Haunted (Houses of Ghosts)

by MagicSchoolbusDropout08

Summary:

Ever since Sarah... well, ever since Sarah ten years ago, Joel's stayed as far away from kids as he can. Just the sight of one is practically enough to send him into a panic attack.

But then Tommy signs them up for a contracting job at a high school as a favor to an old army buddy.

And then there's a little girl in the front office, who somehow appears in the coffee shop Joel visits because the motel's coffee machine is shit.

Most damning is when Joel goes in to do some work at three in the morning and that same goddamn little girl is asleep in his construction zone and, when he wakes her up, says she's homeless.

Next thing he knows, she's asleep in his motel bed and he's filing foster parent paperwork.

What the fuck just happened?

(Foster parent AU! Featuring Joel Trying His Best And FailingTM, Ellie annoying local man and his friends & family into adopting her, and Tess/Joel as a lil treat for the masses.)

Chapter 1: In Which There Is The Job

Not for the first time today, Joel wonders what the fuck Tommy was thinkin’, whether it’s too late to go full Cain on his sorry ass, and if it’s a viable option to just show up to a job utterly wasted.

 

Unfortunately, he decides that none of the above are actually options, and instead, he just stares into his coffee like it has all the answers.

 

Tommy signed them up for a job with kids.

 

He and Maria are going to have a kid soon, and Tommy’s asked Joel to be the godfather (not that Maria was too thrilled with that, but whatever.) He knows how Joel does around kids (bad), so he’s signed them up for a job at a high school. Says it’s for an army buddy, but Joel’s convinced it’s because Tommy’s trying to get him re-acclimated to the idea of smaller humans.

 

It’s not her high school, but… he still ain’t anywhere near a fan of any educational building.

 

Tommy’d told him last night. ‘It’s a job for a high school. Fixin’ some plumbin’ and rebuildin’ a gym. It’s a ways away, up in Boston- yeah, Boston, Joel, it’s a favor to an old army buddy. She’s payin’ well, so you don’t gotta worry about that- look, the area’s gonna be blocked off, there ain’t gonna be any kids there. It’s gonna be easy money, big brother, I promise.’

 

Joel is pretty pissed. His little brother knows why he doesn’t like schools.

 

Still, they’re flying up today - he had to Google the date when the ticket said ‘January 21, 2023’ because he almost didn’t believe Tommy bought them on such short notice - and that means he’s gotta get his ass in gear and pack up.

 

He takes a long drink of coffee before making his way to the guest bedroom right off the living room where he sleeps. 

 

Joel can do this. Tommy told him the payment - just over fifty grand of profit for a month’s work, just over 150 grand overall to cover labor and materials and personal expenses while there.

 

He can do it for a hundred fifty grand. That’s enough to keep the business going for a good while.

 

Joel takes his phone and opens the lockscreen to go to his texts. He copy-pastes the same thing into two different chats:

 

You: Hey, I’m going out of town for about two weeks for a job in Boston. Call if you need anything, I’ll be on a plane right back. - Joel

 

The responses are immediate.

 

Frank: Sounds good!

 

Bill: We know who you are Joel you don’t need to sign your texts

 

He closes the group chat and goes to Tess’. She hasn’t answered yet, but that’s not surprising - she had a twenty-four hour shift on her job as a San Antonio firefighter yesterday, which usually means she sleeps for a good fourteen hours before she texts him back.

 

He types out an extra message to her anyway.

 

You: Job in Boston is for a school. Might need to come over for a beer when I get back. Wish me luck. Be careful on your shifts. - Joel

 

Packing doesn’t take long. He throws some clothes, his toolbelt, and his toiletries into a duffle bag that’s survived so much that it has more patches than original material at this point before taking a last look around the house, making sure there aren’t any fire hazards and everything’s locked up.

 

Everything is, and after a long minute, he rinses his coffee mug, grabs his bag, and steps out the door, sending one last text to everyone.

 

You: Door code’s 072099. If you go in, just stay downstairs unless it’s an emergency and let me know. - Joel

 

Bill: Miller you have to stop signing texts I’m not fucking around

 

Frank: Got it! Have fun :)

 

Joel pockets his phone again and looks up at the truck that's stationed in front of his house, Tommy rolling down the window with a shit-eating grin. “Hey, big brother!”

 

Joel grumbles something unintelligible, getting in the passenger side with a groan.

 

“Old man.” Tommy laughs, turning up the country station on the radio.

 

“Forty-three, asshole. You're not that much younger.” Joel mutters.

 

“Five years makes a whole lot of difference.” Tommy says, pulling out into the street. “C'mon, ya grump, we're gonna be late to the airport.”

 

Joel breathes out through his nose and closes his eyes as Tommy starts singing along.

 

Think of the paycheck. This is going to be fine.

 

-

 

Ellie flicks her switchblade in and out as the bus continues to school, taking deep breaths. She isn't sure which part of the day is worse - the bus where everyone hates her, the group home where everyone hates her, or the school where - you're never gonna fucking guess - everyone hates her.

 

Overall, a 2/10 on her life. Lower than the ratings for ‘Velocipastor,’ which is really saying something. (Completely unearned reviews, by the way - what psychos would rate a movie where a pastor literally turns into a magical fucking dinosaur and becomes a crime-fighter with a prostitute a 1/10? It's fabulous. She made nine fake IMDB accounts just to boost its rating.)

 

Honestly, though, none of it would suck anywhere near as much if Riley were here. Other people talked shit less often with the threat of her beating them up, sure, but it was more of a sure-they’ll-talk-shit-but-who-cares-I’ve-got-someone-who-likes-me situation.

 

Of course, she’s gone, so…

 

Ellie messes with the blade again, but the bus goes over a bump, and it cuts her thumb.

 

“Fuck!” she hisses, sticking the cut in her mouth and sucking on it, thinking up a salad of swear words.

 

Yeah, today’s already shaping up to be fuckin’ fabulous.

 

-

 

Joel’s joints are all crackling by the time he gets off the plane, and he feels generally pissed off. This doesn’t surprise him - there’s something about sitting still for several hours in a tiny seat in a tin can thirty thousand feet in the air - but he still flexes his hands as he stretches his neck with a grimace.

 

“Feels good to be back on solid ground again.” Tommy says, smacking his shoulder.

 

Joel sighs. “Would feel better to be back home.”

 

“Oh, c’mon. It’s a favor-”

 

“-say that it’s a favor to an army buddy again, Tom á s Miller, I’m stealing a rental car and driving back home.” Joel glares, hardly meaning it.

 

Tommy grins. “Alright, man. Won’t say it again. We gotta drop our stuff off at the hotel, get some lunch, then go check out the school, yeah?”

 

Joel reluctantly agrees, and in the rental car (which smells strongly of French fries and pine air freshener), he turns his phone off airplane mode.

 

Frank’s sent him three memes (two cat ones and one about Bill that he clearly edited himself from a stock picture) and a heartfelt text telling him ‘you don’t have to sign your texts, Joel, we have you saved in our phones. You’re important to us,’ but most notably, there’s a series of texts from Tess.

 

Tess: Good luck Joel

Tess: Didn’t think you’d be voluntarily working at a school. Last time we had a call at one I had a panic attack. Call me if you start having one. Don’t care if I’m on a shift, I’ll pick up, but you have to press the call button or text me first

Tess: Also quit lowballing timelines. Contractors always take eight times longer than they say to rake in the cash :P see you in may

Tess: Beer’s in the fridge now 

(Image attached)

Tess: Also I’m always careful on my shifts

 

He replaces his phone in his pocket, happy despite himself.

 

He and Tess met ten years ago, both winding up in the same shitty bar in Austin. Both of them were drunk off their asses, and with both their walls down, they got to having a genuine conversation. Joel was crying into his whiskey over Sarah, and half-a-bottle-of-vodka-in Tess had patted his back and slurred that her son was dead too, that she understood. They stayed up until the bar closed talking about their kids and lives and absolute nonsense, and they went home with each other’s numbers scrawled on their hands like teenagers.

 

It’s not romance, per se (even despite Bill and Frank’s attempts.) It’s more of a situation of the two of them being best friends, understanding each other and their grief in a way nobody else does, being close enough that they’re some of each other’s emergency contacts (Tommy and Frank are also listed for Joel, and Frank and Bill are both listed for Tess) and they crash on each other’s couches if a house filled with ghosts becomes too much. (Hasn’t stopped either of them from never asking for help if they can help it.)

 

(It’s not going to turn romantic, though. Joel’s not going to lose his friendship with her over feelings that definitely don’t exist.)

 

Joel takes it back out and texts her.

 

You: Counting down the days til I get that drink. Also, we don’t extend timelines, people are just shit at maintenance. - Joel

 

He types out another one that’s more of a joke.

 

You: And sure, you’re careful on your shifts. Don’t think I forgot that time you got your neck bitten by a homeless guy and ended up in the hospital for a week with a fungal infection. Still got the scar? - Joel

 

The three dots appear.

 

Tess: Okay fuck you. Blocking your number asshole.

 

He smiles to himself before leaning his head against the headrest and relaxing.

 

It’s half an hour before they get to the motel, and he sighs before he gets out.

 

Maybe if Joel eats impossibly slowly, he can delay going to the school for another day.

 

-

 

Ellie’s listening to her headphones, ‘A-ha’ blasting ‘Take On Me’ into her ears as she goes to her math class after lunch, when they’re taken off her head.

 

She immediately whips around, only to find Bethany standing there smirking.

 

“Give them back!” she snarls.

 

“Then get to class. If we’re late, Mr. Smith is going to be pissed. I’m not getting him mad at me because of your shitty attitude.” Bethany says.

 

“I don’t want to fight about it.” Ellie says quickly.

 

Mr. Smith doesn’t get mad at Ellie. He sighs and gives her a disappointed look and tells her to stay after class to talk about it. (Honestly, she’d rather he shouted at her - it’s worse how he just tells her to call him David and smiles at her.)

 

“‘Fight?’ You don’t fight. Your friend fights. But she’s not here anymore, is she?” Bethany smirks.

 

Ellie fills with rage at the mention of Riley, and she practically runs at Bethany, fists swinging.

 

Well, she’s fucked.

 

Eh. Who cares?

Chapter 2: In Which Joel & Ellie Grieve

Notes:

Hey! Sorry for the delay - had a bit of a funk. To make up for it, here's two chapters instead of one - I hope you like it! If you do, please comment or Kudos, and to stay caught up, please bookmark or subscribe. Thank you so much and have a great day!

As soon as Joel goes into the front office of the school to wait for his damn brother to finish talking to the principal, he freezes.

 

Kid. There’s a kid there’s a kid there’s a kid-

 

She’s tiny, somewhere between twelve and fourteen, short brown hair in a ponytail and a button nose and a scowl as she wipes blood off the screen of her phone.

 

She’s bleeding.

 

He stares in horror, nightmarish memories springing back.

 

After a minute, she looks up and scowls at him, her eye turning ugly from bruising. “The fuck you looking at?”

 

He thinks of Sarah, blood on her face, they had to cover part to hide the ugly stitches, Sarah’s blood, Sarah’s blood, Sarah-

 

“You good, dude?” she asks.

 

He blinks, and just like that, he snaps out of it.

 

“You alright?” he asks before he can help himself.

 

She scrunches up her face. “What’s wrong with your voice?”

 

“Nothin’s wrong with my voice.” Joel says.

 

“You talk weird.” she says.

 

It takes a second.

 

“It’s an accent.” he says. “Y’all have accents in Boston too.”

 

She rolls her eyes. “Well, yeah, but you have a different accent.”

 

“It’s ‘cause I’m not from Boston, smart-”

 

He realizes he probably shouldn’t call a random child a smartass.

 

“-Einstein.” he finishes.

 

“Why are you even here, then?”

 

“To fix the gym and some other stuff.” Joel says, looking at her cracked phone screen. “That cut your hands?”

 

“Nah, picked the glass shards off with pliers.” Ellie shrugs.

 

Oh, sweet Jesus, that poor phone.

 

“Do you live in Boston?” she asks. “Like, did you move here?”

 

“No.”

 

“Could they not find someone who knows how to fix shit in Boston?”

 

“I don’t f… I don’t know, kid.” Joel mutters, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning his back to her, starting to walk away. (God, Joel hopes Tommy’s almost done with the whole ‘contract’ part of contracting, finalizing all the stuff the school wants done. He can’t be around kids. He ruins everything good he touches. Also, swearing is too built into his vocabulary.)

 

“I’m Ellie.” she calls after him.

 

Ellie.

 

He pretends he doesn’t file the information away in his brain, just walking out the door.

 

-

 

Ellie scoffs as the asshole just walks away.

 

Dick. What an absolute dick. She tells him her name, and he just-

 

Ugh. At least he’s the contractor that’s going to fix the shit around here. There’s enough wrong that it’s gonna take, like, four months, so she’ll find out from one of the other kids or pester someone until they tell her his name.

 

God, there might be something wrong with her. Why does she actually care what this guy’s name is? He’s just some asshole who happens to be working at her school (which she hates anyway.)

 

…maybe it’s the way he looked at her, like he saw a ghost. His eyes got all wide and empty and sad as he just stood there staring at her.

 

(She knows that look. It’s the same one that she had when she saw- nopity nope nope, not going there! Not fucking going there, Ellie, shut the fuck up!)

 

She looks after him out the door. He’s talking to another guy as well as Mrs. Edwards in the hallway. He looks grouchy.

 

He makes eye contact with her before quickly looking back to talk with the two of them.

 

“Mr. Nathans is ready for you.” Amanda says from the reception desk.

 

Ellie sighs, straightening her only-slightly-bloody hoodie.

 

Alright, Ellie, get ready to get your ass verbally kicked.

 

-

 

Joel slouches in a way that would have his mama coming after him in the passenger seat of the rental car as Tommy talks about the job.

 

“It’s practically a fuckin’ demolition, man. Between that and everythin’ else fallin’ apart at that school, it’s gonna take way longer than we thought. Might be worth it to temporarily rent a place out here or somethin’- God, I can’t be away from Maria for that long, might miss the baby-”

 

Joel pretty much zones out as Tommy nervously talks. He’s right - the gym is unsafe for practically anyone, the framing of the entire building is slowly rotting, and the ceiling is leaking from the Boston snow in a way that’s not only doing the other issues any favors but going to fuck up the entire place, and it’s going to take way longer than the originally-quoted month to fix. Maybe four or five, if all goes well, and it never does. 

 

“You can go home.” Joel says before he can think.

 

Tommy looks over at him and scoffs. “I’m not dumpin’ this shit on you. Marlene asked me for this, not you.”

 

“You got a pregnant wife back home, Tommy.” Joel says. “One more than me. You go be with her.”

 

Tommy goes quiet, fingers tapping on the steering wheel.

 

“You got Tess back home, Joel.” he says after a long minute. “Ain’t like you’re all alone there.”

 

Sure, but I also got an empty house full of ghosts and an upstairs I can’t go in anymore without fallin’ to my damn knees and bawlin’ like a damn baby.

 

“Tess ain’t my wife, and she’s a fully independent woman who don’t need me. Hell, she’d kick your ass if she thought you were insinuatin’ anythin’ different.”

 

“And you think Maria, my wife, the district attorney, would do anythin’ different?” Tommy chuckles.

 

“No.” Joel admits, smiling slightly. “But she’s also pregnant and you two wanna be around each other.”

 

“Oh, please. And Tess don’t want to be around you?” Tommy teases.

 

Joel sighs, and instead of answering, he takes out his phone.

 

You: Hey. Just finished looking around the school. Whole place looks like it’s going to collapse with kids still in it. Probably a longer job than I thought. About four or five months. Might have to wait on that beer. - Joel

 

Her three dots immediately pop up.

 

Tess: Fucking called it. See you in may after all :P

 

You: I’m not going to be out of Texas the entire time. - Joel

 

Tess: Do me a favor and text me an ‘a’

 

You: Why? - Joel

 

Tess: Just do it

 

You: A - Joel

 

Tess: You even sign that??

 

He groans, rubbing a hand over his face.

 

“Who you textin’?”

 

“None of your damn business.”

 

He starts typing again.

 

You: You know what, Servopoulos, it’s helpful for when you’re texting new numbers. - Joel

 

Tess: I literally haven’t changed my number since two years before we met. You can stop.

 

He can practically feel her amused glare through the screen.

 

You: Why would I do that? - Joel

 

He switches over to the group chat.

 

You: Hey, the job’s a lot worse than I thought. It’s going to take four to five months at least. I’ll be coming back to Texas occasionally, but I might need you to go in and just check to make sure everything’s alright in my house sometimes. Thanks. - Joel

 

There are immediately incoming texts from both of them.

 

Frank: Oh jeez, hope everything’s okay xx. We’ll miss you!

(Image attached)

 

Bill: Typical contractor behavior that’s why I built my own goddamn house

 

Joel smiles slightly at the thumbs-up cat meme and puts it away.

 

“Wanna get dinner?” Tommy asks, turning the radio on.

 

“It’s not even five yet.”

 

“So?”

 

“We ate a few hours ago.”

 

“C’mon!”

 

Joel sighs and closes his eyes. “Still brothers with a fuckin’ teenager.”

 

-

 

Ellie’s stomach is twisted tight when she walks into detention with Mr. Smith.

 

It’s not her first time, of course. But this time she’s alone. (Thanks, school that looks at the mildly-bruised foster ‘problem’ kid and the beat-to-shit rich kid and only picks her to get in trouble.)

 

She really fucking hates being alone with him.

 

Ellie can’t fully explain it, but he makes something in her brain kick and scream and shout ‘run, run, he’s dangerous, you have to get away from him.’

 

But Ellie’s instincts have been wrong one too many times, so she’s not going to listen to them.

 

“Ellie.” he says, smiling at her from where he’s sitting at his desk. “Please, come take a seat.”

 

She shuffles inside, hands shoved deep into her pocket as she sits down at a desk in the back.

 

“Why don’t you come sit up here?” he asks. “I can help if you have any homework, and if you don’t, we can just talk.”

 

She curls her fingers into fists and makes herself meet his eyes across the room, still freakishly blue from here, before shaking her head. “I’m fine here, Mr. Smith.”

 

“David, please. And we can talk. It’s just the two of us.” he says, polite as always, but with that look that makes her stomach twist tighter.

 

She honestly doesn’t know what it is. He’s a teacher, so he must have passed a background check. He hasn’t done anything, not really. But her skin still crawls when he looks at her or stands too close, and her gut still won’t stop screaming.

 

He smiles. “You know, some people act out for attention. Maybe you’re just looking for someone to talk to.”

 

Ellie clenches her jaw and scuffs her shoe on the floor. “I’m not.”

 

“Are you sure? You don’t have to play tough. I know how hard it must be after your friend.”

 

She stops idly rubbing the tip of her shoe on the floor and instead stands stock-still, swallowing back her anger. “No, you don’t.”

 

“Sorry.” he says, raising his hands in mock-innocence. “Didn’t mean to overstep.”

 

She flops down in her chair, pulling her hood over her head and opening a book on the science of dinosaur cloning. (She really wants to figure out how to make Jurassic Park, okay? She’s willing to sacrifice a couple people if it means there’s a real T-rex.)

 

After a while, she chances a glance up, and he’s grading papers at his desk, glasses on his face.

 

Ellie grabs her now-slightly-broken headphones and puts them on.

 

She’s careful to keep one ear off.

 

Just in case.

 

-

 

That night, Joel’s laying on the bed in the hotel - arranged to be his room for the next month - and playing Tetris on his laptop as Law & Order plays in the background on the TV.

 

Tetris helps. He can’t explain it. There’s something about the blocks going in the exact places they need to that makes that vice around his heart loosen just enough to beat properly. It’s the only real way he can sleep anymore.

 

There’s the sound of gunshots on the TV, and he flinches before looking up.

 

It’s a school library on the screen, the detectives going in to try to catch the shooter. He’s going around the shelves, there are more shots, a teenager falls-

 

Joel lunges for the remote, hands shaking so much that he drops it twice before he manages to change it to some sitcom.

 

He sits there for a minute, trying to catch his breath, before fumbling for his phone, hands still shaking badly enough that he’s relieved when autocorrect actually helps for once in his life.

 

You: Do you ever think about yours? - Joel

 

Three dots.

 

Tess: My what?

 

You: Charlie. - Joel

 

The dots appear, then disappear twice.

 

Tess: He’s my kid, Joel, of course I think about him.

 

He exhales, trying to keep the tears in his eyes.

 

You: I miss her so much, Tess. - Joel

 

Tess: I know.

 

He waits for a minute in case she wants to say anything else before typing.

 

You: I saw a kid today. She didn’t look anything like her, but she was bloody and I fucking froze up.

 

He scrubs his eyes.

 

You: I talked to her. I don’t know why I did that.

 

Three dots.

 

Tess: You’re working at a school. You need to remember to breathe when you see one.

 

Joel nods to an empty room and takes a deep breath.

 

His daughter’s been dead for ten years. She’s buried two thousand miles away from this hotel room.

 

Yet he’s still haunted by the ghost of her.

 

-

 

Around one in the morning, the group home’s walls creaking like the old house is still settling even after a hundred years, Ellie grabs her phone, turning the brightness to its minimum as she unlocks it and goes to the correct folder.

 

She clicks through until she finds it.

 

January 1, 2023

You: i missed you today

You: happy new years

 

December 24, 2022

You: i still have your present

You: i don’t know what to do with it

You: fuck riley im so sorry

You: i miss you

 

December 11, 2022

You: the bastard got out on bail

You: im sorry

You: im gonna testify tho

You: that doesnt matter youre dead anyway

You: i really fucking miss you riley

 

December 4, 2022

You: today was pizza day

You: got you a piece before it was all gone before i remembered

You: im sorry i miss you

 

December 1, 2022

You: im sorry i miss you

 

November 27, 2022

You: they cremated you 

You: once they were done with the autopsy n everything

You: i hope it was what you wanted

 

November 23, 2022

Rileyyyyy: Your such an idiot oh my god

You: at least i know which your is which lmao

Rileyyyyy: Ok sure whatever ms I don’t ever capitalize

You: its a stylistic choice

You: we still on for the mall later

You: where are you its late

You: riley im not fucking around where are you

You: please just text me back im worried

Rileyyyyy: TURN AROUND I CALLED YOUR NAME LIKE EIGHT TIMES

You: liar where are you

Rileyyyyy: Dude I can’t with you

You: riley

You: riley

You: riley

You: riley

You: riley

You: riley

You: riley

You: riley

You: riley

You: ive got it in my clipboard motherfucker ill go all night

Rileyyyyy: Jesus christ chill

You: never

You: lol dat u

Rileyyyyy: get you’re skinny ass over here rn ellie

You: youre doing it on purpose to piss me off arent you

Rileyyyyy: >:P

You: honestly fuck you get over here you have longer legs lmao

Rileyyyyy: I can’t I have smth for you gahjkfdjaiu

You: gimmeeeeee

Rileyyyyy: Get over here first lol

Rileyyyyy: And then we have a night on the motherfucking town!!!

 

Her eyes blur with tears the further back she scrolls, and she has to set it down for a minute and wipe her eyes and mutter curses before she scrolls to the bottom and starts typing.

 

January 21, 2023

You: theyre finally fixing the damn gym

You: took em long enough right lol

You: i miss you

You: also i fucked bethany up you shouldve seen her face

You: but yeah i really fucking miss you dude

 

Ellie’s personal rule is to not cry. Swallow it, hide it, let it out in the shower where the door’s locked and nobody can make fun of you.

 

Still, she rolls over and plugs her phone back in and looks at the empty bed next to hers and cries into her pillow.

 

It’s not fair. The house has eight other kids and two adults and it’s still too empty with the ghost of who should be here.

Notes:

Poor babies :/ I love them both so much though omg

Chapter 3: In Which Ellie is Homeless and Starbucks Is Involved

Summary:

Ta-da! Just FYI, it's written up to chapter 14 and getting longer regularly - more's coming and it gets good >:D

The next morning, Joel goes through his normal routine when the emptiness feels like an all-consuming black hole instead of the normal void: wake up, lay in bed staring at the ceiling contemplating whether it’s too early to knock back a six-pack of beer when it’s not even seven in the morning, manage to drag himself to his feet, take some of his anti-anxiety medication (doctor said it might help with the panic attacks but nothing can help because his daughter is dead), put on his loosest flannel (the looser his clothes are, the less likely he is to rip the collar of one because it feels like it’s choking him), try to remember if he took some of his anti-anxiety medication, then brush his teeth and go find coffee.

 

Normally, he uses the Keurig that’s been there for almost twelve years and has broken on a schedule of every two years, but since he’s two thousand miles away from it, he uses the coffee pot at the front desk of the motel.

 

He immediately winces at the flavor. It genuinely tastes like how Joel would imagine shit set on fire would.

 

Joel changes the routine. Instead of going straight to work, when he grabs his keys, he pulls up Google maps and looks up the nearest Starbucks.

 

-

 

Ellie likes mornings like this.

 

Sure, she’s fucking herself over a bit. She stole money from Foster-Mom-Number-Twenty-Nine’s purse to come here, and she’s been in the system and that house long enough to know she’s gonna get her ass kicked, but you know what, the other kids ate all the breakfast, so she’s eating all the slices of lemon loaf that fifty bucks could buy (plus a cake pop because it was a raccoon and she thought it was funny) and rereading Savage Starlight: Issue Twelve for the millionth time. It’s a Saturday, and she doesn’t have school (duh), so she’s just going to sit here in the Starbucks that she and Riley used to come to when they managed to scrounge up enough for those sugary-ass Frappucinos Riley loves - whoops, loved, she’s still getting used to that (haha, she’s fine) until the employees make her leave or she gets bored of the comics (rare), at which point she’ll probably go to a park or the library or something.

 

She’s chomping through the frosting on another slice of loaf when a weirdly familiar weird voice speaks.

 

“Black coffee, please.” says that weird-ass accent. “In the… fuck… what’s the big size. Thanks.”

 

Her head snaps up, and she looks at the construction guy from yesterday, wordlessly forking over some cash before putting a hand in his back pocket and starting to walk away.

 

As the guy turns, he sees her.

 

She looks right back at him as he looks at her and freezes for a second before shaking his head and sighing.

 

He sits down in one of the empty chairs a table over and opens his phone, clearly trying to ignore her.

 

“Are you stalking me or something?” Ellie jokes, flipping the page. “How’d you know I’d be here instead of the library?”

 

The guy sighs, pinching his nose. “I ain’t stalkin’ you, and if I knew where you were, I’d avoid it.”

 

“That sounds like something a stalker would say.”

 

“I’m not stalkin’ you. Don’t even like bein’ ‘round kids.” the guy sighs again.

 

“You sigh a lot. You should chill the fuck out.” Ellie says, taking another bite.

 

“I’m calm.” he says. “How many of those have you had?”

 

She follows his eyes and sees he’s looking at the stack of Starbucks paper bags they put the food in.

 

Ellie does a quick count.

 

“Seven.” she says. “Gonna eat two more and a cake pop.”

 

“Jesus Christ.” he mutters, rubbing his nose again. “Gonna make yourself sick, kid.”

 

“Nah, I’m good.” Ellie grins, taking another bite.

 

“Joel!” the barista calls, and the guy stands up with a crackle of his knees.

 

“How old even are you?” Ellie asks as he grabs his coffee and sits back down with a groan. “Sixty?”

 

“How old are you? Ten?” the guy mumbles back.

 

“Thirteen, actually. Fourteen in two months.” she says, sticking her tongue out at him. “I’m Ellie.”

 

“I know. You said yesterday.”

 

“Is your name actually Joel?” she asks after a second.

 

He takes a long slurp, giving her a death glare. “Yes.”

 

“That’s such a yee-haw name. It goes along with your cowboy accent.” she says, immediately trying to copy it. “My name’s Joel, I’m a construction guy who builds barns for my horses-”

 

“It’s a goddamn Southern accent, you little shit.” he says into the cup. “And I’m not a cowboy. Ain’t ever been. Just cause I’m from Texas-”

 

“Texas. So yeehaw land.”

 

He gets up, taking another swig of coffee. “That’s enough. Bye.”

 

Ellie watches in amusement as he leaves, starting on her next lemon loaf.

 

When she finishes it, her stomach hurts.

 

Dammit, the asshole cowboy was right.

 

-

 

Joel sits outside, resting his head against the coffee cup and trying to take deep breaths.

 

It’s pretty fuckin’ ridiculous, isn’t it? The same guy who used to be shit talking to everyone but was actually pretty good with kids can’t even look at one without having a panic attack.

