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They’d been living in Jackson for three months when Joel hesitantly pitched the idea to her.
For the past three months, they’d been recovering from their journey to the Fireflies. After medical procedures, arguments, and many near-death experiences, they’d decided to settle down in Jackson and have a normal life, the kind of life Ellie hadn’t gotten a chance to have yet. A life where she could easily be a kid without having to worry about the infected or defending herself or keeping watch at night or saving the world.
This led to his idea—school tended to be considered “normal.” Why not have Ellie take it?
It would be a good experience for her. She’d learn new things, things about history and math and reading. Along with that, she’d be able to connect with the other kids of Jackson. Despite being there for three months already, Ellie still had no friends her age. Sure, she’d been getting along better with Tommy and Maria, as well as their new baby, Noah, and she adored the horses and the one-eyed stray cat whom she had deemed Fleabag, plus she would always have Joel, but…other than that, she had no real friends.
It concerned Joel, a little. He’d believed age fourteen was the age kids began to branch off on their own, preferring to hang out with friend groups and make trouble past curfew, but Ellie spent her days either glued to Joel’s side or hanging out in the stables with the horses and Fleabag. She barely even approached the other kids, either glaring at them from a distance or ignoring them completely. He was worried that her social skills were getting rusty, and that by the time she grew up, she’d be a crazy lady who spent her days feeding stray cats and shooting guns at anyone who dared step on her land.
But he also knew she had been through a lot in her short life, and that she needed time to heal and relax. The only experience Ellie had ever had with school was the QZ, and after hearing about their punishments and the way they handled the kids, Joel wasn’t sure how she’d react to being asked to go to school again.
For those reasons, he ventured the idea over dinner when they were alone, cautious about how he suggested it.
“So,” he began, getting her attention. She’d been busy spinning as many noodles as possible onto her fork, completely locked into her task. He’d introduced her to spaghetti when they’d first arrived, and it was quickly becoming one of her favorite meals. “You’re aware that Summer’s endin’.”
Ellie narrowed her eyes at him. “Yup,” she responded, slowly shoving her enormous forkful of spaghetti noodles into her mouth, her exaggerated movements implying that she thought he was being awfully suspicious. He rolled his eyes. Off to a great start.
“Don’t put so much in your mouth at once, kid, you’ll choke,” he scolded for the third time that afternoon. She ignored him, also for the third time that afternoon. He sighed and continued on with what he’d been saying before. “So. School starts up in a month or two, and—”
“No.” She interrupted so quickly he didn’t process her words for a moment. When he did, he frowned.
“Don’t speak with your mouth full. And you didn’t even hear the rest’ve—”
“I didn’t need to hear it,” she replied, her mouth still, of course, full. “You want me to go to school. Well, I don’t want to.” She lowered her eyes and continued chewing her food.
Her reply just made him more concerned. “Ellie—”
“Joel,” she said, and the pleading note in her voice, the slight flash of what looked like panic in her eyes as she stared down at her plate, stopped him dead in his tracks.
“Alright,” was all he said at that.
And thus the conversation ended.
—
He lay awake thinking about her response that night. He hadn’t expected her to jump for joy at the prospect of going to school, but he also hadn’t expected her to be almost afraid at the idea. Had the QZ been worse than he thought, or was there something else going on?
He would have to ask her. Whatever had initiated the reaction hadn’t been good, and it was his responsibility as her guardian to make sure she was alright, to let her know he was there for her to talk to if she needed it. He’d let her answer him in her own time, if it was really something else, but he wouldn’t cease to be worried about it until that time came.
The creak of the door interrupted his thoughts.
He glanced at the clock. 11:50 at night. He knew who was at the door, and sure enough, when he rolled over to see who was there, he made out Ellie through the darkness, standing in the doorway, arms wrapped around herself as she shivered.
“Nightmare?” He asked. She nodded stiffly. With a grunt, he lifted the covers at the edge of his bed, and all tension released from her body. She shuffled over to the bed and slid under the blankets, tucking herself against his side. He wrapped his arm around her.
