfort for a long time, and have gotten used to not having to sleep with one eye open. They came here with their families or with a group, and never faced FEDRA school. They made it to Jackson safely, and while they still know how to fight and take care of themselves, they never had to leave again to go play lab rat for the Fireflies.

Ellie just… Doesn’t seem to know where to fit with anyone, really.

And so they stick together, the two of them.

Joel goes to fix someone’s house— he’s returned to contracting so that he can earn their keep— and Ellie is right there, handing him tools and cracking jokes. He goes out scavenging or hunting and Ellie is on her own horse next to him, despite not technically being old enough. He goes to the storage facility to get them supplies and Ellie trails after him like a shadow, providing her input on what they do or don’t need and what’s a worthwhile trade. They go to community events, and she tucks herself into his side like she’ll float away if she’s not pressed close to him.

He… Doesn’t really mind it, if he’s honest. He spent so long looking after her and keeping her safe that now, if she’s not in his immediate eyesight or he doesn’t know where she is, he starts to panic. He needs her close by as much as she needs him, he thinks, and so they slip into their new lives as a matching set, two halves of a whole, a pair that’s never separated.

But he knows she gets sad, sometimes, that she doesn’t have any friends her age. That she gets lonely and feels like she’s missing out. He can see her longing to go and join the other kids when they’re all playing in the street, or when they’re walking to and from school in a little clump. He knows she wants to go to school with them, and invite them over to their house, and sit at the table with them when they all have dinner in the dining hall.

He knows she wants to have friends, and a normal childhood.

And so he brings up enrolling her in school, roughly three months after they made it back to Jackson.

“What,” she says flatly when he suggests it, just after they’ve gotten home from dinner and are sitting down to have their second cupcake that they always smuggle out of the dining hall for dessert.

(Joel is pretty sure everyone knows that they take two cupcakes each when they’re only supposed to take one, but no one’s ever said anything, so he’ll keep stealing them as long as they keep making Ellie happy. Or as long as everyone’s too scared to say anything to them. Whichever comes first.)

“I just think you should give it a try, that's all,” he says patiently. “I know you’re lonely—”

“I’m not lonely,” Ellie interrupts sharply, in a way that tells Joel he’s right on the money. “I have you, and the horses, and we go over to Tommy and Maria’s all the fuckin’ time anyways. I have everyone I need.”

“Okay,” he concedes, because he knows it’s hard for her to admit that she needs people— it’s just one of the many ways they’re a little bit too much like each other. “But don’t you want to go and learn stuff? I mean, I know a little bit and I try to teach you what I know, but I’m no teach—”

“I don’t want to go,” she snaps. “I like our lives just the way they are.”

“I know, sweetie,” Joel tries to reason. “And I’m not suggesting we change things up completely. I just think going a few days a week would help—”

“No.”

“Ellie, come on.”

“How many fucking times do I have to say it? I don’t want to fucking go, Joel,” she repeats, jaw clenched tight.

There has to be some reason she doesn’t want to go, some trauma that’s making her scared enough to fight him on this. He knows he shouldn’t press, but he also knows that despite whatever fear is holding her back, she really does want to go. It feels like letting her down, in a way, if he gives up now.

“Can you at least think about it—”

“Why are you trying to get rid of me, Dad?” she bursts out, and Joel freezes.

Honestly, he barely even processes that she called him Dad again. He’s more focused on the fact that Ellie, the one who gave him a reason to live again, who taught him how to love again, thinks that he’s trying to get rid of her.

“I’m not trying to get rid of you, baby,” he whispers in horror. There’s a sick feeling in his gut at the thought. “How could you ever think…”

But then he remembers the last time they were in Jackson, and he remembers how cruel he was when he tried to pawn her off on Tommy, and—

“Oh,” his voice breaks. He’s out of his chair and pulling her into a hug before he even realizes he’s moving. “Ellie, sweetie, no. I’m not trying to get rid of you. I promise, it’s you and me forever. We’re stuck together now, kiddo.”

“You aren’t?” She sniffles into his shirt, and Joel hates himself for making her cry. “I thought you were getting sick of me always being with you and—”

He drops a kiss to the top of her head. “No, no, Ellie. I could never. I love having you by my side all day. You’re the best part of everything I do.”

Her voice is cracked by tears when she asks, “Then why are you trying to send me away?”

“I’m not trying to send you away, baby,” he says quietly. “I would hang out with you all day forever, if I could. But I also see you watching the other kids, and I know you want to hang out with them. I just want to give you that opportunity, and I think school’s the best way to do that.”

“Oh,” she says, though it’s muffled by how she’s buried her face in his shirt. “I… I didn’t know you noticed.” 

“You’re my kid, of course I noticed.”

“Oh,” she whispers again. She’s quiet for a moment, then takes a deep breath to calm her tears and says, “I’m scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“I—” He feels her fists tighten their grip on his shirt and smooths back her hair to try and calm her down. “It’s… Hard. To say.”

“I know, baby. But you don’t have to tell me now, if you don’t want to. It can wait until you’re ready.”

“But I want you to understand. Why I want to go, but am— why I’m still scared of going.”

“Okay,” he hums. “Then I’ll just stay right here, and you can tell me when you’re ready?”

“Yeah,” she whispers. “I’d like that.”

And then they fall silent, still wrapped around each other. Joel’s knees ache from kneeling on the cold floor, but he makes no attempt at moving; if this is where Ellie needs him, this is where he’ll stay. 