 

He downs the rest of his coffee, setting it on the sidewalk before pressing his hands over his face.

 

In through the mouth, hold, out through the nose, hold… in through the mouth, hold, out through the nose, hold…

 

Wait, fuck, is it the other way? He thinks it might be the other way. Fuck.

 

He doesn’t have time to do this. He needs to go to the school and start working on the gym. The sooner it’s over, the faster he can go back to a life where the nearest kid is one who lives eight houses up the street and who’s never talked to him.

 

The sooner he can go back to a life far away from any high school.

 

Joel remembers the first time she tried coffee. She was eleven, and that girl spit it out in a flash and said it tasted way worse than it smelled, but she kept trying to drink it anyway. He bought her coffee ice cream to get her started, then slowly worked her up onto coffee with eight creamers and a whole lotta sugar, then cut back on it over time.

 

Eventually, she quit trying, said it made it harder to focus, so he left the subject alone.

 

He rubs his hands over his face. Yeah, he needs to finish this goddamn job before he loses it.

 

Joel tosses his coffee cup and goes and gets into his truck.

 

-

 

Ellie avoids going back ‘home’ as long as possible. She goes to the library, she goes to the park, she wanders around downtown - almost gets hit by a car crossing the street, so that’s fun - until she gets a text message about seven hours into her wandering.

 

January 22, 2023

#Twenty-Nine: Come back now.

 

She hesitates before texting back.

 

You: what???

#Twenty-Nine: I know you stole from me, Ellie.

 

Oh, shit, she’s screwed.

 

You: bullshit no i didnt. go check with olivia she’s a klepto

#Twenty-Nine: If you aren’t back by 5:00 I’m calling the cops and Marlene. Beating up another girl and stealing in less than twenty-four hours? I bet they’d be all over that.

 

Ellie freezes. Oh, that fucking bitch.

 

You: fine jesus christ im coming back

 

She turns off her phone and starts back to the group home, her heart pounding as adrenaline floods her veins.

 

-

 

Joel’s flannel and jeans are powdered with drywall as he opens up the rest of the wall, propping up the new framing he just bought the materials for and put together against the other new framing.

 

The other two guys on the crew are gone for the day, and Tommy’s gone back to the hotel to look up flights with the promise to be between the two cities until the job’s done, and so Joel’s working.

 

Good for him, anyway. The louder the drill is, the easier it is to ignore the gaping maw of the grief that threatens to consume him.

 

Joel grunts as he yanks the old framing out, the rotten wood giving way easily.

 

Jesus Christ, they were lettin’ kids run around in this place?

 

He shakes his head and tosses the piece aside, going for the rest of the wall. At least the concrete is still good. He’ll finish framing and doing demo on this wall, then finish the other ones tomorrow. Hopefully he’ll finish fast enough that he can make a plumber and electrician do the work on Monday when the school isn’t so empty.

 

Finish the walls in six days (two for framing and demo, one for the wiring and pipes, two for insulation and drywall, one for painting and finishing it up), do the roof in about three weeks, do the floor and fix any issues in three days, bam, gym done. Another few months to repeat the process through the rest of the school one bit at a time, and if he works on nights and weekends and has his team work during the day, he’ll be home free in less time. Maybe he can make it four months or even three instead.

 

He somehow feels both giddy and sick at the thought - giddy at getting away from the school, sick at the thought of going back to the house that shouldn’t be empty.

 

Joel checks his watch, ignoring how it hurts to look at it. 8:15. At 8:30, he’ll have finished demolishing the other framing and have started fully installing the new, and he’ll hopefully be almost done with this last section of the wall by nine.

 

He’ll go back to the hotel at nine.

 

-

 

At precisely 10:19 PM, a window in the art room is forced further open, and a thirteen-year-old falls through into the counter.

 

“Fuck!” Ellie hisses, sucking on the shard of pottery that just got lodged into her hand. “Fuckfuckfuckyoubitchassmotherfucker-”

 

She sputters more curses that quickly devolve into unintelligible nonsense before going quiet, trying to catch her breath.

 

After a minute, Ellie looks at the shard in her hand. “One- two- th- FUCK!”

 

She yelps at the feeling of yanking it out, sucking on it again as she pockets the shard. (She doesn’t wanna get DNA everywhere, that’s a dumb move.)

 

Apparently, foster-family-twenty-nine doesn’t take kindly to Ellie being involved in a criminal case, getting into several fights, stealing, and ‘being disrespectful,’ because guess who just got kicked out?

 

It’s not Ellie’s first time. There’s a reason that was foster family twenty-nine. So, naturally, she got her stuff and asked when Marlene - her social worker and a part-time counselor here at the school - was coming to pick her up.

 

Unlike normal, though, they told her Marlene wasn’t coming, that for all intents and purposes she still lived with them because the state pays out $1,100 a month for her care and they said it was ‘reparations’ and they’d be officially giving her back in a year.

 

So now she’s technically homeless. In the past, it’s been because she’s run away to get some space and wants to sleep on her back in a park for a night or two, but no, this time she’s legitimately homeless. She doesn’t have anywhere to go. That’s unlike normal.

 

Also unlike normal is that she’s alone.

 

In the past, when she’s been kicked out or run away, Riley would follow or come hang out with her, and they would stay away for the day or two before they had to go back.

 

But Riley’s dead, and Ellie’s an orphan who’s friendless without her and completely alone.

 

She slides down off the counter, beat-up Converse crunching the pottery shards, and she does a quick round of the school.

 

Nobody’s here, but the gym is a wreck. There’s debris all over the floor, and one of the walls is completely ripped up, 

 

Ellie gets an idea.

 

It’s an active construction zone. That means nobody but the crew is going to come in, and she can just hide when they do and sleep out of sight.

 

Ellie goes to the cafeteria, stealing a slice of the pizza meant for Monday’s lunch and scarfing it down before going back into the gym.

 

Her first thought is the girl’s locker room - out of sight, out of the way - but that place smells like perfume and shit, so she backtracks and curls up in a corner of the gym instead, resting her head on her backpack as a pillow and zipping up her hoodie.

 

She does plug in her phone before she goes to sleep, though. She’s not an animal.

Notes:

Anyway, please leave a comment or Kudos if you like this, as they fuel me! Have a good day!

Chapter 4: In Which There Is A Girl in Joel's Construction Site

Notes:

And now starts the bonding... MUAHAHAHAHAHA (<- still crying from season 2 episode 2 of TLOU HBO because how the hell did they make it worse ToT)

Anyway enjoy!!!

That night when Joel goes to sleep, he has nightmares.

 

No. ‘Nightmares’ implies that there’s more than one. That’s not right.

 

It’s just a loop of the worst memory of his life, like he’s in slow motion.

 

Joel's walking into his house, birthday cake that Sarah insisted on in his hands, four hours later than he promised. The answering machine is blinking. He calls for Sarah. Nothing. Maybe she's at a friend's house. He sets the cake down. The answering machine has thirty-one messages.

 

He doesn't think anything's wrong, today was a pretty crazy day at work, until he gets to listening to them.

 

It's Sarah, there was a shooting…

 

Mr. Miller, we have your daughter at the hospital, she's on life support…

 

Mr. Miller, we regret to inform you that Sarah Miller succumbed to her wounds at 7:16 PM, please come to the hospital…

 

Joel, pick up the phone, I'm at the hospital, she's- she's dead-

 

Joel rushes over, and he’s not crying because he can't believe it, she was alive this morning, she made him drink orange juice and teased him about biscuits and Atkins and he made her promise to go over to the neighbors’ place after school, but then he gets to the hospital and he goes into the mortuary on the first floor and he sees a body on the table partially covered by a sheet, and it takes a minute to recognize her because of how bad her face is, and when he does he screams, he falls to his knees and screams and wails and he goes into the room and he grabs her body and rocks her as he cries, Tommy crying next to him and pleading with him to put her down, it's okay, Joel, it's okay, come on, man, it's gonna be okay, and he only stops when they sedate him.

 

He wakes up screaming and gasping, and he sits on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands and cries until his head’s killing him.

 

3:47 AM. Too damn early, but God knows he ain't sleeping now, so he rubs his eyes and wipes his nose before he gets dressed and gets in the truck.

 

Reason he's worse than normal is the damn school. Sooner it’s over the better.

 

-

 

When he gets there, he notices blood on the floor outside the doors.

 

Joel immediately freezes, memories of the news shots, memories of visiting the school with still-pink floors, memories of the Sandy Hook Foundation reaching out over and over and over offering support and asking him to join the foundation as a bereaved parent until he screamed at them flooding his mind.

 

He puts a hand on his wrench and takes it out as he slowly opens the doors, doing a sweep of the gym.

 

There's a kid on the floor.

 

Joel’s heart stops. It's not another shooting. It's not another shooting. It's not another shooting.

 

He tries and fails to breathe as he slowly creeps towards the kid.

 

It's not Sarah. It's not Sarah. It's not Sarah.

 

He recognizes her as the girl from the Starbucks, and he kneels next to her and shakes her.

 

She's up in a second, grabbing at a knife next to her backpack, and Joel grabs it away.

 

“Give it back!” she snarls, even as she scrambles further into the corner and looks at him with big terrified eyes.

 

“What are you doin’ here?” Joel asks, voice low and probably too angry.

 

“I stayed after school.”

 

“No you fuckin’ didn't. I was here last night. Where did you come from-”

 

“-where did you go, where did you come from Cotton-Eye Joel.” Ellie says, smiling nervously. “Get it? You're Joel and you're a cowboy?”

 

He takes a deep breath. She's just a kid. If she's at school at four in the morning on a Saturday, something's wrong. Be gentle.

 

“Real funny.” he says, careful to keep his face and voice even. “Saw blood. You hurt?”

 

She scoffs. “No.” 

 

Joel sees her palms are stained with dried blood.

 

“Give me your hands.” he says, automatically reverting to the Worried Dad Tone without even meaning to.

 

Apparently, though, it works, as she looks sheepish before holding them out for him to look at.

 

He puts the knife on the floor, kicking it a little away so nobody accidentally sits on it for the next few minutes, before reaching into his tool belt and grabbing a penlight. 

 

She flinches away when he cups her hand in his, shining the light and turning it over to look at it. He almost shushes her soothingly before he remembers that he's not a parent anymore and shuts his mouth.

 

“Dammit, kid, what'd you do?” he chastises gently at seeing the cuts, some barely more than scratches, others looking deep and gorey.

 

“Fell on some pottery that was definitely already shattered.” she says. At his look, she backtracks and goes, “Okay, it wasn't fully broken yet, but it was ugly as fuck.”

 

He sighs and shakes his head. “You broke in, didn't you.”

 

“The doors were locked and the window was open.” she mumbles.

 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

 

“You run away?” he asks.

 

She scoffs. “No.”

 

“Then where are your parents?” he asks.

 

“Dead.” she shrugs. “At least, my mom is, and I don't fuckin’ know as far as a dad.”

 

Joel hangs his head. “Alright. Anyone looking for you, at least?”

 

She shakes her head minutely.

 

Fuck.

 

“Look, man, I'll be out of here by the time you're building stuff. I just need somewhere to sleep for a while.”

 

“How long's ‘a while’?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

 

She mumbles something that he barely understands as ‘a year.’

 

“Jesus Christ.” he mutters, pocketing the penlight.

 

He needs to fuck off. He can’t be around kids.

 

But God, she's bloody and bruised and apparently homeless, and she's thirteen years old.

 

“Come on.” he says, getting up with a groan and a crackle of his knees.

 

Her eyes are wide and fearful. “Are you gonna get the cops?”

 

“God no. Fuck them.” he says before he can even think. When he realizes what he just said, he sighs. She swears enough, it’ll be fine if he cusses around her. “We're gonna go to CVS. I'm gonna fix you up. Then I'm gonna buy you breakfast and drop you off somewhere. Got it?”

 

She squints at him. “Are you a pedophile? ‘Cause I don't wanna end up dead in a ditch and end up on some shitty true-crime podcast.”

 

“I'm not a-” He takes a deep breath. “I'm not gon’ hurt you, alright? I don't want some little kid in a construction zone hurt and hungry.”

 

She hesitates. “You promise you're not going to call CPS or something?”

 

“I'm not gonna call anyone. I just wanna help.” he says.

 

She squints. “You try to hurt me, I'll stab you.”

 

“Done,” he says, and of course it’s not a problem, because even if he’s a curse and can’t protect kids, he’d rather die than raise a hand to one, let alone try to rape or murder one.

 

He almost goes to help her up.

 

Joel catches himself.

 

He turns away and waits at the door to the gym as she grabs her knife and backpack.

 

He can’t get attached. He can’t feel paternal again.

 

Jesus fuckin’ Christ, another reason he can’t be around kids, apparently, because he wants to take care of this one.

 

He’s a mess. He’s gonna complain to Tess about it later.

 

-

 

Ellie isn’t quite sure what the fuck is happening as Cranky-Construction-Old-Guy-Joel just drives, the radio playing quietly as he taps his fingers nervously on the steering wheel.

 

“Where are you gonna drop me off?” Ellie asks as she messes with the seatbelt. “After you fix my hands?”

 

He doesn’t answer for a minute.

 

“Where you stayin’?” he asks. “After you stop stayin’ at the school?”

 

Ellie looks down at her lap. “...was thinking the park.”

 

He inhales sharply. “Absolutely fuckin’ not. You’re thirteen?”

 

“Fourteen in two months.” she retorts automatically.

 

The guy takes slow breaths, eyes fixed out the window. “Ten months into bein’ thirteen is still bein’ thirteen last I looked at a calendar.”

 

“Oh, so when they were invented?” Ellie snarks.

 

He shoots her an eat-shit-and-die look. “I’m forty-three, you little shit.”

 

“I’m forty-three.” she repeats in as close of a voice she can get to his.

 

He rolls his eyes. “That ain’t even worthy of bein’ an Oklahoma accent.”

 

“Why’s an Oklahoma accent lower than a Texas accent?” Ellie asks.

 

“Because Oklahoma is a shitty state. Next question.”

 

“Why are you being nice to me?”

 

He huffs and glares at her. “I ain’t bein’ nice. I’m makin’ sure a homeless kid ain’t dyin’ of infection or inhalin’ drywall.”

 

She slumps. “You’re really not letting me stay at the school.”

 

“No.” he says simply.

 

“Man, what do you expect me to do?! I don’t have family, I don’t have friends to stay with! ‘You can’t live in the school,’ ‘you’re thirteen, you can’t live in a park’ - what do you want me to do, stay in a shelter?! I’m thirteen years old! Staying alone in a homeless shelter is such a horrible idea-”

 

“I know it’s a bad idea, Ellie, that’s why I’m workin’ on a better one, but it’s hard to focus with you yammerin’ in my ear when it’s four-fifteen in the goddamn morning!” Joel glares over at her.

 

Ellie sticks her tongue out at him. “If you’re gonna try to fix all my problems, you’re gonna hear me ‘yammer’ about it. I’m gonna have my own fucking opinions on my own fucking life.”

 

“Watch your mouth.” he says.

 

“Gee, thanks, dad.”

 

She rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t expect him to suddenly swerve to the side of the road, making her grip the door. “Jesus Christ!”

 

“Never call me that.” he snarls, hands white on the steering wheel. “You understand? Never. You don’t ever fuckin’ call me that. Not as a joke, not for nothin’. You understand me?”

 

Ellie nods meekly, unsure of how bad the nerve she hit is and what he’s gonna do to get back at her.

 

He’s pulling back onto the street when she goes, “You can hit me if you want.”

 

He brakes so hard she goes forward and hits the seat with an ‘oomph’ as he whips around to face her. “‘Scuse me?”

 

“I pissed you off.” she shrugs, shrinking under his look. “If it makes you feel better, you can hit me.”

 

“I’m not gonna fuckin’ hit you.” he says, staring at her like she suddenly has three heads. “What the hell kinda shit is that to say? What kinda people are you around that you think that’s normal?”

 

Ellie shrugs again, looking out the window at the completely still buildings outside. “That’s just how it is sometimes.”

 

“It shouldn’t be.” he says firmly. “Nobody should ever fuckin’ hit a kid. That ain’t right. Kids should never feel anythin’ but safe.”

 

“But if it would make you feel better-” she protests.

 

“Listen to me, Ellie. I ain’t ever gonna hurt a kid. I’d rather fuckin’ die than raise a hand to one. And even if you’re a pain in my ass, you ain’t an exception to the rule. I’m not gonna hit you or anythin’ like that. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

 

Ellie feels a little sick.

 

“Sorry, Joel.” she mumbles.

 

He exhales slowly. “Ain’t you who should be apologizin’. Just everyone else.”

 

She doesn’t know how to respond, so she stays quiet.

 

-

 

In the CVS, she keeps her hands shoved in her pockets to hide the majority of the blood and peeks around Joel’s arm at the shelves as he puts items in the basket.

 

“What’s that for?” she asks (just to piss him off - y’know, good activities to do with the random contractor who’s carting you around town after finding you passed out in his construction zone.)

 

“Cleanin’ wounds.”

 

“What’s that for?”

 

“Keepin’ deeper wounds held together to heal faster. Called butterfly bandages.”

 

“What’s th-”

 

“It’s a pack of fuckin’ Band-Aids, Ellie, figure it out.” he sighs, tossing it into the basket. “Are you always this-”

 

“Brilliant? Interesting? Hilarious?”

 

“Annoyin’.”

 

“Eh, pretty much.”

 

He sighs again. “Jesus Christ. Only person who’s more chatty than my brother and I gotta fix her up.”

 

“You have a brother?” Ellie asks, perking up.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Older or younger?”

 

“Younger.”

 

“What’s his name?”

 

“Tommy.”

 

“What’s-”

 

“No more questions,” he says, turning his back and walking away to the registers. She follows, naturally, and Ellie spots something under the counter.

 

“Can I get this?” she asks, holding a pack of Skittles up.

 

Joel exhales, tilting his face up at the ceiling with his eyes closed. “Fine.”

 

Ellie grins triumphantly and puts the Skittles on the counter.

 

“Ain’t eatin’ it until later, though.” Joel sighs.

 

“That’s fine. Skittles are Skittles and I want them all.” she grins.

 

“Thirty-eight seventy-seven.”

 

Joel hands over a credit card, and Ellie suddenly feels bad. “I- I can pay you-”

 

“Not chargin’ for medical supplies. ‘Specially not from a thirteen-year-old who doesn’t even have a place to live.” Joel dismisses.

 

He gets a bag, muttering thanks to the poor sleep-deprived minimum-wage worker, before they go to walk out the doors.

 

Ellie watches in fascination as he reaches out, fingers stretched out like he’s gonna try to take her hand, before he shoves it back in his pocket.

 

“You good, dude?” she asks.

 

“Zip it.” he mutters.

 

-

 

Inside the car, Ellie’s hands are laid flat on the center console as Joel takes care of the cuts. The left one is pretty much done - she’s decided she hates antiseptic spray - but the right one is worse, being her dominant hand and the one she fell harder on as a result.

 

He spritzes her right hand with the spray, making her cringe again, but after a minute, he frowns as he looks at it. “This is too deep. Gotta actually clean it.”

 

Joel gets an alcohol wipe and rips it open with his teeth, pulling it out and gently pressing it against the cut, rubbing it slightly.

 

She chews on her lips to avoid making any noise as he fully cleans the cut that she pulled the pottery shard out of, but it doesn’t work - she accidentally lets a tiny, pained whine escape.

 

“Shh, shh, I know.” he soothes, hardly blinking, like he doesn’t even know what he’s doing as he gently rubs his thumb over the side of her hand and continues working. “Almost done.”

 

Ellie freezes, staring at him, trying to process the soft tone of his voice. It activates some weird impulse in her brain that makes her want to touch him, to make him hug her, to make him wrap her up in a blanket and tell her it’s all going to be okay, and it’s such a childish impulse, but something about that tone makes her want to act like a little kid and cling to him.

 

He’s a stranger. What the hell is that voice to make her want that?

 

She hisses again as he squeezes the cut, and he shushes more soothing nonsense as he puts the butterfly bandages on and pulls out the Band-Aids.

 

He puts them on all the cuts, then wraps gauze around both her hands.

 

“Alright. Done.” he says. “You hurt anywhere else? Other than that shiner, obviously.”

 

Well, I got kicked around a bit when they kicked me out.

 

She debates telling him, but there’s not much he can do about what’s probably a massive bruise across her stomach, so she doesn’t, just shaking her head and saying, “Nope, I’m all good.”

 

Joel glances at her up and down with his eyes narrowed, like he’s trying to tell if she’s telling the truth, and when she doesn’t look like she’s actively dying, he tosses the trash from the medical supplies into the console compartment and pulls out into the street.

 

“You’re the one from ‘round here. Where do you wanna eat breakfast?” Joel asks.

 

“IHOP?” Ellie suggests.

 

“Ain’t open 24/7.”

 

“Fine. Um… probably the first place you see open, then.”

 

He nods. “Alright.”

 

-

 

At the diner, some little place Ellie’s never been to that smells like bacon and maple syrup, Joel crosses his arms and stares at her from across the table, eyes narrow.

 

“What?” Ellie says, looking at him over the top of the menu.

 

“Why you sleepin’ at the school?” he asks.

 

She sighs. “I told you, I’m an orphan-”

 

“Orphans still get sent to live with someone or go to the foster system. Why are you stayin’ at the school instead of that? How long you been out on the streets?”

 

Ellie lowers the menu, debating whether to tell him before remembering how gentle he was when he was fixing her hands. “...I got kicked out last night.”

 

His jaw sets and his hands tighten on his arms. “Ain’t a social worker s’posed to pick you up?”

 

Ellie shoves her hands under her thighs to keep them warm, as they’re suddenly cold and painful. “They didn’t call her. Said, uh… I needed to pay ‘reparations’ so they’re collecting the state payments for the next year but not taking care of me.”

 

Joel’s nostrils flare slightly, and she cringes at the anger he’s obviously holding back.

 

He doesn’t act on it, though, just taking a deep breath.

 

“One, that’s real fuckin’ illegal, and two, you need to call your social worker.” he says slowly.

 

“I can’t.” Ellie says, looking at the table. It has a really big syrup stain to her left. “They, uh… they were my twenty-ninth placement, and my social worker, she, uh, has this rule. When someone burns through thirty placements, she sends them out of state to military school unless someone actually volunteers to foster them specifically. And, in case you haven’t noticed, the delinquent who keeps screwing everything up isn’t many people’s first choice to take into their house.”

 

He takes another deep breath. “That’s bullshit.”

 

“I know, but what can you do?” Ellie shrugs.

 

“Not kick a thirteen-year-old kid out.” Joel mutters.

 

“Pff. One placement kicked me out when I was nine.”

 

He looks like he wants to punch someone, and he opens his mouth to say something, but the waitress comes over before he can.

 

“Hey, you two! What can I get ya?” she asks with too much pep for this early in the morning, notepad ready.

 

Ellie looks to Joel, waiting for him to order, but he just nods at her. “Go ahead.”

 

“Um, can I… have the pancakes?” she asks hesitantly. (She doesn’t exactly want to push her luck and order everything on the menu here.)

 

“Sure, hon. Do you want a side of bacon?”

 

It’ll cost extra.

 

Ellie looks at Joel again, and he nods at her. “Yes, please.” she says.

 

“Of course. And you?” she says, turning to Joel.

 

“Black coffee, scrambled eggs, and toast. Thank you, ma’am.” he says, setting aside the menu and taking Ellie’s too.

 

“That’ll be right out for ya!” she says cheerfully, grabbing the menus and walking away.

 

Joel returns to looking at her with his arms crossed.

 

“Thanks for breakfast.” she says.

 

“You’re welcome. Why’d they kick you out?” Joel asks.

 

Well, he’s not gonna like this, but hey, they already ordered. She's still gonna eat.

 

“I’m a ‘troubled kid,’” she says, doing air quotes. “I get into fights, I talk back, and they snapped when I took a little money.”

 

Joel clenches his jaw again, eyes narrow as he regards her. “How much?”

 

Ellie shrinks. “Fifty bucks.”

 

He takes another deep breath, and Ellie starts to panic.

 

“Okay, look! They promised me a hundred bucks for cleaning the house and helping with the cooking and laundry and stuff for a month, and I did it, but then when I asked for the money they told me I should be grateful they were feeding me and that they should be charging rent if they were paying me! I took, like, half of what they owed me-”

 

“They shouldn’t have lied and they shouldn’t have kicked you out.” Joel interrupts. “Simple as that. Ain’t blamin’ you. Calm down.”

 

Ellie breathes a sigh of relief. “You’re really not mad?”

 

“At them, not you. Shoulda paid you what they owed you. You did the work, you get the money. That’s how my job works. You always get the money for your labor.”

 

“Really? You’ve never had someone trick you?” Ellie asks. “Wait, how does your job even work?”

 

The waitress comes over before he can answer, and both Joel and Ellie thank her as she leaves the plates.

 

“What’d you ask again?” he asks as he takes a long sip of coffee.

 

“How your job worked.” she repeats.

 

He nods to himself as he chews and swallows a piece of toast.

 

“I’m a contractor, so if anyone needs somethin’ to be constructed or fixed like a house or a yard or a school, we come in and fix it. Could be walls, could be a fountain or gazebo, could be a gym like your school.”

 

Ellie nods, munching on her pancakes. They’re buttery and fluffy and she might’ve died and gone to heaven.

 

“So we come in and build and fix it along with anythin’ else that comes up. Call in electricians and plumbers, make sure everythin’s to code, do good-quality work. Basically, if someone calls us and gives us the money we need, they get back a perfectly good… whatever the hell they want done.”

 

Joel starts eating his scrambled eggs.

 

“So they pay you before?” Ellie asks.

 

He nods. “Part of it. Enough for materials.”

 

“Then they pay you the rest after it’s done.”

 

“Yeah. Don’t get all of it upfront in case someone doesn't like what they get, but don’t wait until the end ‘cause someone might not pay. Keeps everyone involved honest.”

 

She mulls it over as she keeps scarfing down the pancakes.

 

“So-”

 

“Swallow before you talk.” he interrupts.

 

God, is she sure he’s not around kids?

 

She chews and swallows with exaggerated motions, making him roll his eyes, before speaking again. “So what if someone just chooses not to pay you?”

 

“Drag their asses to court.” Joel answers instantly. “But small-claims court is exhaustin’, so you try to stay outta there as much as you can.”

 

“Huh.” Ellie says, resuming her eating.

 

“Slow down before you choke, kid, Jesus Christ. Nobody’s gon’ take it away from you.” Joel mutters as he finishes his own food, sipping his coffee and watching her go.

 

“Not how it works in group homes.” she says, the sound muffled by the food in her mouth. He gives her a look, and she swallows it before repeating herself. “Not how it works in group homes. Only so much food, you take what you can grab and eat it before anyone else can grab it. It’s like a bar brawl.”

 

Joel shakes his head. “Jesus.”

 

She grins at him before diving back in, finishing off her pancakes and bacon in only a few minutes.

 

“Ready to go?” he asks when she’s done, and she freezes.

 

She doesn’t really want to be done - if they’re done eating, he’s gonna leave her somewhere.

 

Joel puts cash with the bill, and he stands up, stretching a little.

 

“You good, old man?” Ellie says.

 

“Fine.” he grunts, stretching his legs and making his knees crackle.

 

“Dude, if you’re forty-three, what’s wrong with your knees?” Ellie asks.

 

He sighs. “Dislocate ‘em a few times, they’re never gonna be right again. Take care of your joints.”

 

“Huh. How’d you dislocate them?” Ellie asks.

 

Joel doesn’t answer, just starting to slowly walk away. When Ellie scrambles up and starts to follow him, he goes back to his normal pace.

 

“Is it the same way you got that scar on your head?” Ellie asks.

 

He doesn’t answer.

 

“It was something lame, wasn’t it. You fell down the stairs.”

 

“Didn’t fall down any stairs.” he mutters.

 

“So how’d you get the scar?”

 

He’s quiet for a minute before he says, “A guy shot at me and missed.”

 

“Dude, that’s awesome!” Ellie cheers as they walk out of the diner with a jingle and go back to the rental car. “See, that’s cool! Did you fuck him up?”

 

“Yup.” Joel says monotonously, unlocking the car.

 

Ellie gets in the passenger seat, and she looks out the window as Joel starts to drive again.

 

“Where are you taking me?” she asks quietly.

 

Joel’s quiet for a minute before sighing. “Considerin’ a lack of options, I’m takin’ you back to my hotel.”