She did this at least once a week, disturbed by nightmares or her own thoughts, and every time she walked in as if she was expecting to get yelled at. Perhaps he should scold her, remind her that she was fourteen, too old to be sleeping in her parent’s bed at night. Send her away, back to her own bed to face her own problems like a mature young lady.
Yet he couldn’t do any of those things, not to her, because while she might be considered too old to do such “childish” things, she was also going through a lot, and how was he to say no to her if being close to him helped her get through them? As well as the fact that the thought of Ellie waking up in the middle of the night from a nightmare and not being comfortable enough to wake him shattered his heart into a million pieces.
So he was just fine being woken every once and while to gently tuck her against his side and kiss her on the forehead goodnight, protecting her from the bad dreams and thoughts as they fell asleep side-by-side in comfortable silence.
Although sometimes she needed to speak. It seemed this night was one of those nights.
“Joel?” Her voice was tiny, almost unhearable as it cut through the silence.
He peeked an eye open and yawned. “Yeah?”
“Why’d you wanna send me to school?”
Both eyes open now. “Well,” he said, focusing his attention on her as best he could in his tired state, “school’s important. You can learn a lot from it, and, well, it’s normal. Kids had to go to school every day before the outbreak; it was a routine, a definitive thing in their lives. We’re lookin’ for normalcy here, for peace. I was thinkin’ that school could offer you some of that—as well as a good education, of course.”
“Hmm,” Ellie murmured, and Joel thought she might be falling asleep until she said, “but I thought kids didn’t like school before.”
“No,” Joel said with a chuckle, “they didn’t. But back then school started at six in the mornin’ and there were thousands of kids in one buildin’, so their hatred was understandable. Jackson’s school ain’t like that, though.”
“I know,” Ellie sighed.
There was silence and he thought she might add something, but she didn’t, so instead he spoke. “Y’know, another reason’s ‘cause I’ve noticed, well, you don’t have many friends, El.” He felt her shift towards him and he looked down to see her glaring up at him.
“I have plenty of friends,” she defended herself.
He raised an eyebrow doubtfully. “The animals don’t count.”
“Not just animals,” she grumbled.
“Alright, then. Name some people.”
“You’re my friend.” Her voice was solemn, and he knew exactly what she was doing. It was working, judging by the warm feeling he got in his heart when she said it. But he would not fall for her tricks.
“That’s real sweet, Ellie, but I meant friends your age.” Silence. “See? Now, I’m not sayin’ you’re doin’ somethin’ wrong by not havin’ any friends, but everyone needs someone.”
“You can be my someone,” she suggested. And he hated to crush her heart, but…
“I won’t be around forever, Ellie.” She stiffened against him, and sat up.
“Not true,” she said. “You will.”
“Won’t, and you can’t bargain with time. It’s gonna happen one day.” He hated talking about such things so late at night, but she had to understand.
“I’ll bargain with time, just watch me,” she said, all confident, and he couldn’t help but laugh again. She laid back down, burying herself closer to his side than before, clearly pleased with herself.
Minutes ticked by in silence before she spoke again. He almost missed it.
“I had a friend before. Before I met you, I mean. A real one, around my age. Her name was…was Riley.” The way her voice cracked at was said enough; it was a sensitive subject.
“Well,” he said quietly after a moment. “You’ve made friends before. You can do it again.”
She didn’t speak again that night.
—
He woke up early the next morning, staying quiet so he wouldn’t disturb the loudly snoring girl sleeping sprawled across the blankets. He entered the kitchen and made pancakes, and of course, moments before they were ready, Ellie’s nose took over and she was stumbling into the kitchen with a yawned-out, “good mornin’.”
Joel smiled at her and took two plates down from the cabinet. “Mornin’, sleepyhead. I hope you don’t think any of these are for you.”
“I’m gonna fist-fight you,” she mumbled, and the way she slumped down onto the chair and rested her head on the table made him believe he’d win any fights between the two of them.
“Put your head up,” he said, rolling his eyes as he placed her food in front of her. She groaned, but the pancakes obviously won against her exhaustion, because she finally lifted her head to take the syrup bottle and drench her pancakes in it.