He ponders, as she figures out what to tell him, what could be so scary to her— his brave girl, who fought her way across the country just for the chance at a cure— about school. Maybe something about FEDRA? He dealt with those soldiers a lot, and not many of them were very pleasant people; it’s hard to imagine any of them treating kids well. Or maybe something else in her past that she hasn’t mentioned? Or is it—

He stops, remembering just what— who— she has so many nightmares about.

He feels simultaneously sick to his stomach, and also like the biggest asshole in the world. If he’s been pushing for her to go to school all night and reminding her of that— that fucker—

“He was a teacher,” Ellie says timidly, as if reading his mind. “David. Before. So I guess I’m just scared that— I don’t know. It’s stupid. But I’m scared that when I sit down in a class, there’s going to be another him, and they’ll try to— to—” She swallows hard. “Like I said, it’s stupid, I don’t know why I can’t just—”

“Hey, no. Stop. It ain’t stupid, baby. He did—” He tightens his arms around her, wishing he could go back and keep that monster from ever even setting his sights on her. “He did terrible things to you, and there ain’t anythin’ wrong with still being scared. You understand me?”

“Yeah,” Ellie agrees softly. “Okay.”

Joel sighs heavily and kisses her temple. “I’m sorry for pushing so hard. I didn’t realize—”

“It’s fine,” she interrupts. “You had no way to know, you never… Never talked to him. And I don’t…” She lets out a shuddering breath. “I don’t like to talk about him. About what happened. ”

“I understand, sweetheart. I just wish I hadn’t—” Joel’s voice cracks with emotion, and it’s only then that he realizes his eyes are stinging with unshed tears. “I wish I hadn’t pushed you so hard. I don’t ever want to be the reason you think of him, or feel unsafe here.”

“Joel. No one makes me feel as safe as you do.” 

She says it so seriously, like it’s just another one of her science facts that she loves to spout— pigs can’t look up at the sky, banana peels are radioactive, Ellie feels safe with Joel— and Joel feels fresh tears spring into his eyes.

He has to clear his throat before he can speak again. “I’m glad to hear it, baby, real glad… And you know, you don’t have to go to school. It was just an idea. If you really don’t want to, you don’t have to.”

“I do, though,” she objects. “I mean, I want to at least try. I don’t want him to— to hold me back forever, you know?”

“Yeah, I understand… Whatever you want to do is fine with me.”

“Then I think I want to try at some point.” After a beat, she adds, “It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with you. I just…”

“I know, sweetie,” Joel says after she trails off. He rubs a circle into her back, knowing it makes her feel better when he does that. “I’m not hurt, and I don’t blame you. I’ll miss you when you’re not here to bother me, but you deserve other friends than just this old man.”

“You are pretty fuckin’ old…” she grumbles. “I thought I heard thunder the other day, but it was just your knees.”

Her joke is kind of ruined by how small her voice still is, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he just scoffs.

“Yeah, well, this old man steals you an extra cupcake every night, so maybe you should watch it. Or I might just eat yours.”

“You wouldn’t,” Ellie challenges.

“Oh?” He pulls back and raises an eyebrow at her. She raises one right back, an eerie reflection of his own face. Still, she hasn’t seen all of his tricks yet, so she doesn’t see it coming when in the blink of an eye, he shoots his hand out, grabs the cupcake she’d placed on the table, and stands up.

“Joel!” She shouts, immediately jumping up to get it.

He holds it above his head, laughing when she keeps trying to jump for it despite the fact that his hand is a good foot above hers. 

“It’s mine, now!”

“You fucker! Give it back!” 

Joel just cackles, going up on his tiptoes to hold it that much further out of her reach. 

“You absolute dick!” She giggles, giving up on jumping for it. “I can’t believe you stole that from me.

“Ah, I didn’t steal. I simply took what was rightfully mine… It’s a well known fact that Joels get three cupcakes while Ellies only get one.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” she asserts. And then— a spark of an idea in her eyes. “In fact… I’ll prove it to you.”

Joel sees what she’s doing barely a second too late, and just misses his chance to keep her from lunging toward his seat at the table and swiping up the cupcake he’d taken for himself.

“Ha! Got it, fucker! Three cupcakes for Joel, my ass.”

Joel lets out a heavy sigh. “You’re too smart for me, kiddo… Fine. New deal. I have this one, and you have that one.”

She raises it to him in cheers, and grins. “Deal.” Her smile fades a little, and she places the cupcake back on the table before facing him again. “Joel?”

“Yeah, baby girl?”

“I think… I think I want to try school soon, but not quite yet. I want— I need to get used to being away from you for a little bit first, if that’s okay? And to wrap my mind around… Him.”

He leans down and presses a kiss to her forehead. “Whatever you want, Ellie. I’ll support you whether you want to go tomorrow or if you want to wait until you’re fifty years old.”

Predictably, she wrinkles her nose. “I won’t need to wait that long.”

“Just so long as you know it’s an option,” he retorts. “But we can talk about it again when you’re ready, okay? For now, these cupcakes aren't going to eat themselves.”

She taps her nose twice, and grabs her stolen cupcake off the table.

v.

Ellie, to Joel’s complete lack of surprise, loves playing board games.

He’d discovered it while they were in Salt Lake; with Ellie as weak and exhausted as she was and needing to stay close so that the medical team could monitor her, there’d only been so much to do. She quickly grew bored and restless, and when combined with being in pain from all the procedures, she’d been grumpy and irritable.