 

Ellie flinches - she’s been around too many men to be comfortable with an adult guy who, sure, he’s really nice and stuff, but still an adult guy she doesn’t know that well who’s taking her back to his hotel - and Joel notices.

 

“Told you before and I’ll say it again, I’m not gon’ hurt you.” Joel says. “I’m gonna sleep on the couch, you’re gonna sleep in the bed, and when it’s a little later than-” he checks the time “-five-fifteen in the mornin’, I’m gonna figure out what the hell I’m gon’ do with you. Not gonna try to kill or rape or hit you. Just tryin’ to give you a place to get better sleep than a gym under active construction.”

 

“Maybe I like the gym under active construction.”

 

“Too bad.”

 

The rest of the drive is quiet, and Ellie feels… weirdly safe.

 

She idly thinks that he must have a kid to be acting like this, but she can’t see it with how grumpy he is and how freaked he looked when he saw her in the office, so she comes to the conclusion that he doesn’t.

 

The motel room is pretty standard for a shitty little Boston motel, but the bed is pretty comfortable, and she’s out pretty fast.

 

Joel keeps to his word and doesn’t move from the couch.

 

-

 

Joel wakes up around five minutes before seven, which is just early enough to turn off his alarm before it goes off and disturbs Ellie and shut the blinds so the sun can’t get in and wake her.

 

Once he’s sure it’s all set and the quiet isn’t going to be disturbed, he looks at her - really looks.

 

Without her loudness, he can see that she’s tiny for a thirteen-year-old, too damn skinny and probably so short as a result. She’s so deeply asleep that she’s drooling, and he almost smiles at how goofy she looks.

 

Joel takes a deep breath and rubs his face instead.

 

He’s not feeling as much of the anxiety that comes with being around kids. Worse: he feels better than he has in a while.

 

And that means some part of his brain is waking back up. The same part that came alive when he held Sarah for the first time and looked in those big brown eyes, the same part that raised her for fourteen years, the same part that shattered the rest of him the day he lost her.

 

He can’t let it wake up.

 

But… what she said about getting shipped off to military school rubs him the wrong way. Ellie shouldn’t be there. She’s a little kid who’s pretending to be bigger than she is like a scared cat puffing up.

 

Joel grabs his tool belt, scrawls a note on the complimentary notepad telling her that he’s at the school and what his number is in an emergency as well as instructions to ‘stay here!’ in caps and underlined twice.

 

He needs to break some shit to process this situation and make a plan.

Chapter 5: In Which Ellie is Annoying

Notes:

Hello! Here's the next chapter <3 enjoy!!

When Ellie wakes up, she has a hard time figuring out where she is for an embarrassingly long time.

 

The bed is about the same feel of the one in the group home (read: hard and slightly lumpy), but it’s way bigger, and there’s enough room to spread-eagle herself if she wants to (she elects to yank the blankets and sheets from the bottom of the bed and roll over like a rotisserie until she’s sufficiently burrito’d instead). The ceiling is the same popcorn, but a slightly different color and pattern, and when she does turn her head, she doesn’t really recognize it.

 

What jogs her memory is when she does sit up and look over at the nightstand.

 

‘At the school doing work on the gym.

Not much in the minifridge but there’s twenty bucks on the dresser if you want to go buy food. (NO STARBUCKS. REAL FOOD THAT WILL NOT MAKE YOU THROW UP.)

For emergencies only, my number is (210)663-2058. I’m serious. Only for emergencies.

Unless you need food or something is on fire or bleeding, STAY HERE.

 

That part is underlined twice. Ellie grins.

 

My brother’s in the room to the left. Don’t bother him unless it’s an emergency. I’m getting back at three. Don’t break anything.

-Joel

 

Naturally, the first thing she does is blindly grab for her phone (still at 84% - thanks, school gym’s outlet and not being on it for a solid few hours), make a new contact, put in the number under the name ‘Cotton-Eye Joel,’ find a stock picture of a cowboy and put it as the profile picture, and start texting it.

 

You: heyyyyy

You: your pfp is a cowboy

You: hellooooo

 

Three dots.

 

Cotton-Eye Joel: Didn’t I say this was for emergencies? - Joel

You: oh my god you sign your texts??? what the fuck are you eighty???

Cotton-Eye Joel: It’s helpful for new numbers. Would’ve been helpful for you to sign your texts two minutes ago. I might’ve blocked you. - Joel

You: blocked me???? how dare you. also why didn’t you

Cotton-Eye Joel: Because nobody else who would text me would ever text like that. - Joel

You: who are you even texting anyway??

Cotton-Eye Joel: Hmm, let’s think. Maybe my brother or my friends? - Joel

You: mAyBe My BrOtHeR oR mY fRiEnDs

Cotton-Eye Joel: What the fuck is that? - Joel

You: cool person talk

Cotton-Eye Joel: Alright, cool person, please stop. You’ll give me a migraine. - Joel

You: YoU’lL gIvE mE a MiGrAiNe

Cotton-Eye Joel: Blocked. Goodbye. - Joel

You: noooo come backkkk

Cotton-Eye Joel: You do realize I have work to do? - Joel

You: then why are you not doing it O_o

Cotton-Eye Joel: Because there’s a smartass kid who won’t stop texting me. That does remind me, though, that I need your social worker’s number. - Joel

 

Ellie’s smile drops fast.

 

You: what??? no fucking way dude

You: did you miss the whole ‘military school’ part of our talk this morning?????

Cotton-Eye Joel: I need you to trust me, Ellie. - Joel

 

She hesitates. She shouldn’t trust him. He’s gonna send her back, and then she’s gonna be sent out to fucking Utah to go to a military academy.

 

But he bought her breakfast. He fixed up her hands. He tried to comfort her even if he clearly didn’t mean to consciously. He let her into his hotel room and gave her the bed and swore he wouldn't hurt her or hit her ever and seemed like he genuinely meant it and cared.

 

She takes a deep breath and types out another message.

 

You: her name’s marlene. her number is 617-385-4429. please don’t tell her anything bad.

 

-

 

Joel puts his head into his hands for probably the eighth time this morning, his guys working on the other walls while he sits on his computer, supposedly ordering more supplies and talking to other people to finish the job.

 

He’s already done that. They don’t need to know that.

 

Instead, his laptop has nine tabs, all of them about foster care.

 

It’s apparently hard to foster out-of-state, so you need to talk to the social worker in charge of the case to see if it’s a viable option.

 

Jesus fucking Christ, what’s he doing?

 

Another message from Ellie (now labeled as ‘Little Shit (Ellie)’ in his phone) comes through. ‘her name’s marlene. her number is 617-385-4429. please don’t tell her anything bad.’

 

Marlene? Like Tommy’s old friend from the army?

 

Whatever. He’ll call.

 

Joel flips back to the tab that’s a foster application. He hasn’t started it yet.

 

‘Requirements to be a foster parent in the state of Massachusetts!’ it cheerfully proclaims like Joel isn’t making what might be the worst impulse decision of his entire goddamned life. The Texas one is slightly less cheerful, but it’s still happy, and Joel kind of wants to throw it.

 

Requirements:

Must be at least 18 years of age and a Massachusetts resident.

 

He’s got that in spades, and he has the knees to fuckin’ prove it. He’ll have to talk to the social worker about the second part, though.

 

Must own or rent a home that meets DCF’s safety standards.

 

He’s a fuckin’ contractor. Of course his home is up to code. He’ll make one of the folks he works with a lot do an inspection.

 

Must have a stable source of income.

 

He’s got that (mostly), and even when contracting is a little slow, he’s got a good amount of savings. (After Sarah, he… what was he going to spend it on? He buys food, pays the utilities for the house he’s owned outright for a year and a half, gets gas, and puts the rest of his money in a bank account that Tommy and Bill set up to funnel to retirement and emergency and a bunch of other savings funds when they found out Joel had almost fifty grand in a checking account. Bill smacked him upside the head and told him he’s not an illegal immigrant so there’s no excuse to have more than a thousand dollars in there.)

 

Must pass a background record check.

 

He does that every year for his work. His record’s completely clean. He opens the PDF.

 

…Is that seriously it?

 

Joel scowls at the screen and starts digging deep into the website to find more information for what he has to do before a kid can actually live with him.

 

…according to the state of Massachusetts, he needs a three-hour license study in order to meet eighteen standards proving he can care for a child and get a license. Okay. He can do that in a day.

 

Wait, he can do that in a day? He’s spent more time trying to fix a window than he has to learning how to care for a whole-ass human child?

 

That’s fucked up.

 

Joel scowls as he reads through the list. He meets every condition on it. There might be a problem with the ‘mental and physical health’ part, since he’s on medication and has records of PTSD, anxiety, and depression, but he can take care of a kid with it, and that’s what the list says is most important.

 

He switches over to the standards for Texas.

 

Must be at least twenty-one years of age.

 

Try double that.

 

Must complete an application. (Staff will assist you, if you prefer)

 

He feels like that’s obvious, and he can do that without a problem. Hell, he’ll do it tonight. He doesn’t give a shit.

 

Must share information about background and lifestyle. This can be over the phone.

 

…once again, obviously.

 

Must provide both relative and non-relative references through the following form: https://…

 

Joel takes a deep breath and sends several texts: one to Tess, one to the Bill&Frank group chat, and one to Tommy.

 

You: I need a character recommendation from you on this form: https://foster-care-Texas… - Joel

 

He cringes as his phone immediately blows up.

 

Tommy: Does this have something to do with the kid who knocked on the door, said she knew you and told me both our names, and asked me to get her lucky charms because the front desk didn’t believe she was staying here??? (before you ask, she got the cereal)

Bill: what the fuck

Frank: Oh, wow, that’s unexpected! Do you want to talk about it? If so, I'm here xx. Also, I’d be happy to do it! :)

Tess: MILLER EXPLAIN NOW

 

He winces and resolves to text them back as soon as he finishes reading and figuring out a plan.

 

Must show proof of marriage and/or divorce (if applicable.)

 

Shit, he’s got the twenty-three-year-old divorce papers somewhere. Hasn’t even seen the woman in years. He’ll have to look for them.

 

Must agree to a home study that includes visits with all household members.

 

It’s only him, so he’s golden on that. (Unless the government realizes that he’s bad for a kid, oh, lord…)

 

Must allow staff to perform a background check. Any abuse/neglect charges will immediately cause an application to be dismissed.

 

God no. He’d never do that. He’s fine.

 

Must attend free training totaling fifty hours to learn about issues with abused or neglected children and childcare.

 

That might be a bit of a bigger problem. Shit.

 

He’ll discuss it with the social worker.

 

In addition, foster parents must have adequate sleeping space (he lives in a four-bedroom house that’s just him, he’s fine), allow no more than six children in the home (he’d have a heart attack if he did), agree to a nonphysical discipline policy (he mastered the art of the disappointing gaze with Sarah and he’d never hit a kid), permit fire, health, and safety inspections of the home (obviously fine), vaccinate all pets (he doesn’t have any), obtain and maintain CPR/first aid certification (he already has that as part of his job), be negative for tuberculosis (obviously?), and attend annual training (sure.)

 

Okay. Okay. He might actually be able to do this.

 

His hands are slightly shaky as he opens his phone again. Thirteen new messages. Fuck.

 

Tommy: Does this have something to do with the kid who knocked on the door, said she knew you and told me both our names, and asked me to get her lucky charms because the front desk didn’t believe she was staying here??? (before you ask, she got the cereal)

Tommy: Joel, what the hell are you doing, you don’t like kids anymore?

Tommy: Hello?? This is not the kind of thing you just don’t text back about

 

You: Yeah, it is about that kid. Her name is Ellie, she’s thirteen, she got kicked out of her group home, I found her in the construction site this morning. She’s a good kid, just a little

 

He pauses. Traumatized? No, that’s not it.

 

She’s a good kid, just in a bad spot. The one she got kicked out of was her twenty-ninth placement. She needs someone who won’t give up. - Joel

 

He sends it, then types another one out.

 

You: I got annoyed at her and she told me I could hit her if it would make me feel better. What kind of life is that for a kid? - Joel

 

While Tommy types, he goes to the group chat.

 

Bill: what the fuck

Frank: Oh, wow, that’s unexpected! Do you want to talk about it? If so, I'm here xx. Also, I’d be happy to do it! :)

Bill: Miller get on the phone and start talking

Frank: Bill, stop. You’d be a great foster dad, Joel. Whatever kid you take in is going to be really lucky xx. I already started on the form :)

Bill: Miller a child isn’t an impulse buy call us

 

You: Look, while working on the job after hours, I found a kid in the construction site taking a nap. Thirteen-year-old girl named Ellie. She got kicked out of her group home (twenty-ninth placement) and was planning on being homeless for a year. She’s clearly been abused. If someone doesn’t take her, she’s going to military school across the country. She’s a good kid, she’s just in a bad spot. It’s temporary. Just until she’s in a better spot. Please just fill out the form? - Joel

 

He quickly changes back over to the chat with the most texts.

 

Tess: MILLER EXPLAIN NOW

Tess: Joel, what the fuck is happening??

Tess: Text me back NOW

(Missed call from Tess)

(Missed call from Tess)

Tess: Joel, if this is a joke it’s not funny

(Missed call from Tess)
Tess: CALL ME BACK ASSHOLE

(Missed call from Tess)

Tess: Okay, look. I know it’s hard and you’re working at a school, but you can’t replace Sarah.

Tess: Fuck, you get panic attacks around kids, you can’t foster one

(Missed call from Tess)

Tess: Look, you’d be good at it, but you and me, we’re both too fucked-up to raise a kid. Same reason I didn’t have a kid after Charlie and you didn’t have a kid after Sarah.

Tess: For fuck’s sakes we can’t even go into schools, Joel

 

Joel’s heart hurts, and he absently rubs his chest, trying to breathe deeply as he types out a response.

 

You: Look, it’s not forever. It’s one kid. She needs me. - Joel

 

Her response is fast.

 

Tess: If you call me we can talk about this. Are you busy? Are you okay?

 

You: Give me a second. - Joel

 

He signals to the guys that he’s stepping out, and he gets varying thumbs-up in return before going out into the hall and accepting the next call as his phone starts buzzing.

 

She picks up on the first ring, sounding breathless. “Joel, what the fuck is going on?”

 

“I wanna take in a kid.” he says, leaning against the wall and rubbing his eye. “Just one, Tess. For a bit.”

 

“For a-” she laughs, but it sounds nervous and bitter more than anything. “Joel, do you hear yourself?”

 

Joel tries to take deep breaths. “I- I know. It’s a bad idea. But- fuck, Tess, this kid-”

 

“Start talking.” she says, and he can hear the sound of her work boots stomping as she starts pacing. “From the beginning.”

“This girl, she’s- um. Her name’s Ellie, she’s thirteen. She was the girl in the office the other day. She got into a fight.” he sighs. “Had a conversation, then I fucked off. Went to a Starbucks, she was there again, we talked a little more. Typical kid, maybe a little sarcastic and rough and shit, but it’s fine. I leave again. Then I come to the school to work and she’s asleep in the construction zone.”

 

He sinks to the floor, pressing his hand over his face and listening to Tess taking measured breaths before continuing. “She got kicked out. Apparently the folks runnin’ the group home decided she talked back too much and got into too many fights, and then when she took fifty bucks - they owed her a hundred, Tess, you and I both would’ve taken the full, but she only took half - they kicked her out. Said she owed ‘reparations’ and they would make her be homeless for a year so they could get the foster stipend without havin’ to take care of her. She broke into the school for somewhere to sleep and hurt herself doin’ it, so I fixed her up and bought her breakfast, and- shit, Tess. She’s been through twenty-nine homes, and apparently her social worker sends anyone who gets through thirty to military school across the country. God, you- you should see this girl, Tess, she’s fuckin’ tiny. Too damn short and too damn skinny.”

 

He can practically feel her nodding along, so he continues.

 

“She don’t belong in some military school. This kid’s bein’ passed around like a bad penny, but- look, Tess, she made a joke that landed bad and it pissed me off and I told her not to tell that kinda joke. You know what she does? She tells me to hit her so I’ll feel better.”

 

Tess inhales sharply, and Joel has to pause, voice cracking when he resumes again. “Like she expected it. Like it was normal. Practically looked ‘bout to cry ‘bout three times - once when I told her I’d never hit her, once when I bought her breakfast, and once when I told her she could sleep in my hotel room instead of in the park like she planned. God, this girl- said she got kicked out once when she was nine, said she didn’t usually get food ‘cause other kids would steal it, she- Tess, I can’t let her go back to that.”

 

“Jesus Christ.” Tess mumbles.

 

“I know.” Joel says, voice cracking again as he tries not to cry. “I know it’s a bad idea, Tess, but God, she’s just a little girl. She’s- Ellie reminds me of a cat. She’s terrified all the time, so she’s puffin’ herself up to look big and constantly sassin’ and arguin’, but instead of anyone doin’ anythin’, they’re just assumin’ she actually is big and treatin’ her like it instead of a little girl who’s terrified of everythin’. I- Tess, I can raise a kid right. I know I can. I raised Sarah right. I can help.”

 

She takes a slow breath on the other end. “You serious about this?”

 

“I am, Tess, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doin’ but I am.” Joel says.

 

She sighs. “You’re making a mistake.”

 

His eyes are burning, and he scrubs at them. “You don’t think I should?”

 

Tess snorts on the other end. “I think you’re filin’ the wrong papers.”

 

“What?”

 

“Do you hear how you’re talking about this girl? You’re talking about her like you’re looking at her as yours. Stupid to get a foster license when you’re just gonna end up adopting this kid.”

 

“I’m not adoptin’ her, and she ain’t gonna be mine. Just givin’ her a better place to stay for a while.” Joel mutters.

 

“Sure. Keep telling yourself that.” she sighs. “We’re talking later, but I’m gonna be late for my shift, so we’re pressing pause.”

 

Joel can’t figure out the words to ask.

 

“I’ll write the damn thing between calls.” she sighs. “Bye, Joel. Talk to you later.”

 

She hangs up.

 

Joel looks at his texts.

 

Frank: Almost done! :) 

Bill: Writing the damn thing because Frank’s making me you’re welcome

Tommy: Will admit the kid’s pretty funny. Plus I kinda miss being Fun Uncle Tommy.

 

Joel sighs in relief and leans against the wall.

 

He just needs to call Marlene, and then get through as much of the application as possible.

 

-

 

Ellie’s lying on the big queen bed next to Joel’s brother Tommy, who she’s decided is fuckin’ awesome. One, he's letting her wear her shoes on his bed, two, he's given her three bowls of cereal and counting, and three, he knows an insane amount of Star Wars facts that he rattles off, his own cereal resting on his stomach as he talks, mirroring her position as they watch said movie on the TV.

 

“Wait, was Luke really-”

 

“Luke Skywalker was originally a girl in early scripts, yeah.” he grins.

 

“Holy shit.” Ellie laughs. “That’s awesome!”

 

“Did you know… hm. You’re runnin’ through all my Star Wars facts, girl.” Tommy complains, staring at the TV for a minute. “Oh! Did you know the intros were all filmed usin’ big yellow letters on a piece of paper? Wasn’t animated, it was just someone with a camera.”

 

“Really?” Ellie asks. He nods. “Dude.”

 

“I know, right…” He trails off, opening his phone and typing, one hand still resting on the bowl.

 

“Hey, don’t look shit up. That’s cheating.” Ellie says, craning her neck trying to see what he’s doing.

 

“Not lookin’ anythin’ up, just tryin’ to get my idiot brother to calm down before he crashes a damn car.” Tommy says, continuing to type.

 

“I- wait, Joel’s freaking out?” Ellie asks, putting the cereal on the nightstand as she sits up. “Why’s Joel freaking out?”

 

“He’s not ‘freakin’ out’ exactly, more like… tryin’ to do too many things at once. Bitin’ off more than he can chew.” Tommy explains slowly.

 

Ellie gets distracted by the TV for a minute before looking back at him. “Is the school really that bad?”

 

Tommy stops for a second, smiling a little. “He ain’t doin’ shit with the school. Leavin’ it all to Joseph and Marco. He’s losin’ it because he’s tryin’ to fit fifty hours of trainin’ into three days and I’m tryin’ to keep him from bein’ stupid.”

 

“Training for what?” she asks.

 

He stares at her for a second. “For gettin’ certified to take you home?”

 

She blinks at him, stunned into silence.

 

“Ellie? You alright?” he asks. “Did- Joel didn’t tell you he was gon’ try to take you in?”

 

Ellie feels like she’s about to have a heart attack.

 

“Ellie?” Tommy repeats.

 

She shakes out of it. “Why the fuck would he do that?”

 

Tommy’s face contorts slightly. “Ellie-”

 

“He shouldn’t have done that.” she mumbles. He’s gonna get sick of her fast, and then she’s gonna go back and get sent to Salt Lake City. “He’s gonna get rid of me and then-”

 

“Ellie, calm down.” Tommy says, slowly sitting up. “He’s not gonna get rid of you-”

 

Ellie can’t breathe.

 

She just needs some air.

 

She’s running as fast as she can out the door and down the stairs from the room despite Tommy calling after her.

 

-

 

Joel hesitates, looking at his half-done foster application and looking back at his phone. He’s gotten several more messages from everyone about the situation, but he hasn’t answered, too nervous about calling Marlene.

 

He takes a few deep breaths before finally picking up the phone and dialing the number Ellie sent him.

 

It picks up on the second ring, and a smooth female voice says, “Marlene Green, how may I help you?”

 

Oh, Joel knows her.

 

It’s the same fuckin’ Marlene that asked Tommy to do the work at the school.

 

“Hi.” Joel says instead. “I’m Joel Miller. Don’t know if you remember me.”

 

The other end goes quiet before she speaks again. “Hello, Joel.”

 

“Yeah. Hi.”

 

She and Tommy were in the same unit together. Only thing is that he was discharged because he had PTSD, she was discharged because she opened fire on civilians - including kids - and refused to show remorse.

 

Tommy forgave her. Joel thinks she’s a fuckin’ psychopath.

 

“Why are you calling?” she asks. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m-”

 

“I need a favor.” Joel interrupts. “Big one.”

 

She goes quiet again for a long minute. “What is it?”

 

He exhales, rubbing his forehead. “I wanna take in one of your cases. I need your help.”

 

“Which one.” she says, voice suddenly somehow even colder.

 

“Little girl named Ellie.”

 

She laughs. “Absolutely not, Miller.”

 

He grits his teeth. “Why not?”

 

“Ellie Williams isn’t a beginner case. She’s best for experienced parents. And even if you were one, you wouldn’t want her. She’s- let’s just say she’s the epitome of everything that could go wrong in the foster system. She’s the problem child with a capital ‘the’.”

 

“I already raised a kid.” Joel says. “You gotta trust me, Marlene, I can take care of her. I just need a little help.”

 

She sighs, long and slow. “Alright, what do you need?”

 

“I got a plan.” Joel says. “Rent a place for two or three months in Boston, then move us to Texas. That possible with the system?”

 

Marlene sighs, and there’s typing on the other end. “Most cases, no. We try not to uproot kids’ lives.”

 

“And Ellie?”

 

“She doesn’t have a life here.” Marlene says before sighing again. “That sounds wrong. Part of why I was going to send her to SLC once this placement fell through is because Boston isn’t good for her. She could use a fresh start. She does poorly in school despite proving she’s smart enough to get through, she gets into fights and doesn’t have friends, and the one friend she had, Riley…”

 

Marlene’s quiet for a second. “Another foster kid. She died two months ago. Ellie’s been doing even worse since.”

 

Fuck.

 

“There’s a reason she doesn’t end up sticking with one home, Miller. She pushes boundaries, she gets into fights, she figures out every rule and breaks it. She runs when things get tough or pushes back so hard that someone gets hurt. She’s traumatized, but that doesn’t change that she’s not a good kid.”

 

Joel clenches his jaw. “I still want her.”

 

Marlene sighs. “Where are you in the foster process?”

 

“I’ve got my background check and recommendations. Schedulin’ trainin’s and interviews as soon as I’m off the phone.”

 

She sighs again. “I’ll have someone interview you and do a home review on Friday. Speed up the process where I can. You should have a Massachusetts license by about two weeks from now. Then she’s yours here.”

 

“And Texas?”

 

“That takes a little longer. Maybe a month or two extra to take her there.”

 

“But I’ll be able to.”

 

“Yeah. And I’d recommend it. Be good to start over for her.”

 

Joel could cry.

 

“Thank you, Marlene.” he says. “I’m serious.”

 

“You owe me.” she says coldly. “I’m serious too.”

 

She hangs up.

 

Joel looks at his phone again.

 

New texts from Tommy.

 

Tommy: Ellie ran for it. Looking for her now.

 

Joel’s heart drops.

 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, what did he just do?

Notes:

So... they're definitely not both disasters, what are you talking about?

Anyway, please leave a comment or Kudos to fuel me and let me know you like this, and please subscribe or bookmark to stay up to date on this story. Thank you so much for reading and have a great day!!!

(Also, not sure if some of you are aware, but I have seven other TLOU fics (as of today) if you want to check them out lol. No pressure, just figured that if you like this, you might like my others <3)

Chapter 6: In Which Joel is Surprisingly Good at This

Notes:

Enjoy!! Joel is very dad in this one lol

Ellie doesn’t know what she’s doing as she runs down the Boston street, her Converse getting soaked through with the cold slush melting into them. Normally, she wears her wool socks so she doesn’t get blisters, but she didn’t, and she can feel them forming, but she doesn’t care.

 

The entire world feels ugly. It’s blurring around the edges, her vision all black-and-bright dots. Her breathing feels rattly even though she’s taking as deep of breaths as she can, and she feels like she’s going to die.

 

Fuck, she probably is. If Joel fosters her, he’s gonna give her back just like everyone else, and then she’s gonna be shipped off to SLC, but she’s heard too many stories - she’ll run away, and then because Marlene’ll be out of the picture and she doubts military school cares that much, she’ll just live on the streets, but this time she’s not gonna know where she’s going or anything-

 

Ellie feels dizzy.

 

She falls on her ass, hands covering her ears as she presses her back against the nearest building.

 

It smells like coffee. What-

 

Oh. She’s- is she at Starbucks?

 

Whatever. It’s fine.

 

She tries to get air in as she starts rocking herself back and forth, not caring if she looks stupid or if she’s getting all snowy and wet and cold, because she’s so afraid, she doesn’t know what she’s gonna do, she’s such a screw-up-

 

Ellie takes shuddering breaths, petting her thumb along her cheek.

 

She does it a lot, just an embarrassing little tic. When she’s sleepy or scared, she rubs her thumb back-and-forth under her eye and hums to herself when it’s really bad.

 

It only helps keep her from feeling any worse. She doesn’t feel better.

 

She tries to breathe and fails.

 

-

 

Joel’s driven back-and-forth from the school to the motel twice, taking two routes to see if she was on one. No luck. She’s not at the school, not on the way, not in the mile radius around the motel, and not at the library that he remembers her mentioning.

 

He drives over to the Starbucks to check for the third time.

 

Tommy’s looking on foot, bundled up like a Texan transplanted into Boston in January (which he is) while Joel looks in the car. They’re findin’ the kid, dammit.

 

Luckily, Joel does find her.

 

When he drives past the Starbucks again, he sees a brown ponytail and red hoodie that he recognizes - fuck, it’s too fuckin’ cold for her to be out here in that - and immediately pulls over.

 

After sending a quick text to Tommy just saying ‘Found her - Joel’, he gets out and slowly walks over, hands out to show hey, I’m unarmed, I’m safe, you can see that I’m not a threat.

 

“Hey, Ellie,” he says, voice low. “You alright?”

 

She gasps for air, chest heaving as she locks her fingers behind her neck, tucking her head and rocking. “Can’t breathe.”

 

Shit, Joel’s been there a thousand times.

 

He kneels in front of her. The other people on the sidewalk can go around, fuck them. 

 

“It’s alright.” Joel says, remembering when it got bad the first few years and Frank and Tommy would be on call with him and talk him down. “You’re safe, alright? Nothin’ bad is gonna happen.”

 

“Gonna be alone-” she gasps, huddling even tighter.

 

“Nah, you’re not.” Joel soothes. That Part™ of his brain is fighting him, telling him to hug her and treat her like his own, but he’s not gonna fuckin’ do that, brain, thank you very much, fuck off. “You ain’t gon’ be alone, alright? You’re fine. You just gotta breathe.”

 

It’s true - she’s hyperventilating so much that Joel worries she’s gonna pass out. On top of that, she’s all wet from the snow, and-

 

Jesus, kid’s a mess.