“If pancakes could breathe, yours would’ve died a long time ago,” Joel commented as he sat down, raising his eyebrows as she kept pouring.
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Good thing pancakes aren’t breathing, then.” Finally, finally she placed down the syrup and grabbed her fork, and Joel couldn’t help but chuckle as he watched her devour them like she hadn’t eaten in ten years.
“Careful, you’re gonna choke,” he said, taking a bite of his own food.
“You’re gonna choke,” she said back, but it sounded more like yur ‘onna ‘oke because of the food in her mouth.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
She ignored him.
They ate the rest of their breakfast together, casual as if they’d been living in Jackson for three years rather than three months. Multiple different times his mind was sent back twenty years ago, the day of his birthday, sitting at the table with Sarah, laughing and eating without a care in the world.
Joel knew after breakfast he’d go down to the stables to work, and Ellie would most likely follow after him, eager to see the animals again and not wanting to be left alone in the house. What he wasn’t expecting was for her to place her dish in the sink and then turn to him, her face alarmingly serious.
“Joel, I’ve been thinking about school, and about what you were saying.” Uh oh. Joel placed his own dish in the sink and sat down, gesturing for Ellie to do so too. She sat and Joel listened as she took a deep breath and said, “there’s something about David I didn’t tell you.”
At the sound of that man’s name, Joel’s blood ran cold and his fists tightened. The thought that there was more to say about him quite frankly terrified Joel, as if the man wasn’t horrible enough already. But he sat and listened to what Ellie had to say.
“He…he told me,” she began, voice shaking, “that before the outbreak, he was a teacher.” Shit. That would explain her reaction. “And…I know all teachers wouldn’t be like him, but I just…”
“It’s okay, Ellie,” Joel jumped in, “you don’t gotta go to school if you don’t want to. That man—”
“No, but Joel,” she interrupted, “I’ve been thinking and I think I do kind of want to go, to see what it’s like, but…I’m just…” Joel understood. She was afraid.
Joel thought for a moment before nodding. “Here’s what we’ll do,” he said. “I’ll ask Tommy about the teachers and the school, and we’ll take what information I get and we’ll talk about whether or not you want to go or not. That sound alright?”
Ellie nodded. “Yeah, that sounds alright.” She smiled. “Thanks, Joel.”
“‘Course, kid,” he replied, standing. “Now let’s get goin’. Your ugly stray cat’s probably waitin’.”
“Fleabag isn’t ugly!”
“His name is Fleabag, Ellie. Be serious.”
—
Joel asked Tommy when they were alone.
Sure enough, when they’d gotten to the stables, Fleabag, Shimmer, and all of Ellie’s other animal friends were waiting patiently for her. Ellie had been tasked with brushing Ivan, one of the horses, while Tommy and Joel carried some of the supplies to the small building behind the stables, where it was just the two of them.
“So,” Joel grunted as he placed down a box of horseshoes, “I was thinkin’ about sendin’ Ellie to school, but I got a couple of questions about it.”
“Oh, school?” Tommy sounded surprised. “Does she know?”
“‘Course she knows, Tommy.” Joel rolled his eyes and Tommy tossed a glove at him. “She wants to know about some of the teachers. What’re they like?”
“Hm.” Tommy sat on a dusty chair that looked like it was about to snap at any moment. “Well, Jackson’s population is small, so we’ve only got about four teachers that know what they’re doin’. I believe the teacher that teaches Ellie’s group of kids—y’know, thirteen to fifteen—is Ashlyn. The kids love her, they say she’s fun—‘badass’ is the direct quote—and she’s good at teachin’, at least last time I overheard ‘em talkin’.”
Tommy kept talking, but Joel wasn’t listening. The teacher is a woman. He wasn’t sure if that would make a difference for Ellie, but it had to count for something, right?
“…anyway, that’s all I know,” Tommy finished, and Joel snapped out of his thoughts, nodding. “If you really wanna know more, talk to Ashlyn Phillips, she lives ‘bout four houses down from the park they’re buildin’. I’m sure she’ll be willin’ to talk to you.”
“Thanks, Tommy,” Joel said, standing. “I’ll make sure to tell Ellie.”