Desperate to find her things to do, Joel started searching the hospital for anything that seemed like it would remotely interest her. In some of the long abandoned rooms, he’d managed to rustle up a few of her Savage Starlight comic books and some novels that seemed like they’d interest her, old sci-fi books that he remembers Sarah reading and liking.

But it was in the hospital gift shop that he managed to find the really good stuff— a pack of cards, Battleship, even the Game of Life. Based on the fact that she’d seemed to enjoy wiping the floor with him playing Boggle, he’d eagerly brought the spoils of his trip to the gift shop back to her.

With one glance at her smile when he’d shown her, he’d known he struck gold.

They spent a lot of time after that playing games together, and Joel ventured out into the city a few times to find more; by the time they left, he’d taught her how to play— and lost— more games than he could count.

He expected it to trickle off once they got to Jackson and she had other things to do, but after she walked up to him with Scrabble in her hands and a hopeful expression on her face, he knew he’d been wrong. And so just like that, they ended up adopting game nights into their weekly routine— just like Monday nights were for guitar lessons and Friday nights were for movies, Saturdays were for playing games.

Eventually, though, Ellie grew bored of beating him so easily, and so their weekly game nights expanded to include Tommy and Maria, too. She still manages to beat both Joel and Tommy, but Maria is fierce competition, and their games usually end with the two of them battling it out for first while Tommy settles for last and Joel takes third.

Joel doesn’t mind too much, especially considering that he gets to see Ellie laugh and hold his newborn niece, Lucy, on his lap. They’re pretty damn good nights, if he does say so himself.

And then— and then comes the day that he and Tommy find an Uno deck in the corner of a pharmacy while patrolling. It’s been kicked aside and the box is coated in a thick layer of dirt, but a quick peek inside proves that the cards are still clean and good as new.

“Oh man,” Joel sighs, looking down at the box. “Do you remember Sarah’s birthday, when we—”

“We played with her friends, right?” Tommy snaps, his eyes lighting up. 

“Yeah,” Joel laughs. “‘Cause she didn’t want to choose between us or them, but they just wanted to play Uno the whole time.”

“That was a good day… Which birthday was that? Eleven?”

“Yeah, it was her eleventh birthday. Her friends got so mad at our house rules, but Sarah made them play by them anyway.”

They look at each other for a brief second, reaching a silent consensus, and then Joel barks out a laugh.

“Oh, Ellie doesn’t know what’s coming,” he says, slipping the deck into his pack like it’s precious goods.

“Finally,” Tommy claps his shoulder, grinning sharply. “Something we can beat her at.”

Unfortunately, they find the cards on a Wednesday, so there’s still a good chunk of time until they can use them. Joel decides to keep them a secret from Ellie, because he knows she would just want to play as soon as he shows them to her and he’s trying to save it for when he and Tommy can team up against her. It’s difficult, though— the cards feel like they’re taunting him from his closet, begging him to break them out and give Ellie a taste of her own medicine. By the time Saturday night rolls around, he can’t quite keep his excitement stamped down.

Naturally, Ellie decides she’s going to take her sweet time getting ready to go that night.

“Ellie!” He calls up the stairs. “Come on! You ready to go? We’re gonna be late!”

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’!” She shouts, finally emerging from her room and clomping down the stairs. 

“Finally,” he sighs, pulling the front door open for her and playfully tugging her ponytail as she passes him. “I swear, a dozen more hairs just turned grey waitin’ for you.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell, you look the same to me. Just an ooooold man.”

“You little shit,” he chuckles, shoving her slightly. “We’ll see how you feel about this old man when I beat you tonight.”

Ellie raises her eyebrows at him. “Please, like you’ve ever won.”

“Hey, I beat you in War that one time,” he says.

Which— actually, that’s not the victory that it sounds like, because that was months ago now. And also pure luck.

The look Ellie gives him tells him she knows it, too. “Uh huh,” she says, leading the way up Tommy and Maria’s front porch stairs and knocking on the door. “That one time. Why do you think tonight’s gonna be any different?”

Tommy swings the door open as she finishes speaking and sighs. “Don’t tell me you two are already bickering, we haven’t even started playing yet.”

“Ellie here seems to think she’s going to win again tonight,” Joel says with a pointed glance at him.

“Ah.” Tommy leans against the doorway and sizes Ellie up. “Is that so, Squirt?”

Ellie frowns at that and looks between them. “Okay, what’s going on? You guys are being weird.”

“Me? Weird? Never,” Joel says. “Tommy, on the other hand… Well. You can’t get much weirder than that.”

Ellie nods solemnly. “That’s very true. I feel bad for Maria, sometimes.”

“Now hang on—” Tommy says, but he’s quickly cut off by Maria coming in from the living room, Lucy on her hip. 

“Why are we feeling bad for me?”

“‘Cause Tommy’s weird,” Ellie says, though she isn’t even looking at him— she’s too busy beelining towards Lucy, who babbles happily at her. Ellie beams and sticks out a finger for Lucy to grab onto. “Hi, you!”

“Oh, that,” Maria huffs, smiling as she watches the two girls. “Yeah, it’s a real struggle sometimes. Now come on in, everyone, these games aren’t going to play themselves.”

“I can not believe this,” Tommy mutters good naturedly, stepping aside to let Joel through. “You turned my wife against me.”

“You should give yourself more credit, baby brother. I think you did that all by yourself,” Joel teases, and claps his back with a wink.