 

Joel takes off his jacket, immediately getting cold again, and puts it around her hunched shoulders, holding it in the front so it doesn’t fall off. “See? You’re gon’ be fine.”

 

She flinches at first, the bruise under her eye shiny with tears, before she takes a shuddering breath, lowering her hands, one coming to hold the jacket and the other cupping her own cheek, rubbing her thumb under her eye.

 

It’s…

 

It makes Joel sad. It’s the kind of thing a parent would do to a child to calm ‘em down.

 

Just shows what’s brought her to this point. Christ.

 

“Just breathe. I know it’s scary.” Joel says, using the same tone he used to use with nine-year-old Sarah when she’d wake up from nightmares and come crying into his room. “You’re gon’ be fine. Nice and slow. In through your mouth, out through your nose.”

 

Wait, no, he decided that was wrong. That’s wrong, right?

 

“Or maybe it’s the other way. I don’t know, kid, it’s hard.” Joel sighs. He’s careful to keep his hands in sight and still. “Still, you gotta take deep breaths, alright?”

 

She nods, still rubbing her cheek as she clearly struggles to comply.

 

“I get ‘em too. Feels like the whole damned world’s cavin’ in, don’t it?” Joel says. “It ain’t. World’s still gon’ be here tomorrow, even if it feels like it’s goin’ or already gone.”

 

She looks up at him again, brown eyes wide and terrified.

 

“It’s alright. You’re just fine.” Joel soothes. “Just gotta take deep breaths.”

 

He intentionally takes a dramatically deep breath, and she mimics, so he does it again and again until she’s not shaking and her breathing is a little more steady.

 

When she seems a little more normal, Joel gently presses the edges of the jacket he was holding into her grip. “Better?”

 

She nods, scrubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Sorry.”

 

“Ain’t a problem. Get ‘em too.” he says. “What is a problem is that you’re doubtless cold from all this ‘snow’ bullshit.”

 

“Do you-” she takes a deep, shuddery breath as she clearly tries not to hiccup. “Do you not get snow in yee-haw land?”

 

He rolls his eyes. “Watch it, punk.”

 

Ellie bleats a laugh, nervous and shaky. “Sorry.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.” he says, getting to his feet with a groan and offering his hand. “C’mon, we gotta get you somewhere warm before you catch your death out here. Don’t know how y’all do it up here.”

 

She hesitates, looking at his hand like it’s a trap. He doesn’t push - just waits with his hand outstretched.

 

After a minute, she takes it, smaller hand cold and clammy, and he pulls her up to her feet, steadying her when she stumbles a little. She’s skinnier than he thought, all bones and sharp edges under the hoodie.

 

He’s gonna feed this girl. She’s too damn skinny.

 

“You wanna go inside?” he asks, nodding towards the doors, unsure of what to do. “Or you wanna go to the motel or get lunch?”

 

Ellie shrugs. “Dunno.”

 

She’s probably still scared.

 

“C’mon, we’re gon’ go get lunch.” Joel says. (If he barely resists putting an arm around her shoulders, that’s his business.)

 

-

 

Ellie needs to stop whatever the fuck she’s doing.

 

That’s what she thinks as she sits down in the chair across from Joel at the restaurant he brought her to.

 

(After taking her back to the motel. She started feeling nervous again as soon as they were over there again, but Joel just told her to change her clothes so she wouldn’t catch a cold before they went to lunch.)

 

And now she’s sitting here, still in his jacket (he noticed her shivering on the ride over and gave it back) at a lunch he already said he’s paying for.

 

Ellie’s not stupid. It’s why she’s in tenth grade even though she’s almost-fourteen. She knows how it works. Someone likes her, they either get tired of her or die. She’s a curse.

 

So Joel, salt-and-pepper-hair, southern-accent, gruff-but-nice Texas contractor Joel - she should be running from him. Protect both of them, her from getting hurt, him from actually physically getting hurt.

 

But- God. 

 

Ever since she was little, she figured out that adults aren’t trustworthy. Teachers rat you out to foster parents, foster parents act nice but then either smack you around and starve you or end up giving you away as soon as you start to like them.

 

Joel, though - he feels safe. He doesn’t feel like he’s going to whip around and smack her if she steps wrong or play nice just long enough to prove she’s ‘misbehaved’ before shipping her off.

 

He feels like the kind of person who would hug her and hold her hand if she crossed the str-

 

When they were leaving the pharmacy he almost tried to take her hand. Like it was autopilot.

 

That’s, like, a classic dad move, isn’t it?

 

Is she sure he doesn’t have kids? That might explain why she feels safe. If he’s some other kid’s dad, he’s probably just automatically treating her the same-

 

“So-” they say at the same time. Ellie immediately freezes, his mouth quirks up at the edges and he nods at her.

 

“So, uh- do you have any family?” Ellie asks. “Like, in Texas?”

 

“Tommy and his wife Maria.” he says simply.

 

“Do you have a wife?”

 

He snorts. “For eight months. We got divorced twenty-three years ago.”

 

“God, you’re so old.” Ellie jokes. “So… no kids?”

 

His jaw clenches. “No. No kids.”

 

The air shifts, and she feels like she stepped somewhere she wasn’t supposed to.

 

“Sorry. Just curious. If you’re gonna be taking me in and all, wanna know who I’m rooming with.” she says nonchalantly, pretending not to care.

 

He nods slowly. “You got any questions about that?”

 

When are you gonna ditch me?

 

Ellie shakes her head. “Nope.”

 

He gives her a look. “Sure.”

 

It’s quiet for a moment. Ellie decides she’s going to get a burger.

 

“I’m gon’ have a license to be a foster in Massachusetts in ‘bout a week or two.” Joel says, setting down the menu. “Gon’ stay here while I finish up the job and get a license in Texas. Then we move down there.”

 

Moving to Texas. The idea is so insane to her that it’s hard to imagine.

 

“Will I get a horse?” Ellie asks, grinning instead of asking any of the questions she should probably ask.

 

He glares at her. “No.”

 

“Why not? Do I get to ride your horse?”

 

He rubs the bridge of his nose like she’s single-handedly giving him a headache. “I don’t have a horse, Ellie. I live in the suburbs.”

 

“That’s weird. I mostly see you living on a ranch.” Ellie says, shrugging.

 

That time, it’s not a joke. She thinks he’d like a farmhouse where it’s quiet and he can see the stars.

 

Or maybe that’s just what she wants. Who knows?

 

Joel chuckles a little bit. “Thought about it.”

 

“Wait, really?” Ellie says, sitting up straight. “What happened?”

 

“‘Bout nine years ago, went through a rough patch and wanted to move, get some fresh air. Picked out a place an’ everythin’. Sheep farm.”

 

“What happened?” Ellie repeats.

 

His eyes dim slightly. “Didn’t make sense. My house was almost paid off, so I would’ve lost some money, an’- well, I’d lived in that house for almost fourteen years. There were memories I couldn’t let go of.”

 

He looks lost for a minute, eyes empty.

 

“Couldn’t you make new memories there?” Ellie asks. “If it would’ve made you happy?”

 

He shakes his head a little, jaw tight. “Some memories you can’t replace.”

 

She thinks it’s not time to talk anymore. She gets the cheeseburger and fries and he gets a sandwich and neither of them talk for the rest of the meal.

 

Joel only breaks the silence when they’re driving back to the motel.

 

“Why’d you run off like that?” he asks, calm as he checks the rearview mirror. “What set it off?”

 

She shrugs. “What set yours off?”

 

His jaw gets tense again. “Ain’t on you to worry about.”

 

She scoffs. “So you get to know but I don’t?”

 

“Yup.”

 

“Fuck off.” 

 

He sighs, propping his head up with a fist, elbow on the door, instead of keeping both hands on the wheel. “I’m tryin’ to help, Ellie.”

 

“Is that why you decided to be my thirtieth placement?” Ellie jabs. “Because you want to help?”

 

He sighs and doesn’t answer.

 

Ellie wants to kick something.

 

After a minute, he talks. “I don’t want anythin’ bad to happen to you.”

 

She scoffs. “Thirteen years late, dude.”

 

He huffs right back. “Fine. No further things.”

 

It’s quiet.

 

“World ain’t nice to kids.” Joel sighs. “And the world ain’t been nice to you. Just want you to be safe an’ have somethin’ good.”

 

She almost makes another jab, but when she looks over, he looks like that hit another nerve.

 

“Why do you think the world ain’t nice to kids?” she asks, cringing when she realizes she accidentally copied his accent. (When she was a kid, it was what she always used to do - whoever she was speaking to, she’d copy their mannerisms and speech and everything. Probably another reason why nobody liked her.)

 

He glances over at her. “Do you do that a lot?”

 

“Do what?”

 

“Copy.” he says. “You mimicked my accent. Wonderin’ if you do that a lot.”

 

She shrugs. “Sometimes.”

 

He hums in understanding as he pulls in at the motel, Tommy already waiting to take the car.

 

It’s only after Ellie’s watching the third Star Wars movie in the room, Joel quietly working on his laptop, that she realizes Joel didn’t answer the question.

Notes:

I hope you liked this chapter!! If you did, please comment or Kudos, and if you want to stay up-to-date, please bookmark or subscribe! Thank you so much for reading and I hope to see you soon!! <3

Chapter 7: In Which There Is a Case File

Notes:

Hey! Hope you enjoy <3

That night, while Ellie’s asleep (she looks like a baby passed out on her stomach and drooling on the pillow, blankets bundled around her, in a way that makes something in him ache), he not only finishes and sends in the applications for Massachusetts and books an apartment showing but starts talking with Marlene over text.

 

(617)385-4429: Interview is on Friday.

You: Thank you. I’m looking at apartments tomorrow. - Joel

(617)385-4429: Let me know when you got one. I’ll speed up the inspection.

You: Thank you so much, Marlene. - Joel

(617)385-4429: How do you know her, anyway?

 

Joel pauses. What does he say? Marlene still thinks Ellie is at her group home instead of passed out cold in the bed less than ten feet from him.

 

You: Started working at the school with Tommy and ended up talking to her. I like the kid and when I learned she was a foster kid, I wanted to take her in. - Joel

 

Eh. Not a full lie.

 

(617)385-4429: What do you know about her?

You: Her name is Ellie. She’s thirteen years old. She likes Star Wars, dinosaurs, and junk food. She’s extremely sarcastic. She’s been in the foster system since she was a baby.

 

That’s… about it.

 

(617)385-4429: Read through her case file and see if you still want to take her. pdf://…

 

Joel looks up at the kid asleep on the bed. It’s an invasion of privacy, isn’t it? To read all about her past when she can’t read a file on his?

 

He clicks the link anyway, already feeling like scum.

 

Name: Williams, Ellie

DOB: 3/15/10

Reason for placement: Parent deceased at birth (Anna Williams - preeclampsia), no next of kin

 

Jesus Christ, that’s rough.

 

Notes:

 

• Not for inexperienced foster parents

• Prone to emotional outbursts

• Prone to violent behavior

 

 

He pauses. He can’t imagine Ellie being violent unprovoked, even if he doesn't know her that well.

 

 

• High intelligence, poor impulse control

• Tested positive for ADHD and mild autism at eight years old

 

 

Huh. That… makes a lot more sense. He can see it.

 

 

• Struggles with authority figures and pushes boundaries

• Attachment issues - exhibits fear of abandonment and demonstrates separation anxiety from attached people, yet is extremely hostile to new caregivers and peers

 

 

Probably because she’s been through twenty-nine homes. Has nothin’ to do with her ‘unhealthy attachment style,’ ‘course not. Bastards…

 

 

• Exhibits potential PTSD and survivor’s guilt, exacerbated by mall incident

 

 

‘Mall incident?’

 

 

• Likes science, dinosaurs, astronomy, reading

• Skipped ahead two years in school due to high intelligence

• Struggles socially and is prone to delinquency

 

 

Joel exhales as he keeps scrolling. This is fine.

 

He gets to the horrifically long placement list and starts reading.

 

Placement 1: Jamessons

 

• DOB-8mo

• RFR: Surrender due to failure to bond.

• Notes: Reportedly cried often and had difficulty sleeping.

 

 

Joel scoffs. She’s a fuckin’ baby at that age, ‘course she didn’t ‘bond.’ And all babies cry and have trouble sleeping. You deal with it.

 

Placement 2: Fords

 

• 8mo-1yo

• RFR: Removal due to neglect.

• Notes: Ellie acting much more skittish; possible abuse.

 

 

They’re fuckin’ dead. He’ll kill ‘em.

 

Placement 3: Evans

 

• 1yo-2yr

• RFR: Surrender due to violent behavior - bit other child in placement during play.

• Notes: Erratic behavior and rule-breaking.

 

 

She was two years old, for fuck’s sake. Of course her behavior was ‘erratic,’ the terrible twos are real - besides, kids bite when they play sometimes. Just how it is. Not to mention she was already traumatized.

 

Placement 4: Nguyens

 

• 2yo-2yo

• RFR: Surrender due to conflicts with other children. 

• Notes: Continued erratic behavior.

 

 

Once again, terrible twos. As sweet as Sarah always was, even she was a little menace at that age. 

 

Placement 5: Hawkins 

 

• 2yo-4yo 

• RFR: Removed due to substantiated claims of physical abuse (bruises on sides, back, stomach, and arms as well as broken bones).

• Notes: Ellie acting extremely skittish, afraid of adults, and attempting to hide from others.

 

 

He has to take deep breaths to manage his rage. 

 

Placement 6: Palmers 

4yo-4yo 

RFR: Surrender due to antisocial behavior and failure to bond.

Notes: Ellie hid under her bed most of the time and refused to play or spend quality time.

 

She was abused. She was abused, of course she acted odd. 

 

Placement 7: Robinsons 

 

• 4yo-5yo 

• RFR: Surrender due to uncontrollable behavior.

• Notes: Displayed difficulty with discipline and lashed out. Final straw was throwing things at her foster father. 

 

 

He doubts that was unprovoked. 

 

Placement 8: Garcias 

 

• 5yo-7yo 

• RFR: Surrender due to family adopting another child.

• Notes: Formed extremely strong bonds with family and, upon being removed, had a meltdown including screaming and refusal to let go of foster mother. 

 

 

Jesus Christ. They let her get attached, then threw her away for some other kid? He scrubs at his face, calluses catching on his beard. Fuck them.

 

Placement 9: Johnsons 

 

• 7yo-7yo 

• RFR: Removal due to foster father's misconduct.

• Notes: Began exhibiting strange behaviors, such as insistence on carrying a weapon, hoarding food, self-harming behaviors when distressed, and extreme distrust of male authority figures.

 

 

Joel wants to break something. The ‘misconduct’ better not be what he thinks it was.

 

Placement 10: Meyers 

 

• 7yo-7yo 

• RFR: Surrender due to uncontrollable behavior.

• Notes: When Ellie’s food hoard was thrown away, she became violent and attempted to inflict bodily harm.

 

 

He exhales. It was her food and security. They shouldn't have tossed either it or her. 

 

Placement 11: Michaels 

 

• 8yo-8yo 

• RFR: Surrender due to inability to cope with Ellie’s special needs.

• Notes: Family was uncomfortable with neurodivergence.

 

 

'Uncomfortable?' The fuck? 

 

Placement 12: Jones

 

• 8yo-9yo

• RFR: Surrender due to household conflict.

• Notes: Ellie and the Jones’ dog didn’t get along. Found on the streets. Claims she ran away.

 

 

They’re not fuckin’ serious. They kicked a little girl onto the street because she didn’t get along with their dog?

 

Placement 13: Rosenberg 

 

• 9yo-10yo 

• RFR: Removed due to foster's passing.

• Notes: Behavior improved dramatically and she formed a strong attachment to the parent in the home before foster mother was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and died due to terminal illness. Ellie became more aggressive and withdrawn upon re-entry into foster system.

 

Placement 14: Bloom 

 

• 10yo-10yo 

• RFR: Removed/surrender due to physical abuse.

• Notes: Family attempted to surrender as a case of behavioral issues, but teachers filed physical abuse claims as well. When pressed, Ellie admitted to being struck for behavior.

 

 

He looks up at the bed, chest too tight. She’s shifted, wriggling around in the blanket to get comfortable. Her ponytail is coming loose, and she mumbles something as she buries her face in the pillow.

 

Joel feels plain sad at her file, but he still smiles a little at the sight. He does have a twinge of anxiety at how she’s laying, though (remnants of once staying up all night to watch his baby so she wouldn’t roll over or get SIDS), so he gets up, walks over, and carefully turns her head to the side, just to make sure she doesn’t smother herself.

 

He looks down at her. She doesn’t even look thirteen.

 

Joel pulls the blanket higher before going back and sitting down.

 

The rest of the placements are much the same. After the Blooms, in the last three years, there are nine surrenders thanks to her ‘behavioral issues’ (reportedly becoming aggressive towards other kids, running away, continuing to hoard food and supplies, shoplifting, getting into fights, all the things that, to Joel, say ‘scared’ instead of ‘troubled’) and six removals because of abuse or neglect. The longest lasted six months and the shortest lasted three days.

 

It’s heartbreaking. He has to fight back the urge to either hug her or beat the shit out of someone as he reads to the bottom.

 

Placement 29: Hope Harbor Group Home

 

• 13yo-

• RFR: N/A

• Notes: Exhibits troubled behavior, including continued stealing, aggression, and hoarding. Symptoms of PTSD and survivor’s guilt after mall incident. Has run away four times and gotten into several fights.

 

 

He really needs to know what the mall incident is.

 

Joel scrolls past Ellie’s (horrifically long) medical history and gets to the incident reports.

 

Fights in school… running away… stealing…

 

Here.

 

Incident report - Southview Mall

Ellie and friend Riley Abel broke into the mall where Riley had reportedly been living for several weeks. The noise alerted a security guard, who called the police. One officer began firing when he believed Riley was reaching for a weapon. Riley was killed. When Ellie refused to step away from the body with her hands up, she was shot as well. Ellie was in the ICU for a week and had reconstructive surgery on her arm where the bullet hit. She testified in court - he was found to be not guilty on the counts of murder in the third degree, assault and battery, and police brutality, as it was believed to be racially motivated.

 

Joel sees that there’s more in the file - psychological evaluations, school transcripts, reports from foster parents and social workers and God knows what else, but he closes it, putting his head in his hands.

 

She’s a damn baby and she’s gone through so much, Jesus Christ.

 

But God knows he’s not gonna do that. He’s not gonna abuse or neglect her or surrender her for some bullshit reason.

 

He can promise that.

 

Joel looks at his phone again, unlocking it and going to his messages.

 

You: Still want her. - Joel

(617)385-4429: Good luck.

 

He looks again at the schedule - apartment showing and potential signing tomorrow, the foster meeting, the virtual trainings he’ll do ten hours of a week, the projected timeline for the school repairs, when spring break is - and opens up the big group chat of Frank, Bill, and Tess.

 

You: It looks like I’ll be back in Texas with Ellie in April. - Joel

 

People are immediately texting back despite the fact that it’s - Joel checks the time - 11:19 at night.

 

Frank: Yay! Let us know the date, we’ll throw a little party. I’m excited to meet her! :)

 

God, that’s just like him. Throwing a party to welcome a stranger. He’s always so eager to meet new people.

 

Bill: Party??? Why are we throwing a party??

Frank: Because Joel is becoming a dad, William, that is an occasion

 

Joel flinches slightly at the word.

 

You: I didn’t say I was becoming a dad, I said I was taking her in. - Joel

Tess: If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, etc, etc

Bill: The party should be at Joel’s house then if it’s his celebration

Frank: It’s going to be at OUR house because WE are welcoming Ellie

Frank: If you have a problem, talk to me. You’re lying next to me in bed. You absolutely do not need to be bringing this into the group chat.

 

He can practically see it - Bill laying in bed texting and listening to music while Frank slowly loses his mind. It makes him chuckle slightly.

 

Frank: You have to tell us more about her! Do you have any pictures?

You: No, sorry. Can tell you that she’s funny, though. She likes science and is very sarcastic. - Joel

 

There’s a whole lot more to her than that, but he’s not going to chatter about this over text. Hell, he might just throw Frank at her and see how quickly they become friends.

 

(Ellie and Bill might set the world on fire if they interact, but whatever, he’ll deal with that later.)

 

Tess texts him, but it’s not in the group chat.

 

Tess: She with you?

 

Joel looks up at the bed again. She’s still drooling.

 

You: Yeah. - Joel

 

Tess: Can you take a picture of her and send it to me?

You: Why?? - Joel

Tess: I just want to see what she looks like.

 

Absolutely not.

 

You: She’s asleep. I’m not taking a picture of her. - Joel

Tess: Probably a good move.

 

He hesitates.

 

You: I’ll try to talk her into a video call tomorrow? - Joel

Tess: How old is she again?

 

Oh. She’s probably trying to see how bad her reaction is going to be.

 

Charlie died when he was seven because he was epileptic and had a seizure at school - teacher didn’t know what to do, laid him on his back, he choked to death. Thus, Tess now hates anything to do with schools and freaks out when around elementary-school-aged kids or when kids look like him.

 

You: Thirteen. She’s young but doesn’t look like she’s in elementary school. - Joel

Tess: Thanks.

Tess: You doing okay? If I was trying to take in a little boy Charlie’s age, I wouldn’t be able to cope.

 

He sighs, trying to figure out how to explain it.

 

You: I don’t know. She’s waking up the parent part of my brain, and it’s somehow breaking me and fixing me at the same time if that makes sense? - Joel

You: I feel more scared than I was. Like I’m gonna screw something up and she’s going to get hurt just like Sarah did. - Joel

Tess: Once again, Joel, you didn’t do anything wrong with her. You didn’t know that there would be a school shooting. The odds of that were ridiculous.

You: She was still on life support, Tess. If I had just gotten home when I said I would’ve been able to at least say goodbye. - Joel

 

He has to wipe his eyes.

 

Tess: Does Ellie know about Sarah?

You: No. - Joel

Tess: She’s going to be living in your house, Joel. Sarah’s room is upstairs.

You: I’ll keep her from going up there. Besides, I have a few months before I go back, so I can tell her sometime before then. - Joel

Tess: You’re not going to tell her, are you.

You: No. - Joel

Tess: Joel. You have to tell her.

 

He scrubs at his eyes and turns off his phone. He’ll talk to Tess in the morning. Try to get Ellie to meet her.

 

He double-checks. Apartment showing at noon.

 

It’s a Sunday. Joel can put Tommy on handling the job site, he can take Ellie to go get lunch, call Tess, and check out the apartment.

 

Yeah, everythin’s fine.

 

(Even if it’s not.)

Notes:

Joel's so overprotective of this kid and he's known her for two days lmao

Chapter 8: In Which There Is An Apartment

Notes:

Here you go!!! I know I say this a lot, but I hope you enjoy - I pour my heart and soul into these silly little projects and few things bring me as much joy as when I know someone actually likes it <3

Ellie wakes up to someone shaking her.

 

Her first thought is Riley, but then she remembers that she’s dead. Not her foster parents…

 

She grabs blindly for her knife, and the light pressure on the shoulder is gone as she whips around, brandishing it.

 

“Mornin’ to you, too.” Joel grumbles, stepping away from the bed.

 

Ellie’s chest heaves as she tries to catch up on both her breath and her situation.

 

“What time is it?” she ends up asking.

 

“Ten. Let you sleep in a bit.” Joel says.

 

She blinks, then scowls. “If it’s the weekend and you’re letting me sleep in, why did you wake me up?”

 

“‘Cause we got sh- stuff to do.” Joel says.

 

Ellie tries not to roll her eyes at his attempt to not swear. “Like what?”

 

“We’re goin’ to lunch, gon’ look at at an apartment, then call my friend.” Joel says.

 

Ellie blinks again, processing the rapid-fire rapid-fire itinerary. “An apartment? Why the fuck do you need an apartment?”

 

Joel shrugs. “Need somewhere to stay while we finish the school.”

 

“You have a motel.”

 

He gives her a look. “Not livin’ in a dump if you’re taggin’ along.”

 

Ellie doesn’t know what exactly to say to that, so she just flops back over and covers herself up.

 

“Get up. We’re not leavin’ with you lookin’ like you crawled out of a dumpster.” Joel says, crossing his arms. “And don’t take forever. We gotta be gone by eleven.”

 

Ellie groans, covering her head with the blanket. “But it’s the weekend.”

 

“I’m not draggin’ you around while you’re half-asleep. Move it.” Joel says, yanking the blanket off.

 

She yelps in protest, glaring at him as she puts her feet on the ground. “I hate you. Happy?”

 

He rolls his eyes. “Thrilled. You got ten minutes to get dressed and get ready before I start bangin’ on the door.”

 

She sticks her tongue out at him (very maturely, might she add), grabs her backpack, and goes into the bathroom, locking the door right as she thinks she hears Joel mutter ‘smartass teenagers.’

 

By the time her hair is wet from a shower and in a ponytail and she’s dressed in a hoodie and jeans, it’s ten-thirty, but Joel doesn’t comment, just going out to the car with Ellie close behind.

 

-

 

They go out to an actual restaurant, not a diner this time.

 

Ellie regrets it as soon as they walk in.

 

“Hi there! Just the two of you for father-daughter brunch?” the lady at the stand-reception-thingy asks.

 

Ellie can feel both of them cringe, and she says ‘he’s not my dad’ at the same time Joel says ‘I’m not her dad.’

 

The waitress looks confused for a second before going back to being cheerful. “Right! My mistake. Table for two?”

 

“Yes.” Joel says.

 

They follow her to a booth, and as soon as Ellie gets the menu and sees something called the ‘Pancake Carnivore,’ she’s all fuckin’ in.

 

After a second, she sets it down and looks at Joel. “So what are we doing?”

 

He sets his own down and sighs. “Already told you.”

 

“Yeah, yeah. But, like- that’s for today. You didn’t tell me jack-shit about your plan to, y’know, foster me on a full fuckin’ whim.”

 

“Told you that too.”

 

“One more time?”

 

Joel takes a deep breath. “I’m gon’ be licensed in Boston within a week or two, an’ then I can officially be your guardian. You’re still secretly stayin’ with me until then, though. Anyway, it’s gon’ take me longer to get licensed in Texas, but that’s alright. Still gotta finish the construction job and the school year.”

 

“So you’re really moving me to Texas.” Ellie deadpans, head too full of conflicting thoughts.

 

Joel stops talking, going quiet for a second. “You alright with that?”

 

Ellie thinks for a minute.

 

She grew up in Boston. It’s where she had Riley and the occasional other friend and some of her favorite foster parents.

 

But she hates school. She hates group homes. She hates living on the streets. She hates living in a house and town and life that’s breaking apart because of Riley’s ghost.

 

“Yeah, it’ll be fine.” Ellie says. “I’m cool with it if you are.”

 

He sighs. “We’ll see, punk.”

 

-

 

After they’ve eaten (Joel was horrified-slash-in-awe of Ellie’s ability to eat fast) and going out of the restaurant, they’re about to walk to the rental car when Ellie realizes where in Boston they are and, on impulse, starts walking away from it.

 

“Ellie!” Joel scowls, immediately rerouting and following her.

 

One, she thinks the fact he’s so fast to start trailing after her is hilarious, and two, she has an idea.

 

“You gotta trust me on this one, old man! I’m a Boston native!” she grins over her shoulder at him.

 

He looks tired of her shit, but when he checks his watch and decides they have enough time, he follows her.

 

-

 

As soon as they’re inside the bookshop, Ellie’s in her element, making a beeline for that sweet spot where the sci-fi shelf is on one side, the fantasy shelf is on the other, Savage Starlight is on one of the endcaps, and there are two beanbag chairs between them.

 

Fuckin’ heaven.

 

She and Riley used to come here sometimes when they skipped class and had enough time and willingness to walk the twenty blocks from the school to get here. They’d read and Riley would chuck books at her when she got too loud and-

 

Ellie reaches up and traces ‘R.A E.W’ on the underside of one of the shelves. Riley’d stolen her knife and carved her initials into the shelf when nobody was looking. When Ellie found them on the next visit, she added her own at their side.

 

It hurts more than she thought to see her handwriting again, even if it’s messy from writing with a knife.

 

“You alright?” Joel asks from where he’s standing just outside the little aisle, a book in his hand.

 

“Yeah.” Ellie says, grabbing a book off the shelf below and clearing her throat. “I’m fuckin’ great, dude, how about you?”

 

“Good readin’ choice.” Joel says.