“‘Course, anythin’.” Then he stood up with a groan. “Now help me pick up some of this horse food—I swear I’ll break my back carryin’ this shit one day.”
—
Joel didn’t get to tell Ellie about what he’d learned until later that night when he got back from patrolling. Ellie hated him patrolling because she wasn’t allowed to go. She’d tried, but after a certain episode that almost ended terribly after she’d snuck after the patrol, they’d had a talk about waiting until she was seventeen like the other kids.
He knew she was partly desperate to go because she was worried something bad would happen to him on patrol and she wouldn’t know until it was too late, but there was nothing he could do about that but reassure her that he’d try his hardest not to get into trouble. However, that didn’t stop her from waiting at the door for him like a lonely puppy on days he left (another reason she needed friends; without him she was lost).
So he knew exactly what to expect when he pushed open the door to the little house they shared: Ellie, sitting at the table, hunched over a piece of paper, drawing. She sat up and abandoned her artwork (he took a peek at it and decided it looked like a dinosaur fighting aliens in space, which it very well could’ve been) and helped him hang his coat up. It would’ve been nice, if he hadn’t known her enough to know she was just finding a reason to be near him to bombard him with questions.
And sure enough—“So, what’d you learn from Tommy?” as she trailed after him while he walked to the table to sit down.
“Well,” he said, leaning back, “the teacher is a girl.”
“Really?” Ellie’s eyes widened.
“Yep. Tommy said the kids love her. He said she’s, and I quote, ‘badass.’ Sounds like your kinda teacher, El.”
Ellie stood with her eyebrow furrowed, staring off into the distance. Considering. After a little while, Joel added, “you don’t gotta make a decision immediately, y’know. You’ve got a little more than a month.”
“I know,” Ellie said. “I’ll…think about it.”
“Tommy said the teacher would be willin’ to talk to you if you wanted to, if you were uneasy and all,” Joel remembered. Ellie scrunched up her nose.
“Talking to the teacher before school? Sounds like a loser thing to do,” Ellie said skeptically.
Joel laughed. “You said it, not me.”
Ellie shrugged. “I’ll decide…later. I’m not meeting with the teacher, though.” She gave him a look and he rolled his eyes.
“So, what were you drawin’?”
“A dinosaur fighting aliens.” Ah. So he’d been right. Ellie walked over and pictured up the drawing, shoving it in his face. “And right there, see? It’s Fleabag.”
“You added that mangy cat to your drawing?”
“Of course I did, Joel. Be serious.”
This fucking kid.
—
It took a couple of weeks, but she made her decision—she would give school a try.
The first day Ellie asked him to walk with her to the school. She was nervous; she wanted him to be there. He would’ve thought she would feel embarrassed about him being there, but he was secretly glad he’d be able to be with her before she left, so he didn’t push it.
The moment he stepped in front of Jackson’s small school building he was sent back thirty years ago, when he was dropping Sarah off at Kindergarten for the first time. She’d almost cried, but he’d looked her in the eyes and had taken her hands and had said, “be brave, baby girl. You’re gonna make so many friends, and you’ll love school so much you won’t be able to wait to come back.” She’d nodded and, letting go of his hand, had walked into the building, leaving him behind. He had almost started crying, then, knowing that she was getting older, old enough to go to school. Time had slipped by so fast for them. Too fast. Sometimes he wished he could go back and treasure every second they’d had together.
Now Joel was standing with Ellie, watching the other teenagers walk past, shoving each other and laughing, all with friends, none of them worried.
Joel wrapped an arm around Ellie and shook her gently. “You ready?”
“No,” Ellie admitted. “Actually, I think I made the wrong decision, let’s go back—”
“Seriously? You’ve faced unimaginable horrors that these kids have only heard about, but school’s what stops you?” He sighed dramatically. “Well, if you really wanna go back—”
“Oh, shut up,” she said, shoving him. “Fine, I’ll go, but if I die it’s your fault.”
“I don’t think you’ll be dyin’, but atta girl,” Joel said, giving her ponytail a teasing tug. She squared her shoulders.