“Ellie, do you want to pick our first game?” Maria asks as she begins to walk further into the house.

“Actually,” Joel interrupts, “I thought we might start with something new that Tommy and I found on patrol the other day.”

Ellie’s eyes light up. “I knew you were being weird! What did you find? Is it a good one?”

“Oh, it’s a good one alright,” Tommy grins, “‘cause you’re totally gonna lose.”

“Yeah right,” Ellie scoffs. “Well come on, what is it?”

With a flourish, Joel pulls the box out of his pocket. “May I present… Uno. The most divisive game ever made.”

“I thought that was Monopoly?” Ellie asks as she comes over and plucks the box from Joel’s hands, looking at it curiously.

“...Second most divisive game ever made,” Tommy amends, and nudges Ellie over towards the kitchen. “At least, the way we play it.”

“Oh dear God,” Maria mutters, though she’s smiling. “Let me guess, you two have some crazy house rules?”

“Duh,” Tommy grins, and brushes a kiss to Lucy’s head as he passes Maria. “Now sit down everyone, and Joel and I will explain it.”

They start with teaching Ellie the basic rules, mostly to make sure Ellie gets it (and also to lure her into a false sense of security). She latches onto them fairly quickly, as Joel expected, and once they’ve gone around the table a few times, he thumps his hand on the table.

“Alright, now we bring in the house rules,” he says. “Rule one: stacking. You get hit with a draw two or draw four, but you have one in your hand? You can play it, so long as it matches. It can keep stacking until someone doesn’t have a draw card to put on top of it.”

“Oh, Christ,” Maria huffs, leaning back. “You’re those people.”

“Hey, it’s no fun if you can’t sabotage,” Joel shrugs. “Also, don’t think this was my idea— Tommy’s the one who brought this back from school when we were kids.”

“Uno in the 80’s was brutal, what can I say?” Tommy grins.

“Stacking, got it,” Ellie says. “What’s next?”

“Rule two is one of Joel’s, I’m just putting that out there,” Tommy jumps in to explain. “But if you have a card that’s an exact match— same color, same number— to the one that was just played, you can jump in and play it, even if it ain’t your turn. The game continues from the person who jumped in.”

“Hardcore,” Ellie breathes out, and Joel grins. He knew she’d like their rules, competitive little hellcat that she is.

“I have one that I learned at law school,” Maria offers. “If someone plays a zero, everyone swaps hands counter clockwise.”

Joel lets out a low whistle, chuckling. “Well, I’ll be damned. I guess lawyers don’t mess around with Uno, do they?”

“No, they do not,” she grins. “Those were some of the craziest Uno games I ever played, I’ll tell you that.”

Tommy just shakes his head at her, something like awe on his face. “You keep finding new ways to surprise me, woman.”

Maria shoots him a mischievous grin, then turns to Ellie expectantly. “So, Ellie… What do you say? House rules?”

Ellie gives them each an appraising look, and there’s a fire in her eyes that tells Joel she’s going to agree before she even speaks. Sure enough, she says fiercely, “Let’s fucking do this!” Lucy squeals happily from her high chair, and Ellie grins. “See, even Lucy’s ready.”

The game starts innocently enough— it always does, really, as everyone gets into the groove and figures out what they’re going to do. And then Tommy plays a red four, an exact match for the one that Joel has sitting in his hand, and he plays it in the blink of an eye— skipping right over Ellie.

Predictably, Ellie’s jaw drops. “What?! No way! How’d you see that so fast? I’d barely even processed it!”

He shrugs nonchalantly. “Sorry, kiddo. You gotta be faster than that.”

“This is such bullshit,” she sighs. “Whatever. So it’s Maria’s turn now, since you stole it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Maria says, and puts down a red draw two. “Sorry, Tommy.”

“Sorry?” He retorts, and places down his own blue draw two. “Sorry for what?”

“Are you kidding me?” Ellie sighs, staring down at her hand in dismay— Joel has to choke down a snort at what is so clearly an Oh shit, I don’t have one to stack face. “What is it, gang up on Ellie day?”

“Yes,” he, Tommy, and Maria all answer at the same time.

Ellie whips her head up and glares at them for a second, then sighs and reaches out to pick up four more cards. “I hate you all, just for the record.”

“Poor kid,” Joel sighs, and selects his blue reverse from his hand. “How’s this for a peace offering?”

Ellie, naturally, lights up at the chance to play a card. “Fuck yeah! This is why you’re my favorite, Joel.”

“Mmhm,” he hums. As he glances down at his hand— which includes a draw four that he’s just waiting to put down— he wonders how long that’ll last.

For a while, the game returns to something subdued again. There are a few reverses played, Joel has to draw a couple cards when he’s unable to either play a yellow or match the six that was put down in front of him, Maria drops a draw two on Tommy that he can’t stack on top of, and Ellie and Maria both manage to steal a turn. But other than that, nothing gets too crazy. 

Until Maria plays a yellow zero.

The table goes silent.

Maria raises an eyebrow at them. “What, no one wants to give up their cards?”

“You are a diabolical woman,” Tommy says appreciatively. “I love you.”

Maria just snorts and sticks out her hand. “If you love me, then you’ll give me your cards.”

Tommy sighs and hands them over to her. “Take care of them, darlin’.”

The rest of them trade cards after that— Maria’s to Joel, Joel’s to Ellie, and Ellie’s to Tommy— and Joel has to raise an eyebrow at Maria’s hand.

