Work Text:
Eventually, it becomes easy to talk about Sarah. Actually, it's like he has to.
There’s this heavy feeling in his chest he didn’t notice before now, like his chest is filled to the brim with something. Something warm and sweet like molasses, dripping from his heart into his lungs and bones and outward into words and smiles. He has to get all his love out because he's been holding it inside for twenty years and his heart is so tired. Where else would be the best place to put it than the heart that lives outside his chest? Joel tells Ellie about Sarah in stuttering words that become easier with every silly story he has of his girl. Her first word, her favorite food, how she made him watch a shitty rom com and he ended up being the one crying at the end. It pours out of him in waves and the tap is never turned off once it’s on. It’s almost like she’s breathing again with every word.
Ellie listens to every sound and always responds with a shitty joke at his expense and a warm smile. She thought she’d feel jealousy, like she did with Tommy, but she’s only curious about the sister that never was. She thinks about the girl who made Joel the weird ass dad he was and feels a quiet appreciation for Sarah, who hated raisin cookies but ate them anyway to make the ones she loved happy.
And soon, Ellie shares about Riley. Their interests in comics and space; how they planned to steal a jet when they were kids and use it to fly past the moon. She tells him how Riley would protect her with her fists but also with pranks that made the other kids despise them both. She tells him about the best and worst night of her life full of dancing werewolves and carousel rides. Joel gets the distinct impression that they were everything but sisters. Too much blushing and stuttering for that title.
Riley and Sarah become regular subjects in their conversations, and then they become something more than that.
***
And it happens so easy when one day Ellie sees a horseback saddle engraved with butterflies in the leather and she says, "Sarah would've liked this."
Joel thought his heart would stop at the sound of her name, but instead, it eases. Like it's been clenched so tight for twenty years but it's finally realized it's okay to beat again. He looks at the butterflies and remembers a purple bedspread that he’d lay his little girl on after a late movie night. It’s suddenly a bit warmer out.
"Yeah, she would've." He agrees and smiles because this is good and true. The fact that it's true, that there is something true about Sarah after twenty years of nightmares and myth is good and he feels as light as a bird for a few seconds.
***
"Riley would've jumped." He goads her on, watching as she hesitates at the small cliff above the lake.
"You fucker. Riley was insane and had no self preservation. I like my neck not broken." Ellie answers, gripping the rope with scared hands.
Joel yells back up at her from the lake, "Didn't know I was raising a big ol’ chicken" And he bak bak baks at her which flares up her pride and has her taking a few steps back and running forward.
She screams the word motherfucker! as she jumps off the cliff and down down down into the cool water.
She comes up laughing.
***
When Ellie brings Sarah up around Tommy, the man stops breathing.
"Did Sarah like her pancakes with syrup or jam?"
Tommy has never brought up Sarah. Never. Not since the third week after when Joel had stopped eating and killed any threat on sight, no thought to who they were or who they had to go home to. Tommy had told him Sarah wouldn’t recognize him and then there was only darkness. He woke up with a bruised cheekbone and a silent as the dead Joel who only told him five words, “ Never say her name again. ”
Terrified of the inevitable blow up, he waits in horrified anticipation for Joel's reaction, getting ready to spring into action and separate the two as quick as possible.
But the blow-up never comes.
"Neither. She was a goddamn weirdo and ate them with peanut butter." Joel tells Ellie and Tommy feels his eyes bug out of his head.
"Ew." Ellie says with a disgusted face.
"Yeah, ew." Joel replies and smiles softly. He smiles softly and Tommy thinks ah, there he is. There’s his brother.
They both look at Tommy with his peanut butter and chocolate chip pancakes in front of him and make the same disgusted face.
"You're gross, dude," Ellie tells him.
He feels mortally offended and misses his curly haired backup who’d always come to his aid with Joel. Now there’s two of em and he’s outnumbered. "Sarah thought syrup was gross so guess that means you're gross too." He shoots back at the little punk, only to have her stick her tongue out at him. His mouth drops; his other niece would never treat him this way.
"Big ol' gross ass family" Maria agrees and they all huff out a laugh. Tommy is reminded once again how much he loves his commie wife.
***
"Do you actually want to learn how to ride a motorcycle or did Riley want to learn how to ride a motorcycle?" Joel asks the girl as she makes moon eyes at the bike they found.
"Fuck you! Come on, man. She has nothing to do with this."
"Seeing as you got all your interests from her, I'm thinking she has a lot to do with this. And she's trying to give me a heart attack." That’s all the people in his life tried to do. Why couldn’t they just stay in a safe, guarded room for the rest of their lives and never do anything dangerous ever? That sounds pretty damn reasonable to Joel.
She turns and gives him her best puppy dog eyes and that smile that makes her look six years old instead of 15. "Joel, please ?"
But he is not a weak man "No. Get back in the truck."
She grumbles all the way back to the passenger side and gets in with a huff.
He starts to follow but a breeze rushes past with the scent of excitement and he thinks, Goddammit . He grumbles as he hauls the piece of shit motorcycle to the back of the truck.
When he gets in, she's staring at him with big bug eyes and an even bigger smile that shows all her teeth. He thinks she looks like a very cute shark.
"Shut up." He tells her and he swears he can hear a little girl he never met laughing in the wind as they take off into the sunset.
***
“Do you think they're friends up there?” Ellie asks one night as he's tuning his guitar on the porch and she's gluing some grass in her journal. Why her journal needs grass, he’ll never know.
“Seeing as they're both pains in the ass who laughed at us all the time, yeah probably.” He answers easily.
Ellie lets out a bright laugh and then her face grows concerned with more thought. "Sarah didn't like girls right? Because I called dibs."
He shakes his head. "I am not thinking about my daughter's dating habits. Shut up, Ellie."
"She better not be making moves. That's so fucked up." And because she’s a weird ass kid, she looks genuinely upset.
Joel sighs, "I'm sure Sarah isn't hitting on Riley, kid. There was this stupid sack of bones she liked at school. Fucker even got to take her to a dance." He does remember squeezing the boy’s hand so tight when he came to their door that the kid actually squeaked. Sarah flicked him on the nose and the two were off in his mom’s minivan with his older sister driving. Another happy memory.
"Oh, ok good. Isn't cool to steal your sister's crush. " Ellie replies without any hesitation and he smiles because he liked the sound of that. Sisters. Family. That’s what they all were right? Family across time and space, promised to meet at the end of the long ride. Yeah, he damn sure likes the sound of that.
And so it goes that two lonely people weren’t ever really alone all along. Love endures and survives past the time they close their eyes, he thinks.
From high above, two stars twinkle their agreement.