 

When Ellie looks down, she realizes it’s the full Michael Crichton Jurassic Park collection, bound in white leather and with one of those fancy red ribbons hanging out the bottom.

 

“Yeah, Michael Crichton is pretty awesome.” she says. “I like his mysteries, too.”

 

Joel gets quiet before he snaps the book he’s holding shut. “You want it?”

 

She gives him a startled look, trying to process.

 

He doesn’t need to. He really shouldn’t be-

 

“C’mon. We gotta get back.” Joel dismisses, putting his book back. “Bring the book.”

 

-

 

Joel and Ellie are parked in the car, Ellie’s new book in her lap, as Joel goes to unlock his phone and call Tess before they have to go see the apartment in fifteen minutes.

 

“Dude, why’s your phone basic?” Ellie asks as soon as she sees it.

 

“What do you mean?” he asks after a second.

 

“Your lockscreen’s factory settings? What’s your password, ‘password?’” Ellie jokes.

 

He rolls his eyes. “It’s not ‘password,’ smartass.” 

 

“Then what is it?”

 

“None of your business.” he sighs, unlocking it. He turns the phone away so she can’t see.

 

“Oh, you’re no fun.” she complains. “Wait, your homescreen is basic too?”

 

He rolls his eyes again.

 

“Dude.”

 

“It’s just a phone.”

 

“Give me it.” Ellie says, holding out her hand.

 

He gives her the dirtiest look. “Hell no.”

 

“I’m gonna make it something you’ll like!” Ellie protests. “I’m not gonna poke around, I swear! You can watch me do it!”

 

“How generous.” he says, one eyebrow raised.

 

“Come on, Joel, live a little!” she grins. “You’re not seriously gonna run around with the same setup as a middle-aged teacher who doesn’t know how to hook up the projector, are you?”

 

“I don’t know how to hook up a projector.” Joel says exasperatedly, but he’s starting to smile a little, so Ellie thinks she’s winning.

 

“God, you’re so old!” she moans, making a ‘gimme’ gesture with her hand. “Come on, dude! Please? What do you have to lose?”

 

“My patience.”

 

“That was gone the moment you met me, so gimme.”

 

He glares at her, but after a minute, he hands her his phone. “Don’t drop it down the side of the seat.”

 

She grins at him and holds it over the crack.

 

“Ellie.” he says warningly.

 

She laughs, pulling it in and immediately laughing harder at seeing it.

 

“Where are your folders?!” she laughs.

 

“I have a system.”

 

“How?! You have- you have eleven different windows!”

 

“And?”

 

“Oh my God, I’m organizing your phone.” Ellie says, immediately dragging the message, phone, and contact apps together to make a new folder.

 

“Ooh, what should I name it…” she mumbles.

 

She names it ‘Old Man Hotline.’

 

“I’m forty-”

 

“-three, I know!” Ellie grins. “Still old!”

 

“Change it.”

 

“Do it yourself.”

 

Joel sighs heavily. “I better be a goddamn saint when I die.”

 

She grins again, making more folders and moving stuff into them.

 

“Why do you have four weather apps?” she asks, frowning before looking back up at him.

 

He’s rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Because they get auto-downloaded when it updates.”

 

“Delete.” Ellie says, getting rid of three and immediately going on the prowl for more to get rid of.

 

“Ellie!”

 

“Relax, just duplicates! If there’s any that I’m not sure about, I’ll ask.”

 

Joel looks like he’s about to smack his head into the steering wheel, so Ellie caves.

 

“Okay, what can I absolutely not delete?” Ellie asks.

 

He rolls his eyes. “Nothin’ to do with bankin’. Anythin’ that sounds like work or communication.”

 

“Okay, got it.” she says, going back to it. “You- why do you have two Solitaires?”

 

He doesn’t answer.

 

“Delete.” she shrugs, getting rid of one and moving on.

 

Work becomes ‘Boring Stuff’ and has almost three slides of stuff about carpentry and time management and sub-contractors (she has to ask Joel what half of them are), all of the Google stuff like the search and sheets and docs and gmail and everything becomes ‘☝️🤓,’ his games go into ‘Grandpa Games,’ his banking stuff goes into ‘$$$,’ etc, etc, etc. In the end, he has half a page of folders.

 

“Why do you have a farming app? Do you even have a garden?” Ellie judges when she gets down to one more page of unorganized apps.

 

He sighs. “Was thinkin’ about it.”

 

“Was thinkin’ about it.” Ellie mimics. “Delete.”

 

Joel sighs again, then looks over at her.

 

“What are you downloadin’?” he asks.

 

“Animal Crossing.”

 

“That like Frogger?”

 

“Oh my God.” she sighs. “Look, Joel, you gotta trust me on this, Animal Crossing is top-tier.”

 

She adds it to ‘Grandpa Games,’ and after three more apps, it’s done.

 

“Now we just need backgrounds.” Ellie grins, going to his photos.

 

He side-eyes her but doesn’t stop her as she goes into his gallery.

 

It’s boring as hell, honestly. Pictures of receipts and wood planks and a bunch of buildings and half-built rooms. There are occasionally pictures of Tommy, one of him mid-sneeze that makes Ellie laugh…

 

There’s one of a woman around Joel’s age with long brown hair, wearing a long-sleeve red shirt and holding a mug as she reads a book in an armchair. She clearly doesn’t know her picture’s being taken, looking more focused on the book than anything else as her hair falls over her face out of her ponytail.

 

“Who’s that?” Ellie asks.

 

Joel practically scrambles for the phone. “Ellie-”

 

“Who?” Ellie repeats.

 

Joel throws it into the console. “Uh- that’s Tess. Friend you’re gon’ meet.”

 

Oh, I see what’s going on here.

 

“Is she your girlfriend?” Ellie asks with a mischievous smile.

 

“No.” Joel says. “Absolutely not. We’re friends.”

 

“Do you… want her to be your girlfriend?” Ellie grins.

 

Joel shoots her a withering glare. “Ellie, drop it.”

 

“OOOHH!”

 

“Quit it!” Joel says, clearly trying not to laugh.

 

He’s turning red. Ohohohohoho-

 

“You have a cruuuush-”

 

“We’ve been friends for ten years, Ellie.” Joel says, glaring at her. “She was over at my house, light was comin’ in, it looked like it would make a good picture, I took the picture. Simple.”

 

She grins. “Is that why you’re blushing?”

 

Joel rolls his eyes. “I ain’t blushin’.”

 

“Suuure.” Ellie says. Joel unlocks the phone again and starts muttering as he goes around trying to refamiliarize himself.

 

“Can I still change your wallpaper?” she asks after a minute.

 

Joel sighs. “Fine.”

 

He hands her the phone, and Ellie quickly makes that picture of Tess his homescreen.

 

“She looks really nice in this.” she says quietly.

 

Joel sighs again, starting the car but not pulling out yet. “Yeah.”

 

Ellie leans her head against the seat, putting his phone in the console. She’ll find him a lockscreen later.

 

Joel looks at his phone and scowls. “Tess got an emergency shift. We gotta reschedule.”

 

“‘Kay.” Ellie says.

 

It’s quiet for a minute, just country music on the radio on the lowest volume as they pull into the street.

 

“Why haven’t you asked her on a date?” Ellie asks. “It’s obvious you like her.”

 

“That’s enough.” Joel sighs. “C’mon, let’s just check out the apartment.”

 

-

 

As soon as they're inside, Ellie thinks it looks too white. The walls are shiny white, the floors are white tile, the kitchen is all white - whole place looks fuckin' blank.

 

“Least it’s clean.” Joel mutters, immediately starting to open doors and look in closets.

 

Two-bedroom-one-bathroom-three-month-furnished-rental-apartment. That’s what Joel said over breakfast.

 

It feels like a hospital. Ellie hates hospitals.

 

“Dude, this place sucks.” she complains. “I like the motel better.”

 

He sighs. “Three blocks from the school and a lot more room. That’s better.”

 

“It doesn’t have personality. Or mystery stains.”

 

“It has two mattresses, which is more than our current situation.” Joel corrects. “And a lack of mystery stains is good.”

 

It’s quiet for a minute as Ellie starts poking around. The bedrooms are about the same size - small, but enough for the bed, nightstand, and dresser currently squeezed into each.

 

She whips around when she hears Joel walking up, and she steps out of the way so he can see.

 

He pokes his head in, looking around for a second.

 

“‘S alright. We’ll get you posters and a new blanket or some sh- stuff.” Joel dismisses, looking in the other bedroom. “Gotta go shoppin’ anyway.”

 

“Why, gonna make yourself look pretty?” Ellie snarks with a grin.

 

He gives her a side-eye. “You got a single backpack of stuff. Gotta have at least some more clothes so we ain’t doin’ laundry every few days.”

 

“I can do my own laundry.” Ellie mumbles. “Wait, when are we gonna do that? The clothes-and-posters thing?”

 

“After school.” Joel tells her. “Is a Monday tomorrow.”

 

She groans. “Can’t I skip?”

 

“Absolutely fuckin’ not.” Joel sighs. “You’re lucky I’m not draggin’ you there even though it’s the weekend.”

 

She sticks her tongue out at him, and he rolls his eyes with a mutter of ‘mature’ before wandering off again.

 

Ellie goes into what’s supposed to be her room and looks around.

 

She doesn’t know what the hell to think.

 

After twenty-nine placements, she knows better than to think any of them are going to be different. They all leave or things go south.

 

But- fuck, Joel’s not doing the soft-and-coddling routine that all of them do. He’s making it clear that he cares by buying her a book and offering her clothes and such and meeting his (girl)friend and even moving into a fucking apartment so they’ll have enough room, but he’s sure as hell not trying to coddle her, calling her bullshit right back out and acting like a distant goddamn brick wall.

 

If Ellie’s being honest, Joel and his brother are the only men she’s felt fully safe with in a long time.

 

And when she knows she’s gonna get tossed out like trash, feeling safe with someone, feeling affection for someone - that’s gonna make it hurt so much worse.

Chapter 9: In Which There Is Tetris

Notes:

:)

That night in the motel is quiet. The new Star Wars movies are on the TNT marathon now, so Ellie’s watching them, munching on some pizza while Joel works on his computer.

 

“Hey.” she says around halfway through the movie, bored of him ignoring her commentary. “Joel. Whatcha doin’?”

 

He doesn’t look up. “Tetris.”

 

“You’re playing Tetris instead of watching Star Wars.” Ellie says disbelievingly. He grunts a yes.

 

She flops back with a grin, shoving more pizza in her mouth. “That’s so boring.”

 

“Mouth closed.” he scolds, once again without looking at her.

 

She almost chews obnoxiously loudly on purpose before she decides she doesn’t want to leave and swallows before talking.

 

“That’s such a weird game. Why are you doing that instead of watching TV?” Ellie asks.

 

He’s silent for a minute, engrossed in the game, before he answers. “Keeps me calm. Keeps the memories out.”

 

“What memories? Did you serve in the army too? I know Tommy did.”

 

Joel sighs, still tapping away at the keyboard. “Nah, I didn’t join the army.”

 

Ellie perks up, memory piqued. “Then what memories are you trying to keep out?”

 

He slows for a minute. “None of your business.”

 

“Come on! We’re roommates now!”

 

Joel exhales slowly. “Not everythin’s for sharin’. You have your stories, I have mine, they don’t meet. Got it?”

 

Ellie shrinks a little, his tone making her regret the choice to ask.

 

Still, she’s bad at making good choices, so she starts talking again after a minute. “So is the Tetris new?”

 

“No.” he says simply.

 

Ellie groans. “Why would you choose the blocks over fuckin’ Star Wars, dude?”

 

He gives her a look, then shifts on the couch, coming to sit closer so she can see the screen. “Here. Watch.”

 

She watches as Joel effortlessly turns and places the blocks, keeping his score in the-

 

200,000??? Jesus Christ.

 

Ellie hates to admit it, but she understands as Joel continues playing. She’s quickly enthralled, watching in fascination as he places the little blocks.

 

“Whoa.” she says, blinking heavily to ward off sleep as Joel hits 300k. “You’re really good at this.”

 

“Years of practice.” he says.

 

It’s not long after starting to watch the screen that Ellie’s eyelids get even heavier and, despite her best efforts, she dozes off, hypnotized by the little blocks.

 

-

 

Joel feels petrified as the kid drools on his shoulder, fast asleep just from watching him play Tetris.

 

It’s been so long since he’s done this kind of thing that it feels strange to have a smaller human relying on him, eating breakfast with him and sassing him and falling asleep on him like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

 

He has no idea what the fuck he’s doing.

 

He slowly shuts his computer - the Tetris shut down when Ellie fell asleep and he refused to press the button for fear of waking her - and sets it aside, careful to hardly move that arm so as not to disturb her.

 

Joel makes himself take a deep breath.

 

He can’t be doing this. Less than a week after meeting the kid, he’s fostering her and planning on bringing her to Texas to move in with him. Less than a week after meeting her, he’s buying her meals and books and she’s asleep on the couch on his shoulder, and he can’t do that. He’s already really fucking attached - the thought of Ellie dropping out of his life or dying makes his chest squeeze - and that’s not a fucking option.

 

Fuck. He’s gotten himself into a bad spot. He needs to distance himself from Ellie, but fuck, he can’t abandon her like everyone else. He needs to figure out how to be what she needs while staying at a distance.

 

Joel’s bad for kids. He knows better than to be around ‘em. Because if he had just kept Sarah home from school that day or come home a few hours earlier-

 

She would’ve fallen asleep on his shoulder the exact same way Ellie is now.

 

He can’t breathe.

 

With a completely new little girl asleep on his shoulder, he cries silently into his hand, trying not to shake too hard.

 

I’m so sorry, Sarah, baby.

Notes:

Oof. Poor Joel. It's okay, man, you can have two kids lol. Anyway, if you enjoyed, please leave a comment or Kudos to fuel me or subscribe or bookmark to stay caught up! Have a good day and thanks for reading! <3

Chapter 10: In Which Ellie and Joel Skip School

Notes:

This is one of my favorites lol. I just love them. <3

The next morning, Joel’s acting weird.

 

Ellie’s only known him a week, but the nice-but-grumpy-old-guy-who-gives-a-shit profile she was confident on is just… different.

 

He’s quiet. Hardly says a word beyond grunting yes and no at her and giving her a thing of cereal for breakfast before school.

 

She doesn’t know what to think as he wordlessly nods towards the bathroom, clearly waiting for her to shower and get ready, and she doesn’t know what to think when, after she gets out, fast after years of group homes, he’s just staring out the window blankly.

 

Ellie grabs her backpack and pauses, trying to decide if she should say something or just let it go. She doesn’t exactly know Joel well, but she doesn’t think this silence is normal for him. Even when he’s quiet and she’s around, he’s still paying attention, still there. Now he’s acting like he’s not.

 

She clears her throat after a minute. “You good, dude?”

 

He doesn’t move at first, just keeps staring out the window like something insanely fascinating is on the other side. (It’s not, it’s a shitty little street outside.) “‘M fine. Thinkin’.”

 

“Thinkin’ about what?”

 

“Somethin’ that’s none of your business.” His voice isn’t harsh, exactly, but it’s firm, like there’s a new wall that got put up overnight. Ellie tries to bury that little voice in her head that screams ‘he hates you now and you’re gonna be alone forever because you screwed up just like always and nobody likes you.’

 

She frowns, stepping slightly closer. “Okay, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? You’re acting really weird. Did I do something?”

 

He still doesn’t turn to look at her. “Ain’t you, Ellie. Just didn’t sleep well.”

 

Something in his voice and posture tells her not to argue. He’s… not angry or even sad, Ellie thinks, just something bigger and quieter.

 

“Okay.” Ellie mumbles, kicking at the carpet. “We should go or something, probably.”

 

Joel finally turns around, grabbing his keys from the dresser and going out the door.

 

-

 

The drive to school is freakishly quiet. Joel drives in silence, not even tapping his fingers on the wheel, and Ellie stares out the window, trying to figure out what the hell is happening.

 

She thinks about last night. Was there something that bothered him?

 

They got pizza, that went smoothly, they didn’t argue about toppings or anything. They watched Star Wars - again, smooth. He showed her his Tetris like he was trying to share something with her - even though it feels like that door’s suddenly been slammed, that didn’t go badly, he just moved to let her watch him put the blocks. She fell asl-

 

That’s it, isn’t it? She fell asleep on him. 

 

Oh. He probably felt awkward, and she probably drooled all over him, and he probably thinks she’s clingy-

 

Ellie thinks about Number Seven. She hadn’t trusted them for a long time, hiding so they couldn’t get her and hurt her and only coming out when she couldn’t stand the hunger. After a few months of them being nothing but nice, though, she’d started trusting them, started coming out into the living room. After a while, she’d rather play with them on the carpet instead of hiding in the room that they’d put up glow-in-the-dark stars in - just for her, they’d said.

 

They started talking about adoption after a year and a half, always after they’d put Ellie to bed, and she overheard bits and pieces. She hoped. She thought maybe, maybe-

 

And then Marlene had shown up. They were adopting a different kid. Not Ellie.

 

Never her.

 

She’d been so confused. She’d thought there was a mistake, that no, they wanted her, they had to want her, and she’d screamed and cried and hugged them and wouldn’t let go, and when Marlene dragged her out to the car and strapped her into the seat even though she was fighting to go to what she thought was home. The next home, when Marlene explained why she was still sobbing, joked she probably got tossed out because she was too clingy.

 

Ellie hugs her bad arm close to her chest as they pull into the school. Is that really it? Is that why Joel’s not talking to her?

 

They park in the lot, and Ellie waits for him to yell at her.

 

He doesn’t.

 

“You got everythin’ you need? Homework, supplies, lunch money?” Joel asks, still not looking at her.

 

“Uh- yeah. Yeah, why?” Ellie stammers, caught off-guard by the sudden question.

 

“Just makin’ sure.” he says.

 

It goes quiet again, awkward and plain Bad-with-a-capital-B.

 

“I’m in the school gym if you need me.” Joel finally says. “Right there.”

 

“Right.” Ellie says slowly. “You good, dude?”

 

Joel’s hands are tight on the steering wheel, even though the car is off, and he’s clearly trying to take deep breaths. “I’m fine.”

 

She hesitates. “You sure? ‘Cause-”

 

“Go on.” he says, unlocking the car doors with the button. “‘M alright, Ellie. Just tired.”

 

Ellie doesn’t move.

 

“Don’t be late. Go on.” he repeats.

 

“Are you mad at me?” Ellie asks.

 

Joel blinks, looking over at her, really looking. His eyes are gentle and soft in a way that throws her for a fuckin’ loop. “No, Ellie, ‘course not. Why would I be mad at you?”

 

Ellie grabs her backpack from the floor. “Just thought maybe I was enough of a pain in the ass.”

 

He stares at her for a minute before his lips twitch into a shadow of a smile. “You’re a kid. Kids are supposed to be pains.”

 

That’s not what the Massachusetts foster system believes.

 

“Okay.” Ellie mumbles, fiddling with the keychain on it.

 

He looks at her for another minute - like, full-on staring, like he’s trying to remember everything about her - before opening his own door. “I’m in the gym. You need anythin’, anythin’ bad happens, go to the gym right away, alright, Ellie?”

 

What the hell is he-?

 

“Okay.” Ellie repeats instead, pretending not to be weirded out by whatever the hell he’s doing. “Sure.”

 

“I’m serious. Fire alarm-”

 

“Okay! Anything happens, I’ll go to the gym. Jeez, what’s wrong with you?”

 

He stops having that soft, worried look in his eyes, going distant again, staring at the school. “Nothin’. Get to class.”

 

Ellie obliges, going in one direction to her ELA while Joel goes in another to the gym.

 

In class, she doodles zombies in the margins of her worksheets, but she can’t stop thinking about whatever the fuck that was.

 

She feels safe around Joel.

 

In the past, she’s felt like fosters were hiding something, and she’s usually been right. But with that feeling of hiding something, there was also that little voice telling her to get the fuck out because she’s in danger, and that’s usually been right, too. They end up being violent or creepy or weird, and they hid it, and Ellie picked up on it. That simple.

 

But Joel - she feels like he’s hiding something, but she also genuinely can’t imagine him hurting her.

 

But the thing is, if he’s not sick of her or secretly planning to hurt her, that means whatever he’s hiding isn’t about her, it’s about him.

 

-

 

Joel only realizes he forgot to take his anxiety medication that morning when he’s finishing up the framing and listening obsessively for the sound of something, anything, going wrong outside in the hallways.

 

The thoughts are trying to drag him down into a panic attack, spiraling further and further down - someone’s going to break in, someone’s going to shoot, someone’s going to kill Ellie because you didn’t let her skip school and then you’ll have murdered another little girl - and it’s getting hard to breathe, hands shaking on the framing he’s pressing up as Marco gets it attached to the brick-and-concrete outer wall, when it occurs to him that he didn’t take the little white pills that keep exactly this from happening.

 

He tries to force himself to take deep breaths, even as the gaping maw of the anxiety attack beckons.

 

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

 

“Joel? You alright?” Marco asks, the drill pausing for a millisecond.

 

“‘M fine.” Joel says. His mind is flooding him with thoughts of blood, Ellie dying, Ellie bleeding out on the linoleum just like S-

 

She’s not Sarah. Sarah was ten years ago at a high school two thousand miles away. He wasn’t there. Ellie could come to the gym if a shooting started, he could protect her with his life, he could hide her and protect her and shield her and make sure that, if anyone died, it would be him, it would have to be him-

 

But if there was a shooting and she went into the hallway to go to the gym, and the gunman was in the hallway-

 

Joel presses his forehead against the framing, desperately trying to take a breath as the weight crushes his lungs, his heart alternating between stopping and racing like it’s trying to win a goddamn derby.

 

“Joel. Take a break or go home.” Marco says. “I got it.”

 

Part of him wants to protest, but the part of him that feels like any moment he’s going to hear that popping sound is eager to leave.

 

Ellie bleeding on the floor. Ellie bleeding on the floor. Sarah-

 

“I’ll be right back.” he pants.

 

Marco waves him off, putting his headphones back on, and Joel stumbles away, getting out of the gym as fast as he can.

 

-

 

Ellie’s doodling in math when the phone rings and Mr. Smith picks it up.

 

He listens to it for a minute before frowning slightly and nodding at Ellie. “Ellie, you’re getting checked out.”

 

She blanks.

 

Excuse me, what the fuck?

 

“Grab your stuff and see you tomorrow.” Mr. Smith says, sitting back down.

 

Ellie complies on autopilot, packing her backpack back up and stepping out into the hallway, going straight to the front office.

 

Joel is inside, sitting there playing on his phone. Ellie would bet money it’s some version of Tetris.

 

“What’s wrong?” Ellie asks as soon as she genuinely sees him. He looks freakishly nervous, like a hamster that got squeezed too tight. (One of her foster siblings did that at one point, and when she punched him to make him let the hamster go, she got sent back.)

 

“Nothin’. Just takin’ the rest of the day off. Figured you might want to play hooky.”

 

“‘Play hooky?’ What are you, eighty?” Ellie jokes.

 

She feels nervous - Joel looks freaked out, and he’s literally taking her out of school for no reason, what is going on - but at the same time, excitement prickles in her gut. She gets to skip school for no reason and without consequences because technically she’s allowed to leave if Joel’s okay-ing it.

 

Unless it’s a trap that he’s checking her out. He says it’s fine, that he’s giving permission, then next thing she knows, he’s mad at her because she has a late assignment and he starts shouting-

 

“Forty-three, you little-” Joel mutters, putting his phone away and pushing his hands into his pockets so hard that they might rip. “C’mon. We’re gon’ go to lunch, then get stuff for your room. You got any tests today?”

 

Ellie has to think for a minute. “...no?”

 

“Good.” Joel says, nodding to himself. “Good. Don’t want you fallin’ behind.”

 

“I skipped two grades.” Ellie jokes. “I couldn’t fall behind if I tried, dude.”

 

He gives her a look. “Alright. You got your work done so you can turn it in tomorrow?”

 

Ellie rolls her eyes. “Yeah, obviously.”

 

“Alright. Alright.” Joel says, starting to walk. “Good. Then you can just turn it in tomorrow.”

 

He’s walking too fast. He looks like he wants to run for it, and as soon as they’re out the front doors of the school, he looks back at it over his shoulder like it’s gonna fuckin’ chase him.

 

“Dude, what’s wrong with you?” she asks.

 

His mouth presses into a thin line. “Nothin’.”

 

Ellie gives him a look she hopes conveys her ‘what the fuck’ vibe as they get into the car. “You’re literally acting like a criminal, dude. Do I need to call you Walter White?”

 

He gives her a side-eye, even as his hands shake as he buckles the seatbelt. “How the hell do you know what ‘Breakin’ Bad’ is?”

 

“Don’t live under a rock.” Ellie shrugs.

 

He shakes his head, pulling the car out of the space and leaving the school behind. 

 

After a minute, he says, “What do you like, anyway?”

 

“S-”

 

“Other than Star Wars.” Joel says, shoulders slowly relaxing as they drive down the street and the school gets further away. Weird. “I know you like space. I know you like dinosaurs. I know you like Star Wars. I know you have shitty grammar and humor and a mouth that would make a sailor blush.”

 

She playfully scowls at him. “My humor is fantastic.”

 

“Right on the other counts, though.”

 

Ellie gets an idea and starts digging through her backpack.

 

“What are you doin’?” Joel asks.

 

“Proving my humor is fantastic.” Ellie says, whipping out ‘No Pun Intended.’ “What do you call an alligator in a vest?”

 

Joel doesn’t answer, just glancing between her and the road with a ‘what the fuck are you on’ look that Ellie could only dream of mastering like that.

 

“Investigator.”

 

“Lord.” Joel mutters.

 

“I can’t stand Russian nesting dolls. They’re so full of themselves.”

 

“Feel free to go to sleep.” Joel mumbles, rolling his eyes.

 

“Why couldn’t the pony sing in the choir? He was a little horse.”

 

He sighs deeply, rubbing his temple like she’s given him a migraine in twenty seconds. “Jesus Christ.”

 

Ellie grins. “C’mon, that was actually good!”

 

“No it wasn’t.”

 

“Yes, it was! What did the mermaid wear to her math class?”

 

Joel glares at her out of the corner of his eye, but a muscle in his cheek is twitching like he’s trying not to laugh.

 

“An algae-bra.”

 

Dead silence.

 

“An algae bra! Get it?”

 

He shakes his head. “Never mind. Ain’t buyin’ you shit. Just gon’ put you in a blank room as punishment.”

 

Ellie pauses. Is he-?

 

When she looks back at him, he’s smiling a little.

 

He’s joking. Okay, he’s-

 

Ellie breathes a sigh of relief, leaning back against the headrest and closing the book.

 

It’s quiet, and after a minute, Joel finally starts tapping his fingers on the steering wheel again. She might’ve only met him on Friday, but somehow, she knows that means he’s all good.

 

“You need to be nicer to dentists, you know.” Ellie says as seriously as she can.

 

Joel looks over at her quizzically.

 

“They have fillings too.”

 

Joel stares off into the distance like he’s trying not to laugh, smack his head on the wheel, or both.

 

She grins.

 

Even if she thinks Mister-I-Wake-Ellie-Up-At-Six-Thirty-To-Get-Ready-For-School is kinda crazy for pulling her from class in the middle of the day, she’s feeling way happier than she has in school in ages.

Notes:

Anyway, did you like it? Let me know! Please leave a comment or Kudos if you want to fuel me, and please subscribe or bookmark if you want to stay up-to-date! Thank you so much!

(And, before anyone can ask, Joel being allowed to check out Ellie without being her foster parent is later addressed, don't worry <3)

Chapter 11: In Which Joel & Ellie Go Shopping

Notes:

This is a long, particularly good one <3 I hope you enjoy!! <3

Trigger warning for child abuse and ICE

“Where the hell are we going in here?” Ellie asks, trailing after Joel as he walks through the mall.

 

“You see somethin’ you like, we buy it.” Joel sighs. “Already explained this in the car.”

 

“I didn’t hear you over me being the funniest fuckin’ person you’ve ever talked to.”

 

Joel shoots her an unimpressed look over his shoulder. “That so?”

 

Ellie grins, getting in front of him and walking backwards just to be annoying. “I’m the funniest person alive. You’re just too old and grouchy to admit it.”

 

“I ain’t laughed once.”

 

“You scoffed!”

 

“Ain’t the same as laughin’.”

 

“It’s close enough.”

 

Joel just shakes his head and keeps walking, and Ellie keeps having to glance over her shoulder so she doesn’t crash into someone.