It’s a pretty damn good one, actually, and he has to marvel that she’s been holding onto what she has been so far: a draw four, a wild, and one card of each color. 

It’s not a bad trade, and it makes him miss his original cards a little less. 

Ellie, he knows, is not having as much of a good time— he’d had one less card than Maria, but he didn’t have nearly as good of a spread of cards. Certainly nothing that’ll help her after he plays Maria’s yellow seven, other than the draw four.

She sighs as she puts it down. “This rule sucks, dude. ‘Cause now Joel knows what I have and can sabotage me.”

“I agree,” Tommy wrinkles his nose as he goes to pick up four cards. “You don’t have shit, Squirt.”

“Yeah, I know! I’m kinda losing, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Maria shrugs and drops her next card, a green reverse. “You wanted house rules.”

“That we did,” Tommy mutters. “At least that draw four was good for something.”

He drops a green two, and Joel thinks he has never been so grateful for Maria in his life than when he spots the match in his hand. He drops it before Ellie can so much as blink.

“What the fuck,” Ellie turns to him. “How do you do that so quickly?”

“Talent,” he answers dryly. 

She punches his arm. “You are such an asshole. I take it back. You’re not my favorite.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“Alright, children,” Maria interjects, playing a docile green six. “Let’s remain civil, shall we?”

The game just keeps growing more cutthroat from there, the swapped hands meaning that they’re able to sabotage each other even more easily, and Joel’s honestly surprised by some of the insults that fly across the table.

But there’s a spark of happiness in Ellie’s eye, Maria and Tommy are teasing each other with all the comfort of a happily married couple, and Lucy is sitting happily in her high chair as she watches them.

And Joel— well, he’s chipping away at his cards steadily, and before he knows it, it’s Maria’s turn and he’s down to just two: the draw four, and a green skip that he managed to draw a few turns ago.

A quick glance around the table reveals that he has tough competition— Tommy and Ellie both have just two cards left as well, and Maria has three after this turn. If he can’t play off of Maria… Well, he might just have to kiss his dream of beating Ellie goodbye.

He holds his breath as Maria scans her cards, flicking her eyes around the table, and then picks one. She places it down, and—

And it's green.

He barely even processes the number on it before he slaps down his skip with a triumphant, “Uno!”

“Oh, come on,” Ellie says, looking at her cards in dismay. “I had a plan!”

“I could still lose, you know,” he says, because it’s true— any number of things could go wrong. Maria or Tommy could have a zero, or a skip, or a draw two. Any of those, and he can’t do anything. The chances are slim, of course, but… Still. It’s possible.

And so he holds his breath as Tommy plays— a draw four. Joel feels the very corner of his mouth twitch, and Tommy must notice it because he winks at him. “Uno.”

Maria stares at her cards for a long moment, and Joel’s right back to holding his breath until she— plays a draw four.

Joel owes both of them a bottle of the best whiskey he can find, because he couldn’t have planned a more decisive victory if he’d tried.

Still, he decides to play it up a bit— petty of him, perhaps, but it’s something Ellie always does before she wins. She gets all dramatic about it, making a big show of thinking and humming before finally playing. And turn about’s fair, isn’t it?

He lets out a heavy sigh, leaning back in his chair and staring at his card with a frown.

Ellie, seemingly not realizing that she’s being played, grins sharply at him. “Ha! Draw eight, old man!”

“Well, this isn’t how I thought this game was gonna go. But you know what?” He leans forward and pointedly places his own draw four down on top of the others. “I can’t complain.”

Ellie’s jaw drops, and he can’t hold back his amusement any longer— he bursts out laughing, alongside Tommy and Maria.

“I—” Ellie flounders for something to say, her jaw working as she looks between him and the stack of draw fours on the table, condemning her to a sweeping loss. “Wha— No fucking way! You guys had to have planned this.”

“Nope,” he grins, and reaches out to flick the end of her ponytail. “It was completely serendipitous. And victory tastes all the sweeter for it.”

“Then you had to have cheated, Dad! I mean, there’s no way!”

Joel’s heart goes warm at the title, and for a moment it feels like he’s floating outside of his body; it’s the first time she’s said it in a moment as peaceful as this one, without exhaustion or fear driving it, and it makes him feel even more special than usual. To hear her call him Dad, safe in the comfort of game night at his brother’s home—

The thought sends him careening back into his body, something uneasy twisting in his gut. He’s suddenly overwhelmingly conscious of the fact that Tommy and Maria’s laughter has gone quiet. 

For all the times that Ellie has called him Dad, it’s only ever been in front of another person once, when Ellie was waking up from anesthesia. It’s certainly never been in front of Maria, much less Tommy. Joel hadn’t mentioned anything to Tommy yet, either, despite confiding in him about almost everything. He’s not sure why, entirely; maybe he just wanted to keep it between him and Ellie for now, their special thing. Maybe he was waiting to actually talk to Ellie, and figure out if she meant it or not. Or maybe, he realizes as his gut continues twisting around, he was just nervous.

Because Tommy was there, the last time Joel was someone’s dad. He was there when Joel failed her, was there when Joel buried her, was there in the aftermath of Joel placing a gun to his head because he couldn’t bear to be in a world without his little girl. 

And now here Joel is, over twenty years later, with another girl looking at him and calling him Dad.

Maybe Tommy will see it as a betrayal of Sarah. Maybe he’ll think Joel doesn’t deserve a second chance. Maybe he’ll wonder how Joel can sit there and let another kid call him Dad when the first one is gone.