“Hey, Joel?” She said, right before she began to step away from him.
“Yeah, kid?”
“I had a cross eyed teacher one time.” He gave her a puzzled look, and her mouth curved into a wide, mischievous grin. “I guess she couldn’t control her pupils.”
“You little—”
Ellie laughed and dashed off towards the building. “Bye, loser!”
He gave a fond chuckle as she entered the doors, leaving him alone outside. The bell rang, and he knew.
She would be just fine.
—
To say Joel couldn’t focus while Ellie was at school that first day was an understatement.
He couldn’t do anything, his mind too caught up on Ellie and what she might be doing and if she was alright and if she liked school and what if the other kids are mean to her—
“Joel,” Maria said after he accidentally mixed up Fleabag’s cat food and the horses’ food for the second time, “go home and relax, since you’re obviously too stressed to get any work done.”
He wanted to be angry at her, to protest, but he knew she was right—he’d probably end up getting put on patrol and accidentally screw the entire thing up because he couldn’t stop worrying about Ellie. So, he listened to Maria and went home.
He knew he’d said she’d be fine, and he was confident that she would be, yet he couldn’t just not be worried for his little girl. So many things could go right, but then again, so many things could go wrong, too. If his thoughts barreled onto that train of thought, thousands of terrible scenarios would bombard his brain, so he took to cleaning the house to distract his mind.
However, when it came time for school to end, he made a decision and left the house, walking down the road to the building. He kept a distance, because even though Ellie had wanted him to walk her to school in the morning, she might be embarrassed to see him there after school, and he’d rather avoid upsetting her on her first day of school. She might already be upset enough, if something did go wrong. So he would just claim he’d been taking a walk and happened to pass by the school, how funny (he knew it was a shitty plan, but give him a break, he was a worried father).
However, his worrying was unnecessary, because as the bell rang and kids began to pour out of the building, Ellie broke off from the crowd, her eyes searching the faces anxiously—when she saw him, her face lit up and she came charging over like an overexcited bull, pushing the other kids out of the way.
“Joel!” She said, crashing into him.
He laughed as she stumbled back, panting. “Watch out, kid, you’ll knock me over and break all my bones.” She rolled her eyes at him and muttered something that sounded vaguely like old man bones. “So, how was school? I take it you didn’t die?”
“It was crazy, Joel! So different from the QZ!” He smiled for her, but inside he was a bit sad she would think he would ever even consider sending her someplace anything like that hellhole. “There were, like, ten kids in my class, and Ms. Phillips was so cool and we learned about history and how a bunch of weird old men fought over different parts of the earth because they were greedy and stuff, and we learned math and Joel, who in the right mind decided that shapes and letters were math things? It makes no sense! I’m so confused! Oh, oh, oh, and guess what—”
“It sounds like you have a lot to tell me,” Joel interrupted. “You ever had ice cream before?”
Her eyes widened and she shook her head.
“Well,” he grinned, “allow me to introduce you.”
—
Ellie wanted to try every flavor.
After Joel told her that wasn’t possible, she groaned and settled on cookies and cream, which she immediately adored. Joel chose vanilla, because it had been twenty years since he’d had ice cream and he couldn’t remember which was the best, and they sat outside on a picnic table and ate.
“Joel, this is the best thing I’ve ever eaten,” Ellie said, somehow managing to speak with her mouth full while eating ice cream (eating it, might he add, with her teeth—had he adopted a psychopath?).
“Glad to hear it. Before the outbreak, this stuff was eaten all of the time.” Joel was glad to see Ellie looking more cheerful and animated. It reminded him of her before Tess had died and everything had started to go downhill, when she constantly had something to say and would point out every little detail about everything. “So, I take it you had fun at school?”
“I wouldn’t say fun,” she said, just for the sake of contradicting Joel, “but it wasn’t too bad, I guess.”
“Alright,” he said, rolling his eyes. “And…the other kids were nice to you?” That had been one of his biggest worries. Ellie wasn’t exactly the easiest to get along with.
“Yeah,” Ellie said, finally licking the ice cream, “but…you might’ve been right about the whole me not having friends my age thing, ‘cause I didn’t really know what to say to them when they talked to me.”