 

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, girl, face forward.” Joel huffs.

 

“Make me.” Ellie says, sticking her tongue out at him.

 

“You’ll fall over.” Joel sighs.

 

He gently puts his hands on her shoulders, physically turning her around. “See? Better.”

 

Ellie, much to her embarrassment, freezes, especially when he doesn’t let go for a second.

 

She’s just not used to people touching her, okay? Before Joel patching her hands the other night, the last time anyone had touched her was when Twenty-Nine were shouting at and smacking her around, and other than fighting or taking the hits, it was the night Riley-

 

“Ellie?” Joel asks.

 

Ellie blinks hard, forcing herself back to the present, and she thinks she accidentally deleted a file or two, because she can’t think of anything to say.

 

Joel frowns, his hands lingering on her shoulders. “You alright?”

 

She shakes it off after another minute, walking again. “Got distracted.”

 

“...alright.” Joel says, following.

 

It’s quiet for a minute, Ellie still trying to figure out why she feels weird.

 

“So what’s my budget here?” Ellie asks, trying to get back into her normal groove.

 

Joel grunts. “Don’t have one.”

 

Ellie bluescreens again, stopping dead in her tracks.

 

“What do you mean I ‘don’t have one?’” she asks.

 

“It means you get whatever the hell you need.” Joel sighs. “Clothes, stuff for your room, supplies, whatever. Just get it if you need it.”

 

Ellie squints at him. “Is this a trap? I spend too much, you get mad?”

 

He looks at her like she’s an alien. “‘Course not?”

 

“You sure? I go into a store and get, like, twenty things, spend a ton of money, you’re not gonna get mad?”

 

“If I didn’t want you to spend money, I wouldn’t have brought you to a mall.” Joel sighs.

 

“Contractors can’t make enough for you to just drop a shit ton of money for no reason.” Ellie says, squinting at him suspiciously.

 

“I don’t spend a whole lot. My house is paid off, I don’t have much I like to buy, so I just buy groceries, gas, an’ I pay my utilities. Thus, I got a whole lot in savin’s. Ain’t afraid to spend a little so you’re happy.”

 

Ellie’s first thought is that it’s weird to hear ‘thus’ in a thick Southern accent, and her second is that that’s such a boring financial system.

 

She blinks. "So you're secretly rich."

 

"No, I just don't spend." Joel sighs.

 

"That's fucking stupid. You should enjoy life."

 

"I am. Pick a damn store, smartass."

 

Ellie looks around. “Uh… what am I buying?”

 

“Clothes and shit for your room.” Joel says. “We’re movin’ into the apartment on Wednesday.”

 

“Okay…” Ellie says, looking around and squinting, trying to figure out where, exactly, to go. Normally, she would just wear the same clothes as always or get more from a thrift store (who knows, maybe if they spend less on her they’ll let her stay), and the last time she was in a mall…

 

She’s not going to think about Riley. She’s not fuckin’ crying right now.

 

“Um… that one.” Ellie says, picking at random.

 

Joel doesn't question. He just follows her gaze and starts walking, Ellie trailing behind. 

 

As soon as they're inside, Ellie is immediately overwhelmed. There are racks upon racks of clothes, and everything smells like new fabric and fancy-ass detergent, and there are people and music playing, and- 

 

"Go on. Get what you need." Joel says simply, grabbing a basket. When she looks at him, he doesn't look overwhelmed, though he does keep looking at the door. 

 

Ellie's brain shorts out. "What do I need?" 

 

Joel looks at her like she's an idiot. "Clothes, Ellie." 

 

Ellie huffs. "No shit. But, like, what kind? How many? Is there, like, a list, or-?" 

 

Joel shakes his head. "Whatever you need so you aren't sleepin' in and wearin' the same two things every day." 

 

"I don't know-" Ellie huffs. "I've never shopped for this shit before, man. I don't know." 

 

He looks at her weirdly for a minute before he looks at her all soft. 

 

"Alright. You like hoodies, right?" Ellie nods. "Go grab a few." 

 

She hesitates for a minute, then makes her way over to the rack, scanning the colors and sizes. 

 

Ellie doesn't remember what size she is. 

 

She turns around to ask Joel 'hey, do you know how the fuck sizing works, but she doesn't see him. 

 

The fuck?

 

- 

 

Joel can't breathe. 

 

His heart is giving out and his lungs are failing as he stares at the pink T-shirt he happened to see when he went to look to see if he could find a shirt that has something to do with Star Wars or dinosaurs. 

 

Sarah had a different 'Halican Drops' shirt. Hers was from a concert from her thirteenth birthday that she dragged him to, and it had the tour dates on the back. 

 

But this shirt, it has the same design, same color, same everything except the back, even if it's mass-manufactured. He can hear her voice in his head, clear as day. 'Please, Dad, just this concert! It's one time, I swear! It's around my birthday, Dad, pleeeeeeeease-' 

 

He'd given in after maybe three minutes of bargaining, grumbling the whole time about the ticket prices and how it was going to be loud and the people were going to be annoying- 

 

She hadn't cared. She'd grinned the whole time, bouncing on her toes, screaming every lyric until her voice went hoarse- 

 

She'd worn that shirt the day she- 

 

Joel makes an embarrassing, choked sound, pressing his forehead against his fists, shirt in the way, as he fights to make his lungs work. 

 

"Joel!" Ellie calls. 

 

He starts, looking up, and the first thing he checks is the door, is there someone coming in- 

 

"Joel?" she repeats, her expression shifting when she sees him. "You good, dude?" 

 

He can't talk, can't breathe, because Ellie's a different kid, Ellie's a whole different little girl, but all he can think of is Sarah's body, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah- 

 

Joel leans on the clothes rack, pressing his forehead against the metal as he tries to breathe in, dropping the shirt.

 

"Are you having a heart attack or something? Should I do something?" Ellie asks, voice turning slightly frantic, and Joel shakes his head. 

 

"Ain't- ain't a heart attack-" 

 

"Should you sit down?" Ellie asks, grabbing his arm. "You should probably-" 

 

"I'm fine." Joel gasps, rubbing his chest with one hand. "I'm fine."

 

 Ellie doesn't listen, yanking at his arm until he succumbs and lets her drag him to the ground with a crackle of his knees. “Is it a panic attack like I had?”

 

Joel debates over whether or not to admit that it is before he shakes his head, but she doesn’t seem to care. “Uh- breathe in and out.”

 

“I know how to breathe, Ellie-” he gasps, rubbing his chest harder.

 

“Is that why you’re sitting here-” she says, and he can practically hear her bite back the sarcasm mid-sentence. “Do you, uh- do you need anything?”

 

There’s someone new. “Hey, is your dad okay?”

 

Joel’s entire body locks up at those words, and he glances up at the person speaking, a twenty-something wearing a nametag, clearly an employee.

 

“He’s not my dad.”

 

“I’m not her dad.”

 

Both Joel and Ellie speak at the same time.

 

The guy looks frozen.

 

“I’m fine.” Joel dismisses, still trying to breathe. In through the mouth, out through- fuck, he really needs to Google which way it goes-

 

“Yeah, he’s fine.” Ellie parrots, staring the employee down until he wanders off.

 

After another minute, Joel manages to force his breathing and heart to be relatively more normal, and even if his chest still aches and his lungs are still filled with cotton, he forces himself to his feet.

 

Ellie backs up, and she looks up at him, and Joel feels so fuckin’ guilty because her eyes are wide and her face is drawn and it’s obvious that he scared her.

 

“I’m fine.” Joel repeats, scrubbing a hand over his face and letting the scratch of his facial hair against his palms calm him down and ground him. “I’m fine, Ellie.”

 

Ellie doesn’t look convinced, crossing her arms and shifting her weight from foot to foot. “O…kay.”

 

He can’t be doing this. He’s a goddamn adult. He shouldn't be out here losing his shit in a store over a goddamn T-shirt.

 

He takes another slow breath, trying to piece his thoughts back together. “You get anythin’?”

 

“You looked like you were fuckin’ dying and you wanna know if I got any shit to buy?” Ellie says incredulously.

 

“Language.” Joel says automatically.

 

She blinks at him like telling a thirteen-year-old not to curse every other word is enough to reboot her brain.

 

They just stand there staring at each other for an uncomfortably long time, and it’s long enough that Joel thinks maybe he fucked up with this whole foster thing.

 

“Did you just say ‘language?’” Ellie ends up saying.

 

“Yeah, ‘cause you swear a whole lot for a little thing.” Joel tells her.

 

She scowls at him. “I’m not fucking little.”

 

Joel wants to tell her she’s a five-foot-nothing skinny little girl who he could probably have lifted with one hand when he was thirty, but he doesn’t, just rolling his eyes and mm-ing in response.

 

“Dude. I’m not.” she glares, but it really doesn’t make her intimidating.

 

He repeats the ‘sure, whatever’ hum before nodding at her. “What did you need? When you came lookin’ for me?”

 

“Oh. I just, uh- I didn’t know what size to get of stuff.” she says, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly. “Figured you’re all old and shit, probably knew that kind of thing.”

 

“Forty-three.” Joel sighs for the God-knows-how-many-ith time. “But yeah, I know.”

 

Ellie turns and starts walking to wherever the hell she’s going, and she keeps looking back at him like she’s worried he’ll disappear.

 

The guilt hits Joel again. He made her worry. She’s thirteen and she saw the guy she’s been spending most of her time with have a panic attack.

 

She stops next to the hoodie rack, grabbing one off of where it was laying over the other ones. It’s a plain dark red hoodie, nothing special, but when he picks it up, it’s thick.

 

Well, it’s a damn good thing that Joel likes AC at home.

 

“Hold out your arms.” Joel instructs, taking it off the hanger.

 

Ellie gives him a weird look, but does as she’s told, and Joel holds the sleeve up against her arm. Too short.

 

“Alright. Looks like you’re a medium.” he says, putting it back on the hanger and rack despite his shaking hands. “Find a medium you like, try it on. If it don’t fit, we try a small anyway.”

 

Ellie stares at him like she’s never been told any of this before, and Joel nods at her. “Go on.”

 

She hesitates, then finds one and hands it to him. He checks the size. It should fit.

 

He realizes she’s staring at the way he’s still shaking.

 

“What… uh… does that happen a lot?” Ellie asks, waving her hand vaguely. “The panic attacks or whatever? Like, do I need to be prepared for you to just randomly keel over and fucking die?”

 

It takes a minute to find a good answer, and he just stares at the hoodie in his hands while he does.

 

“I’m on anxiety medication.” Joel says after a solid bit of gathering his courage. “Forgot to take it today. It’s… throwin’ me off.”

 

“Oh.” Ellie says, grabbing another hoodie. “You should remember to take that, then.”

 

“Thanks, smartass.” Joel sighs. “Normally do, just also normally don’t eat breakfast. You’re breakin’ my bad habits.”

 

She shrinks in on herself a little bit before looking around the store. “I… don’t know what else to buy.”

 

“Pants. Shirts. Underwear. Socks.”

 

Joel looks at her beat-to-shit Converse and cringes. “Shoes.”

 

“Okay.” Ellie says, drifting back over to the T-shirts. “You gonna freak out again?”

 

Joel sighs. “No, Ellie, ain’t gon’ freak out.”

 

She squints before nodding and wandering towards the rack.

 

Joel wordlessly follows, and he just patiently waits and answers as she asks questions and piles things into the basket. He tries not to laugh at the number of space shirts she gets, or at the number of flannels.

 

After she’s gotten a satisfactory number of shirts and hoodies as well as socks and underwear (she shoves both under the pile of shirts with her face on fire, and Joel thinks of Sarah doing the same thing), Joel drags her over to the shoes.

 

“Get new ones. Gon’ see your toes soon.” Joel tells her.

 

She looks around like she’s completely lost. “...what… how do I find the size in this?”

 

Joel tries not to sigh, punch whoever invented the foster system, or both.

 

“You see that metal thing on the floor?” he says.

 

She nods.

 

“Put your foot in it, move the things so they press against your feet, then you can see what size you are.”

 

Ellie looks at him like he’s suddenly started speaking in a foreign language. For a second, he considers just going into Spanish - she might understand that more with the way she’s staring.

 

“Go on. Get.” he sighs.

 

She does, walking over with stiff legs, before staring the measuring device down like it’s going to bite her.

 

“Jesus Christ, just take off your shoe.” Joel sighs, walking over and crouching. “I’ll show you.”

 

“Or will you shoe me?” she says, bleating a little laugh.

 

He gives her a halfhearted glare, and she laughs a little harder.

 

After a second, she complies, stepping on the heel and yanking her foot out.

 

Joel gently takes hold of her ankle and lifts her foot, moving it into the thing before adjusting the metal.

 

“Six and a half.” he says, letting go. “Go get some. Everyday shoes and some sturdy ones, y’hear?”

 

She rolls her eyes but stuffs her foot back into her ratty sneaker, going over to the shelves.

 

Joel’s knees crackle as he gets up, and he groans as he tries to shake out his legs.

 

“You’re so old.” Ellie says, sticking her tongue out at him over her shoulder as she looks over the boxes.

 

He rolls his eyes before he remembers Sarah grinning back over her shoulder at him even though he forgot the pancake mix and freezes up.

 

Normally, he’d be extracting himself. Running off to drink himself stupid to drown the memories.

 

He can’t. He has to look after Ellie.

 

“Get some shoes, smartass.” he says instead of giving in to the grief living in his chest like a parasite.

 

She does, and then they get her jeans (specifically men’s, because Ellie scowled so hard at the lack of pockets Joel thought her forehead might stay that way), but when she holds them against her hips at Joel’s instruction, they’re too big, even if the length is right.

 

“C’mon, we gotta get you a belt.” Joel sighs, going to turn away. “You’re too damn skinny.”

 

Ellie doesn’t follow, and when he turns around, she looks terrified, pale and wide-eyed and shaky.

 

“I don’t wanna-” Ellie stammers, eyes wide. “I don’t wanna get hit with it. New- new ones hurt.”

 

It takes a minute to process something so vile coming from her throat, and when it does hit, Joel tastes fuckin’ blood, the thought hitting him like a brick to the head.

 

Who the fuck would look at this little girl and-

 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. No. No. No.

 

The thought makes him feel sick, the idea of hurting her in any way making him want to claw off his own skin.

 

Who would look at this little girl and hit her with a fuckin’ belt?

 

-

 

Ellie tries not to melt in embarrassment as Joel looks at her with the most disgusted expression on his face.

 

She fucked up. She should’ve kept it in her head. Now he thinks she’s weird, now he’s gonna send her back-

 

He rubs his hands over his face, taking two deep breaths, before crouching down to be eye-level, since he’s about a foot taller than her.

 

“Ellie.”

 

Oh, wow, look at how interesting my shoes are-

 

“Ellie Williams, you listen to me good, alright?” Joel says, somehow sounding even more yeehaw than usual.

 

She looks over his shoulder instead. See that door? That’s where I’d like to go without ever talking about this ever again.

 

“Ellie. Look at me.”

 

She looks in the general direction of his face, not up for eye-contact, and unlike practically every other home since Mrs. Rosenberg died, he doesn’t tell her that she has to look in his eyes to talk. He just does.

 

“Ain’t gon’ hit you. Ever.” Joel says firmly. “I ain’t a good person, but I need you to know I ain’t gon’ let anythin’ happen to you. You ain’t gon’ go hungry. You ain’t gon’ go without. And I swear to God that you ain’t gettin’ hurt, ‘specially by me. Not gon’ hit you no matter what. You could- I don’t know, you could throw shit at me, you could scream at me, you could steal shit, I still wouldn’t hit you. Not with my hand, and ‘specially not with a fuckin’ belt. Hell, I- I ain’t even gon’ yell at you if I can help it, and if I do, I’m gon’ apologize. You understand me?”

 

Ellie nods mutely.

 

“Say it back.”

 

“You ain’t ever gonna hit me or hurt me.” she mumbles.

 

“That’s right.” Joel says, still crouching in front of her. “Never. And I ain’t lettin’ anyone else as long as it’s in my power, understand?”

 

Ellie nods again.

 

“Alright.” he sighs, getting back up with a crackle of his knees. “C’mon.”

 

“We’re not getting a belt?” Ellie asks quietly.

 

“No.” Joel says firmly.

 

Ellie cringes. God, she feels stupid.

 

She just stays as still and quiet as possible as Joel puts the jeans in the basket and they check out (Joel doesn’t even flinch at the total, just handing over his card, what the fuck), as they leave the store, even only shaking her head when Joel asks if she wants to keep shopping or get something to eat.

 

It’s still dead silent as they walk out of the mall.

 

In the parking lot, Joel looks lost in thought as he shifts all the bags to one hand and holds out his other, clearly not paying attention.

 

It takes a second for her to recognize it as the classic crossing-the-street-parent-move.

 

She freezes before she can help it.

 

She can’t do this.

 

Ellie fuckin’ likes Joel. That’s the problem. She feels safe with him. She even believes him when he promises shit like ‘I’m not gonna hit you.’

 

There’s only been two homes she’s ever felt this safe with, and how did that work out? Well, one threw her out like garbage in favor of another kid, and the other just went and fucking died.

 

They were the only ones who did that crossing-the-street move.

 

She’s known Joel all of three days and she knows that if she yells at her and then sends her back, she’s gonna lose it. If he dies, she’s gonna lose it.

 

This isn’t good.

 

He blinks, then shoves his hand in his pocket, clearly realizing what he did.

 

Ellie hates that she kinda wishes she’d taken it. Just a little bit.

 

-

 

Joel can’t stop thinking about it as they drive back to the motel.

 

Jesus Christ.

 

Ellie's tiny. She's this little tiny baby and someone looked at her and decided to hit her with a belt? Look at her!

 

Joel glances over at her. She really does look like a little kid. Her cheeks are squishy enough that she still has some of that baby-faced roundness, and her limbs are all wiry, like she hasn't quite grown into herself yet. She's a kid. She's a kid, and some bastard thought it was okay to put their hands on her? To use a damn belt?

 

His brain drags him back before he can help it. Him at seven years old, trying to fight back against his drunken, pathetic excuse for a father because he went to hit Tommy, and only waking up in the ambulance.

 

Joel grips the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles turn white, the old scars that mostly stopped showing on his skin a long time ago aching.

 

"Tried to run away once, an' my dad went to hit me with a belt." Joel says before he can think about it.

 

He practically feels Ellie snap around to look at him.

 

"I was your age," Joel continues, "and he'd been usin' my mom an' Tommy an' me as punchin' bags for as long as I could remember, an' Tommy was off at summer camp, so I figured, 'Why not just go for a week? Don't be scared for one goddamn second?' Got caught tryin' to go out. My dad was so fuckin' mad I thought he was gon' kill me. Panicked when he came at me with the belt, grabbed the end, hit him back."

 

Ellie's eyes are locked on him, wide and unblinking, like she's afraid to move or breathe too loudly and make him stop talking.

 

He doesn't really know why he's telling her this. It's not something he talks about. Hell, Tommy barely remembers how their old man acted - most of which is Joel's care to keep him away from his rage - and even Tess only knows bits and pieces. But this little girl is sitting there, curled up against the door like she's trying to take up less space, and he can't stop thinking about that look of terror in the store.

 

So he keeps talking.

 

"Didn't do much." Joel says, making a turn. "I wasn't scrawny in any sense, football player an' everythin', but I was fuckin' scared to hit him back so I didn't do much. He hit me so hard I blacked out. Woke up in my bed a few hours later with my mom tryin' to get me to talk to see if I was alright."

 

It's dead silent for a second, and Joel thinks he might've crossed the line.

 

"Why didn't she save you?" Ellie finally asks after a long minute. "She's your mom, she... why didn't she get you out?"

 

Joel shrugs. "Undocumented immigrant. Chile. If she tried, he'd call ICE on her."

 

Ellie's quiet.

 

"That's fucked up." she says after a long time. "I'm sorry, man."

 

"It ain't yours to apologize for." Joel says, keeping his voice level and his eyes straight out the window even as thirty-year-old memories kick and scream for attention. "I just need you to understand that's part of the reason I'd never hurt a kid. No matter what. 'Cause I know how fuckin' scary it is."

 

Joel takes a deep breath. "I'm forty-three fuckin' years old and that man still haunts me. I still remember bein' five years old and him grabbin' me and screamin' in my face. And I need you to understand, Ellie, that even in my worst moments when I wanted to hurt someone, never have I ever even considered doin' shit like that. Let alone to-"

 

Let alone to a kid. Let alone to Sarah, despite Joel's fears as a terrified nineteen-year-old who just got handed a whole-ass human child.

 

"Let alone to a kid." he says. “Ain’t happenin’ to you. Not by me, alright?”

 

When he looks back at her, the kid’s staring at him like he’s grown two heads, eyes wide.

 

“Alright.” she says, still looking shell-shocked.

 

Joel nods awkwardly, focusing back out the window. “We can get burgers for lunch.”

 

“Th-” she sputters. “You drop this insane lore and then finish it with ‘we can get burgers for lunch’?”

 

Joel rolls his eyes. “You want burgers or not?”

Notes:

Joel is every parent ever in *drops lore* anyway, who wants food :) - my mom dropped the lore that she was married once before my dad, that her best friend growing up was murdered, and my dad casually dropped that he once worked for a mafia running a cover business in a nightclub. Why are they like this???

Anyway. Poor Ellie. Poor Joel. I love them.

If you enjoy, please leave a comment or Kudos, and if you want to stay caught up, please bookmark or subscribe! Thank you for reading and see you soon! <3

Chapter 12: In Which There Is The X-Files

Notes:

:)

Back in the motel, bellies full of burgers and fries (and a chocolate milkshake for Ellie) and clothes with the tags taken off (Joel says they have to wash them before she can wear them, which is dumb), Joel’s back on his computer while Ellie lays on the couch, flipping through the channels. He’s been acting less weird since he took the anxiety medication, but he’s still weirdly quiet.

 

Of course, he also did the most fucking insane lore drop Ellie’s heard in a long time, and that was after Ellie accidentally gave herself away, so… quiet makes a lot of sense, actually.

 

Still, it’s weird, so Ellie decides to annoy him, even if the words are sticky in her throat.

 

“We can watch Hallmark romance movies. ‘When Calls the Heart’ is on.” she says.

 

Joel freezes, then looks up at her with the weirdest expression.

 

“Or we could watch NCIS.”

 

“Ellie, do not put it on a Hallmark romance movie.”

 

Ellie grins at him as she scrolls back up to the channel. “I dunno, Joel, it might be good for your cold, dead heart…”

 

“Ellie.”

 

“You’re all manly and grumpy and cool and whatever, but I know that deep down, you want to watch a…” she squints at the description. “...a small-town baker fall in love with a city lawyer who doesn’t have time for Christmas.”

 

Joel gives her a dark look. “Ellie, I swear to God, I will unplug the TV.”

 

She laughs, pretending she’s going to put it on, and he squeezes the bridge of his nose with two fingers, closing his eyes and mumbling something that looks like ‘God help me,’ but he’s smiling a little bit, so she wins.

 

“No, okay, fine.” Ellie laughs, continuing to scroll. “You pick.”

 

He opens his eyes, watching the titles on the screen while still pinching his nose, but he perks up when he sees one. “Go back?”

 

She does.

 

“Oh, man.” Joel grins. “We’re watchin’ it.”

 

Ellie reads what it says. “‘The X-Files marathon?’”

 

“Startin’ from episode one.” Joel says, looking thrilled.

 

“The fuck is the X-Files?” Ellie asks, making a face.

 

Joel’s head snaps towards her so fast he might’ve given himself whiplash. “You ain’t ever heard of it?”

 

He looks offended, like she just kicked his dog or insulted his favorite band or something. “It’s one of the best sci-fi shows ever made. Nothin’ that came after it even came close.”

 

“Oh, so you’re one of the TV-was-better-in-my-day old guys?” Ellie teases. “Is it because the woke agenda ruined it?”

 

“The- Christ, kid, you sound like a YouTube comment section.”

 

Ellie cackles. “So it is the woke agenda.”

 

“One of the characters,” Joel sighs, “actually made a big change in gender equality. If you’re lookin’ for some bullshit show against whatever the hell the ‘woke agenda’ is, this ain’t it.”

 

“Wait, how would one of the characters-”

 

“The best FBI agent was a woman.” Joel says with absolute certainty. “Dana Scully. Smart as hell, didn’t take shit from anybody, and was even more respected than a lot of the men. She was the reason a whole lot of women went into science and law enforcement. Called it the ‘Scully Effect.’”

 

Ellie snorts. “Why do you know this?”

 

“‘Cause it’s a good fuckin’ show, an’ it’s about to start, so zip it.” Joel dismisses, throwing the blanket at her and shutting his computer.

 

Ellie takes it, wrapping herself in it so only her face is showing and sitting up next to Joel.

 

The opening scene is kinda interesting - some lady making a break for it from something the camera can’t see - before the intro plays.

 

The CGI is horrible, and the images are absolutely fucking weird, and Ellie sighs and braces herself to watch the first episode of some shitty show just to make Joel happy.

 

-

 

“Holy shit, man!” Ellie chatters, hopping around on the balls of her feet. She feels like a squirrel, her brain zipping around so fast that she couldn’t possibly sit still, clutching the blanket around her like a cape."The aliens! The cigarette man! Was it aliens?! And- and Mulder-" 

 

She continues hopping, happy-flappy-ing her hands as fast as they can go as she boings up over and over. Joel's staring at her, mouth twitching like he's trying not to smile, but she can't help it, because SCULLY- 

 

Ellie keeps hopping around, feeling like a rabbit or a kangaroo or some shit as she tries to express her excitement. "He- the- the aliens! Scully!" 

 

"I told you it's good." Joel grins. 

 

She makes an utterly undignified noise as she starts flapping harder. She fucking loves this show.

 

- 

 

Alright, look, Joel's not sure about how to handle a neurodivergent kid. Tommy has ADHD, but that's nothing compared to... well, this. 

 

He thinks whatever’s going on is a good thing, though, considering she's chattering away and grinning as wide as her face can go. Ellie's flapping her hands so fast he half expects her to take off like a damn bird, and her hopping looks like it defies the laws of physics. It's the most animated he's ever seen her, and it's... kinda cute, actually, to see her so happy. 

 

Joel isn't sure if it's weird to think that. He never had to think about whether Sarah was cute - she just was. His baby girl, who was cute from when she was one and babbling nonsense and bouncing on chubby little legs, grinning up at him gummily and grabbing at him with tiny hands that barely could wrap around two fingers, to when she was fourteen, swearing she wouldn't fall asleep and next thing he knows her head is on his thigh and she's drooling- 

 

He has to cut that thought off as it drifts to her face being half shot-off. 

 

Ellie is still yapping, still talking a mile a minute and flapping her hands, and Joel should probably tell her to calm down and sit, but he can't, she just looks so damn happy and he doesn't want to ruin it. 

 

"And- and-" Ellie gasps, still flapping top-speed. "And are th- the aliens real?" 

 

She stops hopping for a second, panting and leaning forward for a second to catch her breath, but when she looks back at the TV, where the third episode is queued and paused, she starts beaming and leaping around again, actually squeaking in happiness. 

 

Joel can't help it. He starts smiling wide, laughing despite his best efforts. 

 

It makes Ellie stop, staring at him. "What?" 

 

"Nothin'. Keep goin'." Joel chuckles. 

 

Ellie doesn’t, just looking at him with narrowed eyes, before she sighs, looking a little sad. "Hey, Joel." 

 

"Yeah?" 

 

"I have a really serious question." 

 

Joel tries to school his face. It’s probably a joke, but he doesn’t want to risk it actually being something serious.

 

"Did you know diarrhea is hereditary?"

 

It takes a second to process. "What?" 

 

"It runs in your jeans." 

 

It's a horrible pun. Truly terrible. 

 

Joel bursts out laughing, clapping a hand over his mouth to stop the sound.

 

"What did the house wear to the prom?" Ellie cackles. 

 

"Knock it off, punk-" Joel laughs so hard he feels like he's going to break a rib. God, he hasn't laughed like this in years. 

 

"Address!" 

 

Joel laughs harder. "That's so goddamn stupid."

 

 She hops closer, stopping in front of him, flapping her hands still and shifting her weight from foot to foot rhythmically and grinning, eyes squeezing with her cheeks squishing up because of how she’s smiling.

 

She's cute. God, she's cute. Just a squishy little happy baby. Joel's resolved that question. He doesn't care if it's weird to think a kid that's not his is cute, she is, and if he could, he'd scoop her up and hug her as tight as he could and squish her because she's fucking adorable.