Or maybe, he thinks when he turns to face Tommy’s judgment only to find both him and Maria smiling at them softly, he was just using Tommy as a scapegoat for his own fears.

Because there is nothing but love in his brother’s eyes, understanding in Maria’s, and a complete lack of surprise on either of their faces— just a sort of finality, as if they were waiting for this to happen.

It means more than he could have imagined it would, knowing that Tommy isn’t even surprised by this new development, and he wishes he could scoop his brother into a hug. But Ellie is blinking at him expectantly, waiting to find out if he cheated or not, and Tommy can wait. Right now, Ellie’s more important.

Joel leans back in his chair with a smug grin and shrugs at her. “No cheating from me, kiddo. Just turns out that you can’t actually win ‘em all.”

“You dick,” Ellie says, but there’s the same edge of reverent fondness in her voice that she gets whenever she’s trying to hide that she thinks he did something cool. “I want a rematch.”

“If you’re expecting different results,” Tommy says, “don’t. He always finds a way to win, somehow. It’s the most frustrating thing in the world. Even when I would try cheating as a kid, he still won.”

“Now hang on a minute,” Joel frowns at him. “What do you mean, when you tried cheating? When did you do that?”

“Shit,” Tommy curses, and looks at Ellie in dismay. “I have kept this a secret for nearly four decades, and it comes out because I’m trying to comfort you.”

“Well,” Ellie sighs dramatically. “What was it Joel just said? You can’t win ‘em all?”

Joel bursts out laughing, and Tommy’s jaw drops enough that Joel thinks it’s actually going to hit the floor. 

Tommy narrows his eyes at her. “I see how it is then. Alright, Squirt. Rematch time, let’s go. Joel, will you do us the honor of shuffling?”

Joel wants to talk to Ellie and ask her if she means to call him Dad. He wants to talk to Maria and ask her how she’s coping with having a second kid after burying the first. He wants to hug Tommy and thank him for being here for Ellie just like he was there for Sarah.

But there’s a deck of one hundred and twelve cards in front of him and a rematch to be had, and— well. 

It can wait.

i.

Joel likes evenings in Jackson. At this point, he’s developed a sort of routine: he sits out on the porch swing with his guitar and a glass of whiskey, watches the setting sun paint the sky orange and pink, and enjoys the gentle breeze ruffling his hair. They’re peaceful, in a way he never thought he’d get to experience again after Outbreak Day, and he makes a point to go out there every night and bask in the simple pleasure.

Of course, he usually enjoys it more when Ellie is there beside him, leaning her head on his shoulder and begging him to teach her another song on the guitar. 

But she’s not here tonight, having decided to go hang out with Cat, Dina, and Jesse after school, and he knows not to expect her until after dinner. She visited him at his construction site during lunch to tell him, despite it being on the other side of Jackson from the school, and it had made his heart ache with fondness that she thought to do that to keep him from worrying. 

Even so, her seat beside him is glaringly empty. 

He’s happy that she has friends she wants to hang out with, of course, and those three kids are the very best that Jackson has to offer. Their presence in Ellie’s life has put a pep in her step that he’d never seen before, and he’s beyond grateful to them for making his girl smile like that again. 

Still, he misses her— already, he’s thought of a few jokes that he just knows would make her groan, and playing song after song just isn’t the same when she’s not there to hum along with her favorites.

Codependent old fucker, Tommy’s voice teases in his head.

“Yeah,” he mutters to himself, huffing out a laugh. “I know.”

And then, as if on cue—

He hears a bright peel of laughter, carried towards him by the wind, and he instantly smiles wide— he’d know that laugh anywhere.

He looks down the street and sure enough, Ellie is walking down the sidewalk with Cat, Dina, and Jesse. They’re still a bit too far away for him to make out distinct words, but he sees Dina gesturing wildly, Jesse turning a dark shade of red, and Ellie and Cat laughing hard enough that they have to lean on each other, and it doesn’t take a genius to know that whatever story Dina’s telling, it’s at the expense of Jesse.

“Poor boy,” Joel mutters fondly, though he knows that if anyone can handle the whirlwind that’s Cat, Ellie, and Dina, it’s Jesse. 

He watches their little group make their way towards the house, fondness bubbling up in his chest. Ellie looks so happy when she’s with them and it’s easy to forget, for a moment, all that she’s been through. She just looks like a normal teenager, coming home from her friend’s house, and he’s hit by a sudden wave of gratitude that they get to have this life.

As if sensing his thoughts, Ellie looks up and spots him watching her. A smile bright enough to put the sun to shame takes over her face and she waves at him happily. He grins just as wide, and lifts his hand to wave at her in turn.

“Hi Joel!” She calls out, a sudden burst of speed propelling her ahead of her friends and towards him.

“Hey, kiddo,” he chuckles. To Dina, Jesse, and Cat, who stopped by the mailbox, he says, “And hello to you three, as well.”

“Hiya Joel,” Dina greets brightly.

Cat waves at him with her own smile, and Jesse greets politely, “Hi, Mr. Miller! How are you?”

“I’m doing just fine, Jesse. And how ‘bout you? Those girls aren’t being too tough on you, now are they?”

“Eh, he’s fine,” Ellie snorts, bounding up the porch steps. 

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Jesse answers for himself. “And nothing I don’t deserve.”

“A humble man,” Joel teases. “I like it. Are y’all comin’ in? You’re more than welcome to, you know.”