“Hm.” So he’d been right about her lack of social skills, then. “Well, what’d they say to you?”
“One of the girls came up and asked if I was new in Jackson. I said yeah but didn’t really know what else to say, so she just kinda turned back around.” Ellie scratched the back of her head, sounding embarrassed.
“Sounds like bad social skills on her part, too,” Joel pointed out. “Although, you could’ve introduced yourself.”
“Ah, shit! You’re right!” She cried.
She sounded so distraught that she hadn’t thought of that that Joel couldn’t help but laugh.
—
Ellie was a fast learner, though, and soon she was walking out of school with a group of other kids as they laughed and shoved each other around. Joel stopped dropping her off and picking her up after that, comfortable that she would be fine without him.
And she was, for a long couple of weeks. She would burst through the door after school days, talking her mouth off about what she learned and something funny one of her classmates did and a variety of horrific new school-related puns. Sometimes he would hear her laughing and saying goodbye to someone before she walked through the door, and his heart would warm to think she was finally finding her place in Jackson after so long.
But of course, all good things must come to an end eventually.
It happened when Joel was helping rearrange the shelves in one of the stores. It was midday and Ellie was in school, when the doors swung open and Tommy entered, a grave look on his face. “Joel,” he said as he spotted him, “something happened with Ellie.”
Joel stopped what he was doing. “What? What happened? Is she alright?”
“They think she is,” Tommy said, which only made Joel’s heart race more, “but she ran off after it happened, so they don’t know for sure.”
“After what happened, Tommy?” He chose not to strangle his brother in favor of getting the answers he needed.
“We got news that around an hour ago Ellie attacked one of the other students.” The more Tommy spoke, the more Joel’s heart sank. An hour ago? Attacked? “Apparently two boys were wrestlin’, and one pushed the other too hard—he landed on Ellie and she went batshit crazy on him. They took him to the hospital first, but now nobody can find Ellie.”
“Shit,” he whispered. He knew what could’ve likely happened. “Thanks, Tommy.” He pushed past his brother and opened the doors. “I’ll find her.”
—
The stables were the first place he looked. He knew how much she adored the place, and sure enough, after some searching, he found her in one of the empty stalls, a small, scruffy orange cat curled up on her lap.
When he opened the stall door she looked up, eyes wide. She relaxed slightly when she saw who it was, but the cat in her lap was less than pleased. Fleabag’s fur bushed up and he hissed, jumping off of Ellie’s lap darting out under Joel’s legs as he made his escape.
Joel sat down across the stall from Ellie. “I don’t think that cat likes me much.”
Ellie sniffed, curling up into a small ball and wiping the edges of her eyes before he could see that she’d been crying. “It’s ‘cause you smell,” she said, with no real bite to her voice.
Joel rolled his eyes affectionately, but soon he was serious again. “You wanna talk about it, kid?”
She shrugged, sniffling. “I dunno,” she whispered.
They sat there quietly, the sound of the horses snorting the only things filling their ears for a little while. Ellie’s eyes stayed fixed on the floor, and Joel’s stayed fixed on her face, waiting patiently.
“I just—” she croaked out after a little, “I feel like I’m broken. It’s been months, Joel, months, and yet every time anyone touches me without telling me I get scared. I’ve been better at hiding it, the other kids just think I’m jumpy, but—but today I wasn’t expecting it and he fell on me, Joel, he was on me, and it happened before I could think and I hurt him and it just—” her voice cracked again, and he could see she was close to crying. “What if I’m just destined to be fucked up forever?”
Oh, baby girl. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her, hell, he wanted to cry himself, but he knew she didn’t want his sympathy. She wanted answers, an explanation, something to hope for. So he would give her those things instead.