 

He fights not to smile at her, but he does, and she smiles back before flopping down next to him, rewrapping her burrito even as her feet kick up-and-down in rhythm.

 

“Can we watch another one?” she asks. “Please?”

 

Joel checks his watch, remembers it’s broken for the thousandth time, then grabs his phone.

 

Eh. It’s four in the afternoon. They got time.

 

-

 

Ellie’s out cold by ten, cheek pressed against Joel’s shoulder as her mouth hangs open and she drools.

 

Joel doesn’t mind. He’s more impressed that she’s fully swaddled herself in the blanket, still securely bundled with only her face poking out even after shifting around in her sleep.

 

He absentmindedly tries to picture a younger Ellie. Even if she was in foster care from day one, someone had to swaddle her as a baby, and someone had to teach her to wrap herself up like that.

 

But then that makes him think of a little kid Ellie getting hit with a belt, and anything to do with that line of thinking is immediately poisoned.

 

He’ll go through her file again. There’s gotta be a picture or something in there.

 

Joel sighs, turning off episode nine. He can put it on for her after school tomorrow.

 

But speaking of tomorrow, Joel kind of needs her off the couch, considering she’s the one who’s got the lone bed.

 

He considers waking her up for a second, but quickly dismisses that idea. She looks too comfortable.

 

Instead, he shifts, trying to figure out how to move her without waking her up. It’s like trying to defuse a bomb.

 

With an ease that surprises even him, he slips an arm under her knees and the other one around her back, carefully lifting her up as slowly as he can with a crackle of his knees. She’s too light. He needs to make sure she keeps eating.

 

Joel carries her to the bed, gently laying her down and getting her head on the pillow. He considers unwrapping her to put her under the covers, but he decides not to, just taking the blanket from the bed and going back over to the couch. It takes effort not to pull the same routine he would ten years ago - brush her hair out of her face, ‘goodnight,’ linger for a moment, leave.

 

Ellie isn’t Sarah. The more time he spends with her, the easier it is to remember that. Still, something in his brain is trying to plug in the code for his old behaviors, and… well, that’s not an option.

 

Joel lays down, covering up with the blanket and putting on some nature documentary, trying to sleep for a minute before giving up and grabbing his laptop.

 

Is he going to do research? Yup. Can anybody stop him? Fucking try it.

 

He thinks for a minute before he googles ‘kid hopping hand flapping neurodivergent’. He knows she was diagnosed with the autism and ADHD when she was eight, but he doesn’t know-

 

A ton of articles load quickly, and he scrolls past the ‘sponsored’ ones (it’s bullshit) and goes to the first one below that, some article by ‘Autism Speaks.’

 

He immediately scowls.

 

‘In order to help children with autism become more normal, we’ve developed a therapy program to prevent disruptive behaviors like hand-flapping. This program is a part-time in-clinic therapy, during which children with autism are taught better behavior and how to replace their current flaws.’

 

Uh-uh. Nope. Fuck that bullshit. That sends up a ton of red flags in Joel’s brain, and he doesn’t know jack-shit about this stuff, which means it’s probably bad.

 

He scrolls down to the next article. ‘Autistic Self-Advocacy Network.’

 

Sure, Joel’s quickly embarrassed at the beginning of the article, but it does seem reliable, so he keeps reading.

 

‘If you’re reading this, you’ve likely noticed your child repeating motions such as flapping their hands, rocking back and forth, repeatedly making noises like squeaking or repeating your words back to you or mimicking sounds or accents, and started researching it. This makes you a fantastic parent or guardian, and as an autistic person, I’m glad your child has someone researching what it means instead of simply telling them to stop. 

 

These behaviors are perfectly normal for a neurodivergent child and even healthy. It’s called ‘stimming,’ short for self-stimulating behavior, and it helps children with emotional regulation and focus, allowing them to express excitement, distress, or even just to dispel energy. It’s perfectly natural, perfectly healthy, and often necessary for autistic people. It’s not something to be ‘fixed’ or stopped unless the stimming becomes self-destructive, such as biting, hitting their head, throwing themselves at things, or hitting themselves, at which point it’s best to simply redirect, comfort, or distract the child, preferably removing them from whatever caused such a negative emotion.

 

On that note, I’ve recently written an article about autistic shutdowns and meltdowns. It might help you understand your child better. Feel free to check it out!’

 

Joel does, scrolling down to the other links by this person and immediately getting overwhelmed.

 

‘Meltdowns and Shutdowns: What They Are and How to Get Through

What Is a 504 Plan?

Why Autistic Children Might Struggle in School (And How To Help)

The Double Empathy Problem: The Hyper- and Hypo-Empathy Issues in Autistics’

 

Joel sighs and starts reading the next one.

 

Looks like it’s time for a good old-fashioned rabbit hole.

Notes:

We love a neurodivergent ruler and her tired, 90s-TV-loving dad. (Also: Ellie's reaction and thoughts with the X-Files is the exact same process I had lol)

Anyway, hope you enjoyed! <3

Chapter 13: In Which There Is A Crisis

Notes:

Muahahaha >:3 enjoy

When Ellie wakes up, it’s quiet and dark.

 

She listens for a second, unnerved by the lack of the cacophony of other kids breathing, before she remembers that there aren’t any other kids, that it’s just her and Joel living in his small shitty motel room since he found her a few days ago (and promptly tried to foster her and bought her clothes and food and started secretly being nice as well as having her live with him).

 

Ellie blinks the sleep from her eyes, trying to roll over to check her phone, but-

 

She’s burrito’d?

 

Ellie looks down, and yeah, she’s completely wrapped in her blanket burrito, but she doesn’t do that in beds, she only does that on the couch, she did it last night-

 

Oh, holy shit. She’s in bed and she doesn’t remember getting there.

 

Joel carried her?

 

A giddy laugh starts to bubble up in her chest as she tries to start wriggling out. Joel fucking carried her to bed? Jesus, when was the last time somebody did that? She’s fucking thirteen, not a baby.

 

She wriggles harder, trying to kick the blanket off, but it’s tucked so tight around her that all Ellie, in all her magnificent glory, only manages a slow, awkward roll (and accompanying squawk of indignation) to the edge of the bed.

 

Alright. Alright, strategy.

 

Ellie shimmies her shoulders, managing to get it loose enough around her head that she’s able to squeeze a hand free, then uses it to unravel herself from her cocoon. She flops back once her feet are free, stretching before rolling back over to grab her phone off the nightstand.

 

Joel plugged it in. Oh, that awesome son-of-a-

 

2:13 AM, 100% battery, twenty-three notifications. She lays down, holding it in the position of death (right over her face - if she starts to fall asleep, it’s gonna fall flat on her and scare the hell out of her) and starts looking through them.

 

Three from Duolingo (despite her 319-day streak, Japanese and Russian ain’t happening). One from Candy Crush alerting her that she’s lost her leaderboard spot. Three from Canvas telling her about her missing and upcoming assignments. 16 te-

 

16 texts?

 

Ellie opens her messages, heart starting to pound.

 

Marlene the otter >:P: I saw you missed school. Is everything okay?

Marlene the otter >:P: Why did the school say you got checked out by a man who’s not your foster dad? Are you in respite care?

Marlene the otter >:P: Coming to the group home. Be there when I get there.

Marlene the otter >:P: The foster parents are saying you’re at the library but Olivia said you haven’t been there in days. Where are you? Did you run away again?

Marlene the otter >:P: Ellie, I need you to text me and tell me you’re okay.

Marlene the otter >:P: Why is the tracker on your phone off?

Marlene the otter >:P: Why have you been missing four days?! Ellie, you need to text me back RIGHT NOW.

Marlene the otter >:P: Twelve more hours without showing up at my office and I’m calling in a missing person. If you haven’t been kidnapped, you’re going to SLC Military, I swear to God.

 

#Twenty-nine: Where are you? We need you to come back. Marlene thinks you’re in danger. I don’t care what you do but I’m not letting you ruin my life.

#Twenty-nine: I kicked you out for STEALING FROM ME and I don’t deserve this. Come back NOW.

 

Bitchbag who steals my stuff: Hey it’s olivia. Told marlene you haven’t been around. Sorry!

 

Marlene the otter >:P: Ellie, text me. I can’t find your things in the house. If you ran away we can figure it out.

Marlene the otter >:P: ELLIE, TEXT ME.

 

#Twenty-nine: If you come back and tell Marlene you were just out for a little bit I’ll pay you fifty bucks.

#Twenty-nine: How about this: you come back for her scheduled checks and doctor’s appointments and you stay at school every day, I’ll give you a hundred bucks a month. That’s 11% of the foster stipend. You’re a smart girl. You know that’s a lot. Just come back. We don’t have to interact outside of that. You won’t steal from me, you won’t rat me out, we won’t hit you or try to keep you here. Deal?

 

Ellie can’t breathe, her hands starting to shake around her phone, and it does indeed fall and smack right into her face.

 

“Ow!” she squawks automatically before she remembers why, exactly, she dropped it and she forgets how to breathe again.

 

She types back a response to two of the three with shaking fingers.

 

You: dammit olivia

 

You: first of all i didnt steal shit. you promised me a hundred bucks for cleaning the whole fucking house a ton of times and then you wouldnt pay me so i took half of what i was fucking owed. second you kicked me out and literally kicked me and hit me and then told me to just live on the street for a whole fucking year so you could steal money from the government. third youre a fucking bitch and you can go fuck yourself i hope you rot. fourth i have a new place with someone who actually gives a shit about me and likes me.

 

Ellie’s frozen for a second staring at the send button before she hits it. Nothing happens even though her heart stops. Ellie doesn’t magically teleport back. Sirens don’t sound outside. Nobody starts shouting. Nothing.

 

The still-kinda-ugly bruise on her stomach hurts, and Ellie curls up on her side as her breath starts turning into pants and gasps. She’s safe. Joel’s nice and he’s not gonna smack her for mouthing off or lock the fridge because she ate too much or shove her out into the cold or threaten to call the cops even though they fucking knew that they killed Ri-

 

Ellie hates that she’s starting to shake as she fumbles for her phone again.

 

She tries to think of a million responses to Marlene but all she can think about is getting shipped off to SLC Military. She doesn’t know what to do. Ellie can’t breathe.

 

She looks over at the couch, where Joel’s asleep, computer on his stomach and hand resting on his keyboard.

 

Ellie slowly forces her legs under her even though they’ve turned to jelly, stumbling towards the couch.

 

“Joel.” Ellie gasps, shaking his shoulder. “Joel, wake up.”

 

He barely stirs, just turning his head.

 

“Joel, wake up.” she gets out, and she shakes him again, and that time he shoots awake, bolting upright and knocking the computer over.

 

“Hh- Ellie?” he says, confusion leaking into his slurred words. “Ellie, wh’ss wrong?”

 

“I’m scared.” she chokes.

 

He’s fast, looking around and sitting up straight, feet going to touch the floor. “You have a nightmare or somethin’? You alright?”

 

Ellie shakes her head, pulling up her texts with trembling hands after several tries and shoving it at him.

 

Joel takes her phone gently, clicking on the first chat, which-

 

Oh, that’s Twenty-Nine’s, no-

 

He scrolls back up and starts reading, and his jaw clenches fast, but he’s dead silent until the bottom before going back out.

 

“Who else?” Joel asks, voice gentle despite his clear rage.

 

“Marlene.” Ellie gasps. “It- it’s Marlene.”

 

Joel clicks on that one, scrolling up a bit before starting to read. He gets to the end of that one too.

 

“She’s gonna take me away-” Ellie chokes. “The- the cops, she’s- she’s gonna call the- the cops and- and send me away-”

 

Joel stands up, walking over to the bed, and Ellie shakes harder for some godforsaken reason, but he just comes back with the blanket, which he wraps around her shoulders.

 

“Ellie, I need you to take a deep breath now, alright?” Joel says gently, taking her shoulders and guiding her to sit down on the couch. “Deep breath, kid, it’s alright.”

 

Ellie can’t breathe. Her hands flap without her permission as tears well in her eyes. “It’s not, it’s not, she- it’s not-”

 

Joel crouches in front of her with a crackle of his knees. “Ellie, kid, I’m gon’ make it okay. Alright? All you need to worry ‘bout is takin’ a breath an’ watchin’ some X-Files. Gon’ put that on an’ all I want you to do is focus on whatever crazy shit Mulder’s gettin’ up to, alright?”

 

Ellie shakes her head. “It’s not-”

 

“I’m gon’ make some calls, alright? I want you to watch some TV.” Joel says, reaching out, hands hovering over her, and Ellie flinches before she can help it, but he doesn’t hit, hands just gently settling on her upper arms and rubbing up-and-down through the blanket. “Deep breaths, alright? In an’ out.”

 

Ellie shakes her head again, lip wobbling in that way she hates.

 

“You got any fun facts, huh?” Joel asks, voice all soft as he keeps rubbing her arms up-and-down. “I know you got somethin’ for me. Dinosaurs, space, a pun - I know you got somethin’.”

 

She hugs around herself, sniffling, and she realizes she still has the Band-Aids and butterfly bandages Joel put on her palms even if she lost the gauze sometime in the past few days, and that makes her start to cry for some reason.

 

“‘S alright. ‘S alright. Calm down.” Joel says, getting up with a grunt and sitting next to her, his thigh almost touching hers. He does this awkward up-and-down movement with his arm like he wants to lay it across her shoulders before patting her head gingerly one, two, three times like she’s a particularly strange cat. “Calm down.”

 

Sobs are bubbling up in her throat, and she’s desperately trying to swallow them, because she’s not gonna cry over fucking twenty-nine and Marlene, but she is anyway, and Joel is patting her head and it’s so fucking weird-

 

“I’m gon’ text Marlene real quick, alright?” Joel says after a minute. “Just let her know you’re safe an’ with me. Doubt she can do shit to take you away. I mean, I’m in the process of gettin’ the foster license, an’ they kicked a thirteen-year-old kid onto the street to commit fraud, so doubt anyone gon’ side with them over me.”

 

He mumbles for a second. Ellie’s fingers won’t stop twitching like they have a mind of their own.

 

She fumbles in her jeans pockets for her switchblade, pulling it out to fidget.

 

“No, no-” Joel says, attention snapping back to her, hands shooting out to grab it, stilling the blade. “Uh-uh.”

 

Ellie’s heart jumps into her throat when Joel’s hands are suddenly wrapped around hers, stopping the blade mid-flick, and when she registers the panic on his face-

 

“I’m fidgeting.” she says, still fighting for breath but that’s less of a focus than whatever the fuck’s going on in the grouch’s old head. “Dude, what’s wrong with you?”

 

His eyes are still wide, he still looks fucking panicked, like she just made a fucking bomb threat or something.

 

Joel slowly relaxes his grip, and she goes to flick the blade, but he quickly takes it away, fingers closing around it and yanking it away and shoving it in his pocket.

 

“Give it back!” Ellie protests, all thoughts of the panic gone as she lasers in on Joel’s instead. “Dude!”

 

“I’ll give it back in the mornin’. Second you’re feelin’ better.” Joel says firmly. “Alright?”

 

It takes a second to load why.

 

“Dude, I’m not gonna-” Ellie gestures to her arms. “I’m not gonna do anything!”

 

“I know.” Joel says, sitting back down and closing his eyes. “Humor me. You’re upset.”

 

“I just like flicking it.” Ellie insists.

 

“I know.” Joel repeats, but he still doesn’t give it back.

 

“Joel.” Her voice cracks.

 

“It’s alright. You’re gon’ get it back tomorrow. Meantime, I’m gon’ put on the X-Files. You just focus on that, an’ I’ll deal with this, alright?”

 

No, no, he’s gonna-

 

“You can proofread all my messages. Just gon’ clear up that you’re safe.” Joel says, handing her phone back. “It’s alright. Calm down. You’re just fine.”

 

“She’s gonna send me to SLC.” Ellie pants, her breathlessness returning with a vengeance. “Don’t wanna-”

 

“Nobody sendin’ you nowhere.” Joel says calmly. “Don’t worry about that.”

 

“But it’s-”

 

“Ellie.” Joel says, firm this time. “I am the grown-up. Y’hear? It ain’t for you to worry about. You ain’t gettin’ sent away. You ain’t in trouble. An’ all I want you to do is watch some TV while I handle this, alright?”

 

Ellie stares at him, breathing still wack, but something about Joel’s tone - the solid way he says ‘I am the grown-up,’ like it’s just how the world works that because he’s forty-three and she’s thirteen-almost-fourteen the world is his problem - makes her nod. “I- I read them first.”

 

“‘Course.” Joel says, getting his phone again. “Here. Lay down.”

 

And Ellie hates being treated like a baby, but she listens, pulling the blanket super crazy tight around herself and hugging herself and leaning her head against the back of the couch, alternating between looking at the TV that Joel turns on and the messages his fingers tap out.

 

He tells Marlene that she’s safe but not living there anymore, and they set up a meeting for tomorrow to prove she’s okay, and Ellie should be worried, but now that the adrenaline is gone she’s so tired that she passes out.

Notes:

Next chapter's gonna be good >:3 thank you so much for reading!!! <3

Chapter 14: In Which Ellie & Joel Skip School (Again)

Notes:

The long-awaited Marlene chapter!!!

When Ellie wakes up again, it’s to her head almost on Joel’s thigh, sprawled out on the couch, and Law & Order on instead of The X-Files.

 

When she finishes rendering, she slowly sits up, blinking hard, and when she looks over at Joel, he’s scrolling on his phone, near-silent.

 

“...good morning?” Ellie says slowly, giving him the bombastic side-eye. “Do you ever sleep?”

 

“Occasionally. When I’m feelin’ it.” Joel deadpans. “You got a school computer?”

 

“Obviously?” Ellie says, getting more confused.

 

“Gon’ need you to email your teachers an’ get your assignments. You ain’t goin’ to school today.” Joel says flatly, continuing to scroll. “We got plans.”

 

“Like what?” Ellie asks, stomach sinking. (He’s not gonna drop her off somewhere, he’s not-)

 

“In two hours, we’re meetin’ Marlene.” he tells her, not looking up. “Gon’ call an’ have you meet some of my friends. We’re movin’ into the apartment later today. An’ I might be takin’ you to a doctor.”

 

“A- huh? Why am I going to a fuckin’ doctor?” Ellie scowls. (She doesn’t like them.)

 

“‘Cause you said in your texts that they beat you up and kicked you when they kicked you out.” Joel says, still carefully cool. “An’ considerin’ you ain’t limpin’ and you don’t got any bruisin’ on your arms, I’m gon’ guess they hit you somewhere less visible. An’ considerin’ you’re a tough kid, I’m also gon’ guess whatever they did four days ago ain’t healed an’ you’re walkin’ it off.”

 

Ellie can’t help but shrink a little. “I’ve taken harder hits. And it wasn’t that bad. I'm fine.”

 

He finally looks up, and oh, damn, he looks all tired and sad. “It still hurt?”

 

Ellie shrugs, avoiding his eyes. “Not much.”

 

(That’s a lie. It does hurt, but Ellie’s good at ignoring pain.)

 

His eyes are narrowed when she looks back at her. “It hurt when you breathe?”

 

“No.”

 

“Where’s the bruise?”

 

“On my side and stomach and a little bit on my back.”

 

“What color?”

 

Ellie shrugs. “Dunno. Haven’t looked in a bit.”

 

He exhales through his nose before he gives a big sigh. “Lemme see.”

 

“No way!”

 

Joel gives her the most tired look. “Girl, I’m tryin’ to tell if I need to take you to an Urgent Care to save your scrawny ass from internal bleedin’. You know I ain’t weird. Just tryin’ to make sure you ain’t dyin’.”

 

“Well, you are kinda weird,” Ellie mutters, but she does oblige, untangling herself from the blankets and lifting up the edge of her shirt barely, just enough for him to get a glimpse of the - Ellie looks down - purple-green bruise.

 

His jaw is tense, and Ellie wonders about a Joel her age who tried to sneak out but just got beaten up so bad he got knocked out because he panicked and hit back at his dad. She wonders if she’s reminding him.

 

She lowers it after just a minute, and he takes a deep breath, eyes closing, before reaching out, moving slow like he’s giving her time to pull away. She doesn’t, though she does watch in detached curiosity.

 

“This hurt?” he asks, gently pressing his fingers into the bruise.

 

Ellie winces but shakes her head. “Only a little. Like pushing on a sore muscle.”

 

“Alright.” he sighs, taking his hand away. “Doesn’t look like you need a doctor, but you’re gon’ take it real easy an’ sleep an’ use ice packs an’ Advil if it hurts. Anythin’ hurts real bad or you’re havin’ trouble breathin’ or you’re coughin’ up blood, you tell me immediately, got it?”

 

And it’s serious and shit, yeah, yeah, but Ellie doesn’t believe in passing up opportunities.

 

“Why’s it bad if I’m coughin’ up blood? It’s only a little.” Ellie jokes, and the look on his face-

 

“I’m fuckin’ with you, man, chill out!” she cackles.

 

He gives her a dark look before hanging his head with a sigh that says ‘the world is on my shoulders’ instead of ‘there’s a really funny kid hanging out in my hotel room.’ “That ain’t funny.”

 

“It so is funny!” Ellie laughs. “It is!”

 

“You little shit, gonna kill me before I turn fifty.” Joel mutters, rubbing his temple.

 

“Do you mean fifty thousand?”

 

She laughs harder at his responding glare. “For the last fuckin’ time, I’m forty-three, and go take a shower before breakfast, you menace.”

 

Ellie sticks her tongue out at him as she goes into the bathroom, and she can just feel how badly he either wants to laugh or flip her off.

 

-

 

It’s halfway through breakfast at the diner down the street (this time, Joel made her get fruit and gave her some of his eggs as well as the pancakes and bacon that have been practically half her diet over the past four days, claiming she needed food that wouldn’t clog her arteries) that Marlene walks in.

 

Ellie doesn’t notice her for almost a minute, immersed in play-arguing with Joel over whether or not she needs real food.

 

“Fruit is just sugar water wrapped in weird skin.” Ellie argues, jabbing her fork in his general direction. “It doesn’t count as real food.”

 

“That ain’t even close to bein’ accurate.” Joel sighs as he forks hash browns into his mouth. “Eat the damn fruit, Ellie, your body gon’ shut down if all you eat is pancakes an’ bacon.”

 

“You sound like an infomercial. Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me I need to take vitamins and drink sixty-four ounces of water per day.”

 

“You do need to take vitamins and drink sixty-four ounces of water per day.”

 

“Oh yeah? And do you take vitamins and drink water?”

 

Joel glares at her. “Anxiety medication an’ coffee is close enough.”

 

“So I can just drink coffee and-”

 

“Close enough for me, not you-”

 

Neither of them notice until she’s standing over them and she clears her throat, making both of them jump, Ellie far more than Joel, who barely twitches.

 

“Ellie.” Marlene says coolly, sitting down at the table without being asked to. “Joel.”

 

“Marlene.” Joel greets in an even icier tone of voice.

 

They’re glaring at each other, and-

 

“Holy shit, do you know each other?” Ellie asks, completely thrown.

 

The tension between them is almost able to be seen in the air, like there’s some brick wall that both of them want to tear down - not in the sake of reconciliation, just to have something to hit each other with.

 

“We’ve met.” Joel says finally, not elaborating further.

 

“Many times.” Marlene adds, her eyes never leaving Joel’s face. “I’m the reason he’s here instead of in San Antonio.”

 

“You hired him specifically?” Ellie asks, somehow feeling more confused.

 

“I got the school district to specifically hire the company he runs with his brother because I’m friends with Tommy.” Marlene continues. “And Joel called in a favor for me to expedite the foster license process. However, he apparently didn’t see it fit to mention that you were already living with him.”

 

“It wasn’t relevant at the time.” Joel says, voice short and accent diminished in a way that Ellie hasn’t heard yet. “An’ I was more concerned with makin’ sure I got the damn license an’ keepin’ the kid safe.”

 

“And you didn’t think to call me?” Marlene snaps.

 

“Well, considerin’ your history with kids-”

 

“Considering yours-”

 

“Do you hate each other or something?” Ellie asks, because seriously, what the motherloving fuck-

 

“No,” Marlene says at the same time that Joel says, “We got a complicated history.”

 

They keep glaring at each other for a minute.

 

Ellie blinks at them. “Are you, like, exes?”

 

“No!”

 

“Hell no!”

 

Well, that clears literally nothing up.

 

“Okay. Well, I feel super normal and not at all like a ping-pong ball in a Cold War-level custody dispute.”

 

Joel doesn’t fucking blink. “It ain’t a custody dispute. I’m gon’ have the foster license in less than two weeks, an’ I feel like this qualifies for an emergency placement.”

 

“Why, because she ran away?” Marlene snaps.

 

“I didn’t ‘run away,’ they kicked me out and told me to be homeless for a year.” Ellie glares. “So then I went and slept at the school, and Joel showed up, found me hurt in the construction site, and started taking care of me. I didn’t run away.”

 

“Why didn’t you fuckin’ call me?”

“You were gonna send me to military school!” Ellie snaps, a little louder than she probably should be.

 

“Ellie, calm down. You’re fine.” Joel says to her, still not taking his eyes off Marlene. “Ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

 

“Do you have any idea how bad this looks for you, Joel?” Marlene asks, voice getting more and more harsh. “Thirteen-year-old girl vanishes from her foster family’s house, then she shows up four days later with a single man three times older than her with a history of violence and addiction-”

 

“That was all expunged and charges weren’t pressed, don’t you fuckin’ bring that up-”

 

“You still-”

 

“And you killed a bunch of fuckin’ kids, Marlene-”

 

Ellie’s getting whiplash. “I’m sorry, what the fuck is happening?”

 

“Joel used to be a not-great guy. I trust that he’s not gonna hurt you, but-”

 

“Oh, fuck you!” Joel snarls, and Ellie can’t help but flinch.

 

And he immediately stops, which is really fucking weird.

 

He goes from teeth bared and face twisted to almost-calm, sitting back in his chair, closing his eyes, and taking a deep breath. “Ain’t gettin’ into this with you, Marlene. Ellie, I’ll explain later.”

 

“If you take her.” Marlene says, and both Ellie and Joel tense up.

 

“I want to stay with him.” Ellie says, panic stabbing through her chest. “I don’t want to-”

 

“I ain’t trustin’ you with placin’ her considerin’ her record and thus yours.” Joel says coldly.

 

“You aren’t licensed yet.” Marlene spits.

 

“And you put her with a bunch of abusive shitheads!”

 

The waitress comes over. “Everything alright here, folks?”

 

“We’re fine.” Joel and Marlene say, words spoken at close enough times that it sounds almost-synchronized even though it’s not.

 

As soon as the waitress leaves again after loitering for a few seconds, it’s back to dead silence, Marlene and Joel having a death glare contest.

 

“I want to stay with Joel.” Ellie says, breaking it even though she feels so insanely awkward. “I’m staying with Joel.”

 

Marlene closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. “Fine. Not like I can stop you. You’d probably run away again even if I took you away.”

 

“Don’t talk to her like that.” Joel snaps.

 

Marlene ignores him, standing up and pushing the chair in. “Ellie, if you feel unsafe, text me, call me, or tell the school’s front office to call me. Having said that, I don’t think Joel will hurt you. Joel, keep your head on straight. If you screw up before she’s officially in your custody, you’re fucked.”

 

And Joel’s glaring daggers at her, and Ellie wants to tell her that she feels safer with Joel, but Marlene’s walking out before either of them can.

 

“That woman is real good at pushin’ my buttons.” Joel sighs. “Eat your damn fruit.”

 

Ellie’s still so busy recovering from that conversation that she doesn’t even pretend to fight it and obliges.

 

-

 

It’s dead silent as Joel pays the bill, dead silent as they go back to the rental car, dead silent as Joel starts driving them back over to the apartment building, Ellie trying to figure out how to ask about what Marlene said. She can’t think of a way to.

 

The suffocating quiet is only broken when they come to a stop in the parking lot. Joel turns off the car, then turns in his seat, getting his computer out from the seat pocket.

 

“Are you gonna play Tetris?” Ellie asks, watching in confusion.

 

“No. I’m gon’ check on work.” Joel sighs. “Missed the past day an’ a half, need to make sure the damn gym’s goin’ how it’s supposed to. Then you an’ me are gon’ call Tess ‘cause she's off. She got a day off today, so it’s a good time for you two to meet. An’ while I take care of work an’ set up the call, it’s your job to email your teachers.”