“Thanks, but we were just walking Ellie home,” Cat says. “We’ll see you tomorrow, Ellie!”

He nods, and Ellie waves at them from where she’s standing on the porch. “Bye guys!”

She gets a chorus of goodbyes in response and then the three other kids turn and begin making their way back down the street, already laughing and shoving each other. 

He grins, but his attention is quickly regained by Ellie, who’s sliding off her backpack and making her way towards him.

“Hey, baby,” he says quietly, shifting his guitar so that she has room to sit next to him. “I wasn’t expecting you back until later, is everything okay?”

She seems fine, but— it doesn’t hurt to ask.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” she says, automatically leaning into his side. “I just missed you.”

Joel all but melts, his heart burning in his chest. Damn, but does he love her. He presses a kiss to her hair to gain a moment to collect himself, then says, “Well, what a coincidence. I was just thinkin’ I missed you, too. It ain’t the same, playing without anyone here to distract me and mess me up.”

She shoves his shoulder with a laugh. “You dick! I do no such thing!”

“Oh really? Because I seem to remember you tickling me when I was just trying to play your favorite song for you.”

It’s a blatant lie— he’d done that to her a few weeks ago, just to get a rise out of her— and she rounds on him in disbelief.

“What! No way! That was you, and you know it.”

He hums, leaning back in his seat as he pretends to think. “You know what?” He says finally. “I think you’re right. That was me.”

“Yeah, and you fucked up a perfectly good rendition of Don’t Stop in the process. I mean honestly Joel, how could you? It’s Fleetwood Mac!”

“Well,” he chuckles, sliding the guitar towards her. “How about a redo, then? My fingers could use a break anyways.”

“Ugh, do I have to?” She whines, though there’s no heart behind it. Even if there had been, he wouldn’t have believed her— not when she’s already reaching for the guitar with eager hands. 

Once it’s settled across her lap, she runs through a few riffs to warm up her fingers. Joel, for his part, just settles further into his seat, rests his arm along the back of the seat behind Ellie, and watches her fondly. 

“Alright, you ready?” She asks once she’s sufficiently warmed up. 

“Yes, ma’am.”

She glances at him sideways and narrows her eyes. “You aren’t going to mess me up again, are you?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. I paid a fortune for these tickets, you know.”

She snorts. “Well then, here we go. Get ready for the concert of a lifetime, old man.”

And then she starts playing and— and it’s not the driving rhythm of Don’t Stop that he’d expected, but slow and simple, each chord that she plucks out hanging in the air for a long moment before she moves to the next. It feels like they’re stabbing him right in the heart, honestly, because he recognizes the song right away. And that she’d choose to play this for him, to play Songbird right after she ditched her friends just because she missed him… Emotion sits heavy in his throat, and he has to close his eyes before he does something silly like cry.

With his arm around Ellie and his eyes shut, there’s nothing he can do except let her soft voice and playing wash over him and think, I must be the luckiest sonofabitch in the world.

He can’t quite keep his eyes from tearing by the time she gets to the end, something about hearing her sing I love you, I love you, I love you, like never before cutting him right to the core, but Ellie’s kind enough not to mention it. Instead, she just rests the guitar across both their laps and leans her head against his shoulder.

“You okay?” She asks quietly.

He drops his arm down to squeeze her shoulders, laughing softly. “You kiddin’? I’m fantastic, kiddo. Concert of a lifetime, indeed.”

“Good,” she says. Then, after a quiet moment, “I mean it, you know. I love you, Da— Joel.”

His eyes fly open, and he stares down at her— in shock, awe, surprise, adoration, he doesn’t know. All he knows is that his heart is skipping more beats than is probably healthy, and there’s a lump in his throat, and he’s squeezing her tight to his side, and he loves her so goddamn much that he can’t even put it into words.

He’s always known, of course— or at least hoped— that she loved him. It’s been there in all the little moments, the silly jokes and the awestruck looks and the times she’s called him Dad. It’s there in the big moments too, like when she’d reach for him in the hospital and when she searches for him after nightmares and trusts him to keep her safe. It’s there in the fact that even now, even months after their journey ended and they could have gone their separate ways, it’s still him that she comes home to. 

But to hear it…

Well. He forgot what it was like, hearing his kid tell him she loves him.

It’s—

It’s the best damn feeling in the world.

He’s not sure what he did to get a second chance at it, at having a daughter and hearing her say those three little words. With all the blood on his hands, all the weight on his shoulders, all the skeletons in his closet, he’s not sure he deserves it. But he knows, deserving of it or not, he’s sure as hell not going to waste it.

He drops a kiss to the top of her head, lingering there for a long moment as if it’ll somehow tell her just how much her love means to him. Then, gruffly, he says into her hair, “I love you too, kiddo. So fuckin’ much.”

“Good,” she says contently, and snuggles in closer to him.

He smiles to himself, and he’s not sure there’s ever been a moment more perfect than this— watching the sunset with his kid snuggled up against him, both of them safe in the knowledge of how much they mean to each other.

The thought makes him frown as soon as he has it, because— because maybe they don’t both know. 

I love you, Da— Joel, she’d said.

Da— Joel.

Da—

He’d heard the slip when it happened; he’d just been too distracted by the rest of the sentence to focus on it. 