“You know, kiddo,” Joel said, “some people think mental health and physical health are completely separate things; they think that they couldn’t be more different. Well, they couldn’t be more wrong. Tell me, Ellie—if you break an arm, can you expect it to heal in a week?” Reluctantly, Ellie shook her head. “Right. It’s the same for your brain. You can’t expect somethin’ terrible to happen to it, and then immediately get better. You can’t break an arm and then immediately carry somethin’ heavy; it’ll hurt you. You can’t experience somethin’ traumatic and then immediately try and do everythin’ like you’d been doing it before, because…”
“It’ll hurt me,” Ellie finished quietly. “I guess I see your point, but Joel, it’s been months, not a week. How long will it take?”
“Healing’s a process, kid. Sometimes it takes a little for things to heal, and sometimes it takes a while. It depends on how severe it is.” He sighed. For all he knew, he could be making this worse. “I guess what I’m sayin’ is you don’t really know how long it’ll take to get better—all you gotta do is trust it’ll get better with the right amount of healing.”
“What if it takes a million years?” Ellie groaned, throwing her head back.
“I doubt you’ll be around to worry about it in a million years, Ellie,” he chuckled, standing up. Then he reached out his hand. “C’mon, you’re probably sittin’ in horse poop.”
Ellie hesitated before she took his hand and he pulled her up. “Do I have to go back to school today?” She sounded like she’d rather do anything else.
“‘Course not. You’re probably suspended, if I’m bein’ honest with you.” At least, that’s what happened when a kid beat up another kid before the outbreak.
“Fuck.” Ellie winced. “Um, at least you know I can defend myself?”
Joel had forgotten how exhausting it was to have a kid.
—
He didn’t wake Ellie up the next morning for school. It turned out she wasn’t suspended (Tommy had managed to convince them it hadn’t been her fault and that it was all just a big misunderstanding) but he knew she probably wouldn’t be thrilled with having to go after everything that had happened.
So he made her eggs and let her wake up on her own, rubbing her eyes and stumbling down the hallway, tripping over her own feet. He was glad they didn’t have any stairs, because he was convinced she would probably fall down them every morning.
He managed to get off of patrol duty and they spent the day watching movies. They’d gotten an old TV from Maria and Tommy a couple of weeks ago, after Ellie had spotted a Jurassic Park movie on a shelf in one of the stores and had begged him to get it. Joel got a strange sense of deja vu, sitting beside Ellie while laughing at the television, his mind going back to when Sarah and him would binge trashy shows just to make fun of them. He found he didn’t mind how much Ellie reminded him of Sarah anymore. He’d found that both of them could hold a special place in his heart.
It was towards the end of the day, after they’d finished their movie spree, while Joel was making dinner and Ellie was doing who-knows-what in her room when he heard a knock on the door. He couldn’t see who it was out the window, and he was surprised when he opened the door and came face-to-face with a girl around Ellie’s age.
“Um, hi,” she said, “I just wanted to know if Ellie was okay?” Ah. This must be one of her friends.
“Yeah, she’s alright,” Joel said, raising an eyebrow at her. “She’s in her room. I can get her, if you want.”
“Yeah, that—that would be great, thanks.”
Joel turned around and shouted, “Ellie! There’s a girl here for you!” Said girl’s face flushed, and a couple of moments later he heard the sound of Ellie running down the hallway.
She turned the corner and halted when she saw who it was. “Dina?” She said, her own cheeks tinting pink.
Joel had to trample down his smirk. Interesting. “I’ll leave you two to talk alone,” he said, giving Ellie a knowing look. If a girl could transform into a tomato, Ellie would be one.
He sat down on the couch, chuckling to himself. It was good to know that at least some of the kids weren’t upset with Ellie over what had happened.
Ellie poked her head out from behind the wall. “Hey. Joel?”
“Yeah?”
“Dina’s asking if I can go with her and some of the other kids down to the park.” She looked at Joel pleadingly. “Can I?”
“When will you get back?” He asked.
“Before it gets dark, I promise!” She was practically bouncing on her feet.
Joel knew he couldn’t be the overprotective helicopter parent forever. Ellie had never gone out with friends before, so how could he stop her?
“Alright,” he said, “you can.”
“Fuck yeah!” She cried. “Thank you, Joel! Love you so fuckin’ much!” She dashed away and was out the door before he could respond.
Joel smiled after her. He knew she was going to be fine in Jackson after all.