But now that they’re quiet, he has to wonder. She’s called him Dad before, of course, but only on a precious few occasions— a few of them, she may not even remember. And they’ve never talked about the times that she would remember, so he’s never really made it clear that he doesn’t mind, that it actually makes him feel special, that he’s been thinking of her as his daughter for a long time. So maybe she thinks she has to censor herself.

Maybe she thinks she doesn’t have the right.

Maybe she thinks he doesn’t want to hear it.

Maybe she thinks he doesn’t see her as his kid.

The thought immediately makes him feel guilty, heart aching for an entirely new reason, and he needs to fix it, needs to make sure she knows, needs to tell her it’s okay—

“Ellie?” He says, and his voice is rough enough that he has to clear his throat.

“What’s up?”

“Back there, you said— Well, it’s happened a few times— That is— Christ, why is this so goddamn hard?” He mutters in frustration when the words get stuck in his throat. 

“Oh. We’re doing this, then. Okay,” Ellie says quietly. She pulls away from him to sit up and grabs the guitar, leaning it against the table next to the swing. Then she shifts so that she’s facing out like he is, her hands braced against the seat cushion and her solemn gaze fixed on her feet. With a heavy sigh, she asks, “Is this about me almost calling you Dad just now? And… The past few times, too?”

“...Yeah. Listen, Ellie—”

“I know,” she interrupts before he can say more. “I’m not your daughter, and you’re not my dad. I’m sorry. It’s just slipped out, ‘cause I love you and you’re the closest thing I have to a dad. I’ve been trying not to do it, though. And I don’t want you to feel weird about it, or think that I’m trying to replace Sarah, or—”

She cuts herself off with a heavy sigh, and Joel curses himself for never saying anything and letting her worry about this for so long.

“Hey,” he says. “Ellie, I’m gonna say something here and I want you to listen to me, okay? When we were in Jackson the first time around, I was wrong to say that. I was just scared of something happenin’ to you and I was surprised when you brought up Sarah, so I lashed out. But that wasn’t fair of me.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to—”

“Let me finish,” he interrupts, careful to keep his voice soft since Ellie already looks about three seconds from running away. “It wasn’t fair, because I do see you as mine. Just like I see myself as yours.” She whips her head around to look at him with wide eyes, hope shining in them, and he smiles helplessly at her. “You’re my daughter, Ellie, and I’m your dad. And those times that you’ve called me Dad— well, you can call me whatever you want, whether it’s Joel or Dad—”

“—Old man,” she supplies helpfully, and he’s reassured by the sight of a smile tugging at her face.

“Or old man, you little shithead,” he laughs, and knocks her shoulder with his. “Anyways, you can call me whatever. But when you call me Dad… Well, I never thought I’d get another chance at having a daughter. But I did. And I am so grateful for it, baby, I don’t even know how to put it into words.”

“So I… I can call you that? If I want to?”

“Yeah, baby girl. You can call me that.”

Her face lights up instantly and before he knows it, he has an armful of Ellie, her arms wrapped around him tight and her face buried in his neck. He hugs her just as tight and presses a kiss to her temple.

“Oh, baby,” he sighs. “I’m sorry I let you worry about this for so long. I thought you knew how much you meant to me.”

“I wanted to believe it, but… I don’t know. I guess I was scared. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to replace Sarah, or something.”

He pulls back a bit, just so he can see her face, and brushes a loose piece of hair out of her eye. “You don’t have to worry about that, okay? There’s more than enough room for both of you. And you know what? I think she’d be happy to share being my kid with you.”

“I hope so,” she says simply, “‘cause I’m happy to share it with her.”

He’s not surprised to feel the pinpricks of tears in his eyes, not when he can feel his heart overflowing with love and fondness— what else is he supposed to do except cry?

He wipes them away with one hand and squeezes Ellie with the other. “Damn, kid, you tryna get an award for makin’ me cry the most times in one night or something?”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you’re such a sap. Maybe you should toughen up, get some thicker skin,” she teases.

“Oh, you absolute gremlin of a child— Do you want me to tickle you again?”

“No!” She yelps, already laughing when he starts moving his hand towards her side. “No, no, I’m sorry!”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he says smugly and drops his hand. After a second he drops the smirk too, his expression becoming softer and more open. “Kiddo, I just— I need you to know that you mean the world to me, okay? I don’t want you to ever doubt that.”

“I won’t,” she promises, and leans in for another hug. “I’m sorry that I did, before.”

“It ain’t your fault. We’re just bad at feelings.”

“Oh, definitely,” she agrees, and he feels a warm puff of laughter against his neck. “But at least we have music to help get us there, huh?”

“At least there’s that.”

“Speaking of…” She pulls away and grabs the guitar, then offers it to him with pleading eyes. “Will you play me something, Dad? Please?”

The sun has long dipped below the horizon, the sky is already turning a dark shade of purple, and he knows that he should say no, they need to get going to the dining hall for dinner before all the good stuff is gone. But Ellie’s looking at him with those big brown eyes that he’s so vulnerable to, and there’s the slightest bit of hesitation before she says dad as if she’s still unsure that she can call him that, and— his heart just melts. He’ll gladly miss out on their second cupcakes if it means they can stay in this moment just a little longer.

“Alright, give it here,” he says, and she beams like the sun.

As soon as it’s in his hands she snuggles into his side, close enough that it’s going to be hard to play, but he doesn’t say anything.

He simply thinks for a moment, trying to come up with a song. And once he has it— really, the choice is obvious— he begins to play.

“‘When you need me, call my name, ‘cause without you my life just wouldn’t be the same…’”