 

Ellie scowls. “Even the ones I don’t like?”

 

“You ain’t fallin’ behind.”

 

“I’m thirteen and in tenth grade. I’m gonna graduate when I’m two months away from turning sixteen. I can’t fall behind if I try.” Ellie complains.

 

“Don’t care if you skipped a grade or two, you still gotta try. Email ‘em.” Joel sighs.

 

“But what if they hate me?”

 

“‘Specially if they hate you. Don’t give ‘em a reason to fail you.”

 

Ellie scowls anyway, especially when she sees an email from Mr. Smith. “I want this guy to fail me.”

 

“You can’t fail a class for no reason.” Joel says.

 

“What if the reason is that he likes me and I don’t want him to? Like, he’s all, ‘oh, call me David, oh, stay after school for math tutoring, Ellie, here, sit next to me in detention,’” Ellie mimics. “And everyone hates this guy because he acts like that to everyone, but it’s so weird, and ‘cause I’m in detention half the time I get stuck with him-”

 

When Ellie looks over, Joel’s fingers are hovering over the keyboard, frozen. He’s just staring out the windshield. “Your math teacher’s askin’ you to call him by his first name?”

 

“It’s not a big deal.” Ellie immediately deflects.

 

“That sounds like a big deal.”

 

“Joel-”

 

“He do that with all the girls?”

 

Ellie gets the usual wrong little twist in her stomach that comes along with getting called a girl. “Dude-”

 

“He do anythin’ else?”

 

“Joel-”

 

His jaw is clenched tight. “What’s his full name? I can talk to the school-”

 

“Chill the fuck out, dude, Jesus!” Ellie finally fully interrupts.

 

Joel still looks pissed, but he takes a deep breath, eyes closing.

 

“He’s not, like, groping me or anything, he’s just weird. I think he’s trying to be the cool teacher. But he’s not doing anything, and if he did, I’d stab him, okay? Chill out.”

 

He takes another deep breath. “He does anythin’ that makes you feel weird or uncomfortable, you tell me, alright? Don’t care if it’s ‘embarrassin’’ or whatever, you tell me an’ I’ll take care of it.”

 

“Alright, I will. Jeez.” Ellie sighs, resuming her emails.

 

It’s quiet for a minute, Ellie copy-pasting her hey-I’m-absent-what-am-I-missing-what-do-I-need-to-do email and replacing the teacher names and class-specific stuff and Joel working in a spreadsheet (ew, boring), before he finally relaxes, shoulders less tense and hands less stiff.

 

“What you gon’ do in the future?” he asks out of nowhere.

 

Ellie blinks at the screen where her email to Mr. Chen is blinking. “Huh?”

 

“You’re graduatin’ at sixteen. You goin’ to college or somethin’? What do you want to do?” Joel asks.

 

“Haven’t thought about it.” Ellie dismisses.

 

(That’s a lie. She definitely has. Nobody’s asked.)

 

Joel makes a noise in his throat, somewhere between a hum and a grunt. “Smart kid like you? Could do pretty much anythin’.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Ellie glares at her screen, “doesn’t really matter what I want. Foster kids don’t go to college.”

 

Joel’s typing stops again. “The hell you talkin’ about?”

 

“Foster kids don’t go to college. You age out of the system and end up working at a McDonald’s or some shit.” Ellie says, gesturing vaguely.

 

Joel’s silent, and when she glances over, his face is sour again.

 

“That ain’t true,” he says after a long time. “Plenty of kids from the system go to college. Scholarships, programs-”

 

“For perfect kids.” Ellie snaps. “If you have a four-point-oh and all honors classes and you’ve never broken the rules or gotten arrested, you can go, but if you’re like me-”

 

“Alright.” Joel says, shutting his computer and turning to her. “‘Like me,’ what does that mean? ‘Cause you skipped two grades, you’re smart as hell - walk me through what you think college would want versus what you got.”

 

Ellie rolls her eyes, sending off the last email before closing her own computer and turning to him. “College wants someone who can actually pay, for one thing. I don’t have parents, so no money from them, and considering-” she gestures to herself vaguely “-I’m not getting loans. So no money even if I got in. And that’s on top of the fact that I’ve been arrested six times-”

 

“For what?” Joel asks, giving her a very strange look.

 

“Shoplifting and fights. Four shoplifting, one street fight, one time when I stabbed a guy. In my defense, he was trying to drag me into an alley and I panicked. I’ve never actually been charged or gone to juvie or shit, they just gave me back to Marlene-”

 

“That’s bein’ detained, not arrested-”

 

“-but that’s still a record. And then I’m in honors and AP classes, but I kinda don’t care, so I get more B’s than A’s, so I have, like, a 3.5 GPA, and it’s, like, four-point-something weighted, but that’s still not good enough for the foster kid programs or any good schools, especially when I’m broke and a delinquent. And I don’t have extracurriculars because I’m not staying at school any longer than I absolutely have to and I don’t want to and can’t do stuff outside of school, and besides, I don’t look like college brochure material.”

 

Ellie gasps for air when she finishes her rant. “So, like, I’ll go to a community college or some shit if anything, because Harvard isn’t exactly gonna come knocking.”

 

Joel hums. “Well, first of all, you should worry ‘bout money after you get in. Second, you still sound like you got a good GPA to me. Third, ivy leagues don’t got much special other than a name. Same curriculum as any other place.”

 

She rolls her eyes again. “It’s still not like I’m gonna get in anywhere good, ivy or not.”

 

Joel rolls his own right back at her. “Self-fulfillin’ prophecy. Don’t talk like that. Now, you ready to call Tess or not?”

 

Ellie gets a very good idea on how to mess with him.

 

“Sure!” she says.

Notes:

Next chapter's gonna be fun >:3

Anyway, thank you so much for reading! If you like this and want to fuel me, please leave a comment or Kudos, and if you want to stay up-to-date, please subscribe or bookmark! Thank you so much and see you soon!

Chapter 15: In Which There Are Raccoons, Tess, and Bank Accounts

Notes:

I love this chapter >:D

As soon as the call rings through on Joel’s phone, computers closed and in the backseat, and as soon as a woman appears on the screen, Ellie grins and says, as absolutely loud as possible, “Joel’s in love with you.”

 

He drops the phone, and Ellie’s laughing so hard that tears are in her eyes as he hisses, “Jesus Christ, Ellie!” and fumbles to pick it up, face turning red.

 

When he’s got it up and facing them again, Joel glares at Ellie. “That, uh, that ain’t true. Ellie here’s pushin’ boundaries. Sorry ‘bout that.”

 

Tess - because it’s definitely the woman in the picture - is smiling, nose crinkling slightly as she does so.

 

She looks way different than in the picture that’s now Joel’s home screen - instead of a red long-sleeve shirt with her hair in a ponytail, she’s wearing a ratty gray T-shirt with a fire department logo on it, hair loose around her face and darker circles under her eyes - but she looks very distinct, and it’s not hard to immediately know who she is.

 

“I see you’re drivin’ him up the wall.” Tess says, and her voice is deep in a way that’s very nice on Ellie’s ears. “Good to see. Someone’s gotta keep him on his toes.”

 

“I do not need the two of you gangin’ up on me, Tessa. Watch it.” Joel says, but the corners of his eyes are wrinkling and his lips are twisting like he’s trying not to smile.

 

“You absolutely do. You need someone to call you on your bullshit occasionally.”

 

Ellie beams, already deciding she likes this woman. “See? She agrees with me!”

 

“I regret this already.” Joel mutters, rubbing his temple before looking back at the screen. His eyes soften, and oh, yeah, he’s got it bad- “You sure you wanna talk today? You look tired.”

 

“The department was short-staffed. Just got off a 48-hour shift.” Tess sighs, rubbing her eye. “I’m a firefighter.”

 

“That’s awesome.” Ellie grins at the same time that Joel says “You need to go to bed.”

 

“I’ll go to bed in a few minutes, Texas.” Tess dismisses with a roll of her hazel eyes. “Wanted to check in first. Considering you’ve been blowing me off.”

 

“You’ve been asleep or on duty every time I’ve tried to call you, and we’ve been busy.” Joel says. “Speakin’ of, everythin’ okay? You normally don’t take 48-hours.”

 

“Everything’s fine. Half the firehouse is down for the count with COVID, so I’ve been doing… a 96-hour week? Probably going to do the same thing for another six weeks while the house hits the dust-”

 

“Tess, that ain’t healthy-”

 

“But they’re going to give me triple pay for each hour over forty-eight and I’m getting seven weeks off with pay after.” Tess interrupts. “And you don’t get to talk, Joel ‘I-Work-Sixteen-Hour-Days’ Miller.”

 

“That’s different.”

 

“You’re not saving lives and you work more than me, Texas.”

 

“I have questions.” Ellie interrupts, raising her hand. “One, why do you call him Texas if you’re from Texas, and two, what’s the craziest fire you’ve fought? Was there arson?”

 

Joel sighs like they’re personally ending him, but Tess smiles. “I’m actually from Detroit, but I moved to Texas ‘bout ten years ago. Meanwhile, Joel’s lived there his entire life and is so unbelievably Texan that it’s painful, so he’s ‘Texas.’ I’ve responded to a few arson calls, but for the most part, we do EMT stuff. Basically, we get more calls about some idiot getting his head stuck in a cement mixer than we do about something catching on fire.”

 

“Oh my God, did someone get their head stuck in a cement mixer?!” Ellie asks, practically bouncing in excitement.

 

“Weirdly enough, that’s a pretty common call. People get stuck in cement a lot. Another common one is allergic reactions. My favorite was a guy who used eight EpiPens to binge-eat peanut butter candy. We were more worried about the epinephrine excess than the allergy.”

 

“Eight?!”

 

Joel’s chuckling, shaking his head and huffing a little through his nose on each exhale, and Tess is grinning, a slightly-sharp but warm thing. “Yup. Apparently, he used to eat peanut butter before he developed the allergy, got nostalgic, and figured he could ‘balance it out.’ We found him sitting in his car with a heart rate of two-fifty and sweating through his shirt. He looked like he was about to either keel over or transcend reality.”

 

Ellie cackles. “Oh my God! Is that the worst one? What other times have people been stupid?”

 

“Well, there was a guy who tried to put out a grease fire with vodka.”

 

“NO!”

 

“Yup. Dumbass thought alcohol would put it out faster. And there was a time someone called us because their ferret got stuck in a wall.”

 

Ellie claps before she can stop herself, grinning at the screen. Tess reaches off-camera for a can, taking a quick swig before coming back. “You’re kidding!”

 

“Wish I was. Glorified rat chewed a hole through the drywall and ran in. Took us two hours and a bag of beef jerky to lure it out. Owner was sobbing like it was her baby.”

 

“I need a ferret.” Ellie blurts.

 

“No.” Joel and Tess say at the same time.

 

Tess smiles. “You look like you’re enjoyin’ yourself.”

 

Joel shrugs. “You’re doin’ most of the talkin’.”

 

“So, Ellie.” Tess says, redirecting her attention. “Joel may seem like a responsible grouch, but he’s not. He’s just a chaotic man-child who has a long history of terrible decisions, stubbornness, and weird shit.”

 

“Watch it.” Joel sighs.

 

“He has a drawer full of broken scissor halves-”

 

“They’re useful-”

 

“-and he refuses to wear sunscreen-”

 

“I’m brown-”

 

“-and he had a feud with a raccoon.”

 

Ellie looks over at Joel, who’s currently pinching the bridge of his nose, with a shit-eating grin. “You did?”

 

“The lil’ fucker was devil spawn.” Joel grumbles.

 

“He dislocated his knee chasing it because he forgot he wasn’t twenty years old and tried to go over a seven-foot fence topped with barbed wire.”

 

Ellie cackles, and Joel grumbles something under his breath before sighing, “Damn thing had my phone.”

 

Tess says ‘tell her why it had your phone’ at the same time that Ellie starts to ask ‘how did it get your phone.’

 

Joel huffs like the world is on his shoulders. “Alarm went off an’ I threw it out the window onto the lawn.”

 

Tess starts cackling as Ellie loses her shit, shaking with laughter and her head thunking against the headrest. “YOU THREW IT?!”

 

“It was early an’ I was pissed off.” Joel mutters, glaring out the windshield like maybe if he tries hard enough, the earth will swallow him. “I didn’t know the damn thing was there. I was half-asleep, the alarm was loud, and I meant to hit the grass.”

 

It takes a second to process.

 

“Wait-”

 

“Joel beaned the raccoon in the head.” Tess grins. “He reportedly runs out in his pajamas, tries to scale the fence as the raccoon hauls ass out of there with the phone, falls, and dislocates his knee.”

 

Ellie actually howls.

 

“Got it back.” Joel sighs. “When you tell that story, you never mention that I got it back.”

 

“And that feud continued on for a year. My favorite moment was when he was trying to eat a sandwich, Ricky shows up and sits there staring at him for about ten minutes, then they start yowling at each other. The raccoon is screaming, Joel is shouting at it, Ricky ends up with the sandwich anyway.”

 

“Meatball, too.” Joel laments.

 

“‘Ricky?’” Ellie asks, grinning.

 

Joel looks up and mutters ‘Lord give me strength.’

 

“Yup. Joel named him Ricky the Raccoon.”

 

“Why did you name it?!” Ellie laughs.

 

“‘Bastard raccoon’ was too long.” they say at the same time. Then a yawn slips out of Tess, and she glances longingly at something over her shoulder. 

 

“You need to go to bed, Tessa.” Joel says, voice surprisingly gentle. “Ain’t sleepin’ enough.”

 

“I will. It… it’s just been a rough week. Wanted to see you.” Tess sighs. “Gonna take that advice and I’m gonna go to bed before I crash on the couch and kill my neck. It was nice meeting you, Ellie.”

 

“One more story before you do?” Ellie asks, already grinning. “Please?”

 

Tess thinks for a minute, chewing her lip as she stares off somewhere above the camera. “Alright, last one. Speaking of raccoons, there was one woman who thought her house was haunted and/or there was a murderer in her attic.”

 

Ellie gasps, even though the odds of the raccoon being boring are high. “Yes. Continue.”

 

“She kept hearing all these weird noises - crashing, banging, growling, people talking - and it was all from the attic. Cops kept getting called out at one in the morning, so eventually we got sent in instead. We get up there, it’s a raccoon.”

 

“That’s boring.”

 

“Wait for it. The raccoon had made a nest. But it wasn’t alone in it - the damn thing had dragged an entire Bluetooth speaker up there with it that was still connected to the lady’s phone.”

 

“No fuckin’ way!”

 

“Yup. It had been playing random TikToks from her phone at 3AM for months. The growling was because there was a horror voice filter trend thing, the scratching was the raccoon dragging it around, the people talking were videos - she nearly sold the house because of it.”

 

Ellie’s absolutely dying. “I love raccoons now.”

 

“You shouldn’t. They’re weird little bastards. Anyway - Ellie, it was nice to meet you. Joel, text me later and give Ellie my number. Goodnight.”

 

She hangs up immediately, and Joel’s still smiling and shaking his head.

 

“So, Raccoon Goblin Man, when’s the wedding?” Ellie grins. “She’s a badass, you’re both workaholics, she pulls ferrets out of drywall and you fight raccoons. Match made in heaven.”

 

He gives her such a dark look that she can’t stop cackling.

 

-

 

The rest of that day is good.

 

Ellie yaps his ear off about bird bones (apparently, they aren’t hollow but porous, and they’re porous because birds struggle to breathe when in flight because of their velocity, not to help them fly) as they move their whopping amount of stuff (a few shopping bags and a backpack for Ellie, a tool belt and duffle bag for Joel) into the apartment. Then, when Ellie’s face falls slightly upon looking into the room that has all-white furniture and looks more like a hospital room than a thirteen-year-old girl’s bedroom, Joel drags them back to a mall (and quickly changes plans when she tenses up at going into a mall at sunset - shit, that’s right, a cop shot her friend in a mall after dark) and then changes his mind and drags them to some comic store in downtown Boston, leaving Ellie there with a hundred bucks and instructions to stay there as he goes and gets blankets and groceries and basic things like pans and duct tape that you need in an apartment. (She texts him the entire time, blowing up his phone and practically livestreaming what she’s reading, and she comes back out two hours later sipping on a Capri-Sun and with two posters and three issues of ‘Savage Starlight.’)

 

Joel winds up cooking them spinach and ricotta pasta - a good dinner after a long day at school and work, Sarah practically falling asleep at the table- no, no, don’t go there - and then caving when Ellie gives him puppy eyes and going out and bringing home some cookie thing that looks like diabetes in a box from a place with a misspelled name but which earns him a massive smile. Then an episode of the X-Files, Ellie doing her homework, then him making her brush her teeth and go to bed. (She smiles when she sees the dinosaur blanket he found after cornering a store employee and (totally politely) enquiring about anything that had T-rexes on it.)

 

Around eleven, all sounds of life disappear from Ellie’s room, and Joel digs around until he finds his earbuds and starts listening to the four-way joint playlist, made by him, Tess, Bill, and Frank (pretty much all country and old rock, though Joel does get jumpscared regularly by ‘Cotton-Eye Joe’ when listening to it, added as a joke sometime in 2017.)

 

And then around two in the morning, Joel switches over from his work spreadsheet and work orders and bills to a calculator.

 

He can’t stop thinking about it. How Ellie dismissed going to college, how she just acted like her future was gone even though she was thirteen years old, in tenth grade, and knows everything there is to know about science.

 

How she’d just given up because she was a foster kid and broke.

 

When Sarah was born, he started a college fund. He didn’t exactly put in much, just saved about two hundred fifty bucks a month in a 529 instead of in a retirement account and putting away a thousand from what his mama left him when she passed, and… well, obviously, it was never used, his girl killed in ninth grade.

 

He quickly does the math. One thousand dollars initially, then two hundred fifty bucks a month for fourteen years… that’s… shit.

 

Joel gives up and googles an investment calculator, plugging it in along with the 6.5% growth rate-

 

‘Bout 68 grand by the time Sarah died. That’s ten years ago, woulda accrued interest and more growth…

 

Joel’s already plugged in the 68k as an initial investment and redone the calculator by the time he realizes he could just go into the 529 website and check. He sighs and does so.

 

It takes four attempts to remember the password and get in, but he does after a minute or three, and he gets around to actually checking the balance-

 

$129,744.87

 

Holy motherfuck.

 

Joel stares at the number for a minute, then scrolls down to the prices he locked in at (‘cause he thought he was bein’ all smart way back then, lockin’ in prepaid tuition at 1999 prices for the Texas schools.)

 

It takes a second to find the table of schools and their prices - Joel hasn’t looked at this shit since fuckin’ 2013, and the system’s updated a whole lot - but when he does, his brain loads slower than a dial-up system.

 

Rice University - $14,675/year tuition, $6,400/year room and board - Covered for 6 Years

The University of Texas-Austin - $3,164/year tuition, $7,310/year room and board - Covered for 12 Years

Texas A&M University - $3,744/year tuition, $6,890/year room and board - Covered for 12 Years

Baylor University - $14,200/year tuition, $7,710/year room and board - Covered for 6 Years

Texas Tech University - $3,790/year tuition, $6,820/year room and board - Covered for 12 Years

 

Well, shit.

 

Joel can’t help but start doing the math. Ellie could easily get a Bachelor’s - hell, take her time with one - and probably get a masters from the more expensive ones. Hell, she could probably get a PhD, go to medical or law school-

 

He could start putting money in again.

 

Joel starts doing the math again.

 

Add on the interest and growth, two more years before she goes to college, he could probably get it up a lot higher. Maybe a hundred fifty grand. If she’s living close enough and she doesn’t get emancipated the second she turns 16 like he’s sure she’s probably planning on, she wouldn’t need room and board-

 

Hell, if she played her cards right, could roll it over into an IRA-

 

She’d be set. No student loans and a degree? Yeah, she’d have a hundred times better of a start than he did, even though she’s a foster kid.

 

…he can’t tell her.

 

Joel rubs a hand down his face. Ellie doesn’t know about Sarah, and he’d rather avoid… well, all of that. He doesn’t want to talk to Ellie about her. Mentions to people who know are fine, but… 

 

Well, he doesn’t want to tell Ellie. And if he just walks up and hands her a two-and-a-half-decade-old education plan, she’s gonna question why he has it.

 

Joel grinds his teeth, trying to think of how to manage it. Could just not tell her until she was done walkin’ across the dumbass stage, say he was savin’ a shit ton while she was livin’ with him. No, the tuition lock-in, that wouldn’t be able to be explained away… Or he could say it was his own college fund he rolled over into her name. He was nineteen when it was opened, could claim he had a college fund and then decided not to go-

 

She’d probably see through that too.

 

He lays back on the couch, pressing his hand over his eyes as he tries to think, even as the wave of guilt washes over him.

 

He’s planning out how to give his baby’s future to a different kid.

 

And it’s not like it should feel like such a big deal, but it does. He’s not giving her Sarah’s room (still barricaded off and exactly how she left it) or giving her Sarah’s things or replacing her with Ellie in the slightest. Joel’s sure they would’ve gotten along, but they’re different kids - it would be impossible to fit Ellie into the same place Sarah filled, even if Ellie changed six ways from Sunday. They’re different kids with different lives, the only common denominator being him and Tommy and that (in a few months) Ellie will live in the same house Sarah did a decade ago.

 

It’s money. It’s not like he’s giving her Sarah’s favorite stuffed animal or her clothes or something that’s irrevocably hers. But Joel hasn’t ever drained it - hasn’t touched it even when he was struggling to pull together the money for bills, when he got booted from the business for a year and was stretching a dollar until it squeaked - because it’s Sarah’s. It’s always Sarah’s.

 

But she can’t use it. She’s gone. And Ellie needs it.

 

Joel whispers it before he can think, quiet and barely there: “You don’t mind, do you, baby girl?”

 

No answer, of course. She’s six feet under in a cedar coffin on a hillside, what must only be bones now hidden under the dirt and the grass carpet and the headstone reading ‘SARAH ROSE MILLER - 7/20/99-9/27/13 - We all love you and you are always in our hearts.’ She’s two thousand miles away.

 

And then that sends a new wave of guilt rushing over him.

 

Joel hasn’t visited her grave since he tried to shoot himself on it ten years ago. He knows there are flowers on it - Tommy visits every weekend - and that’s enough for him. He can’t stand the reminder that she’s gone, some fucking asshole teenager with a semi-automatic punishing her and the rest of her class for some other kid’s mistake. It’s why all the photos of her are hidden away, why he doesn’t go upstairs, let alone into her room, except to dust and keep it exactly as she left it.

 

It’s easier to pretend the college fund will, one day, magically start draining because Sarah’s off getting a degree in whatever-the-fuck-she-wanted, that one day there’ll be footsteps in the room, that the grave is somehow empty even though Joel buried her himself, even though he had to identify the too-small-to-be-on-a-morgue-table body with half her face mutilated by bullets that’s been haunting him for years now.

 

If he changes it over to belong to Ellie, it changes things.

 

It means Sarah’s dead. And of course he knows that fact, it’s been strangling him slowly like a noose that didn’t snap your neck and just leaves you kicking and swinging, but it solidifies it. Taking the money for Sarah’s future and giving it to a different little girl turns the liquid concrete that Sarah doesn’t have a use for it anymore into cement.

 

Joel doesn’t go to change the beneficiary, instead resolving to do it tomorrow when he’s less likely to start crying, before going to look at his other bank accounts. He isn’t worried about how much he’s been spending over the last few days - about five thousand dollars between kid’s clothes and food and an apartment deposit is less than he put away with the last job - but he doesn’t check much, and he probably should.

 

He doesn’t actually know how much is in there anymore.

 

When Sarah was alive, he checked religiously. He watched every movement in the accounts to make sure they could pay the mortgage, he desperately tried to keep it from overdrafting, he pawned when he needed to in order to make sure there was at least a hundred dollars in there, but then she died, and money lost value. It was just paper. Joel didn’t care - he’d take out a dozen mortgages if it meant Sarah would wake up from a coma instead of her heart stopping, he’d take a credit score of one if it meant he got to say goodbye, he’d spend every penny he’s ever held if it meant he’d kept her home from school.

 

Money stopped mattering, and so did the world. All Joel needed was gas for his old, rusting truck and groceries to keep from starving and a payment to keep the lights on and a roof over his head, so he just used that. Vacations were nothing. New furniture was nothing. Everything was nothing without her - why would he spend more than he had to in order to stay alive? (Hell, at the beginning, he even tried to skip the ‘stay alive’ part.) Money hasn’t mattered in a long time except to keep the business going.

 

Which is ironic, considering the fact that after money was no longer important, Joel had far more income and more savings and was much better-off.

 

He chose not to check after she died, chose to let Tommy handle the lawsuits against the public school system for ignoring the report of a therapist who said the kid who killed the eighteen people was a threat and against the manufacturer who sold an AR-15 to a seventeen-year-old with a history of violent behavior. Tommy gave him all the money when they won, the thirty-six families who participated (both injured kids and dead kids) getting 128 million dollars between them, but Joel didn’t want it, didn’t care, so he had Tommy wire it to his untouched account and never even looked to see how much it was, only looking on his monthly budgeting app that Bill made him get three years ago to make sure his bills are paid.

 

Joel goes to the master tracker, which looks in all his accounts for him and keeps track.

 

He nearly throws his phone.

 

ACCOUNTS:

401(K): $1,986,787.55

Checking: $10,531.39

‘Emergency fund’: $80,509.01

‘Extra savings’: $2,987,050.39

‘Investment’: $2,119,651.94

‘College fund (start scholarship in her name, Joel)’: $129,744.87

Total: $ 7,314,095.15

 

He stares at it for a minute. Blinks. His phone times out. He turns it back on. He stares at it for another minute.

 

128 mil divided by 26 families, that’s… just under five million per person. Add that to six thousand dollars times twelve times ten from his income… add in interest and investment dividends…

 

Joel stares at the wall until he falls asleep.

Notes:

PLOT TWIST?! >:D

Anyway. Uh. What did you think? Please let me know! I love hearing from you guys!! <3 <3 <3

Chapter 16: In Which There Are Pop-Tarts, Trauma, and Heroin

Notes:

This one's both funny and sad. I love it.

He wakes up to a loud fuckin’ thirteen-year-old rifling through the kitchen cabinets like there’s no tomorrow.

 

Joel groans, rubbing a hand over eyes that don’t want to open, and calls out, “What’re you doin’, girl?”

 

“Where are the fucking Pop-Tarts?” Ellie calls back, slamming a door shut. “I swear to God I saw you put a box in the cart.”

 

He did. He also operated on pure habit from raising his brother and his daughter and put the thing he knew she would want most in a place she wouldn’t look (in a bag of flour.)

 

“Gon’ make breakfast.” Joel sighs, pressing his fingers into his eyes until he sees spots. “Don’t eat the Pop-Tarts.”

 

“You can’t stop me, old man.” Ellie calls.

 

“Can if I hid ‘em.” he says.

 

It’s dead silent for a second before the blanket is yanked off his legs.

 

He lifts his hand to glare at the scowling little girl standing at his feet. (For God’s sake, she’s thirteen, five-one at most, and a hundred pounds - the hell is this little thing tryin’ to do as far as intimidation?)

 

“Where’s the Pop-Tarts, old man?”

 

“Forty-three. Only thirty years older than you, you little shit.”

 

“I know. Where are they?”

 

“They ain’t a suitable breakfast, so I ain’t tellin’ you.”

 

Ellie crosses her arms and stares down at him like she’s about to throw hands over a box of frosted cardboard. Once again, it doesn’t work - she’s thirteen years old and squishy and wearing fuzzy pajama pants, and Joel’s main thought is ‘goddamn, this kid is a pretty cute little gremlin’ instead of ‘I need to ‘fess up and turn over the probably-carcinogenic pastries.’

 

“What are you gonna make for breakfast, then?” Ellie asks, face scrunching.

 

Joel groans and lays his arm back over his eyes. “Ain’t even fully awake yet, Ellie.”

 

“That’s a you problem.” she says. Then, dramatically, like she’s reciting a Shakespearian tragedy or some shit, she declares, “I’m wasting away.”

 

“You are pretty skinny, but you’ll live.”

 

“Will I?” she says, intentionally weakening her voice in a way that makes Joel fight to suppress a smile and roll his eyes even though they’re closed. “I fear I shall die of consumption without the ever-so-necessary vitamins and minerals provided by Pop-Tarts.”

 

Joel glares at her from under his arm. “What vitamins? Shit’s sugar on top of cardboard.”

 

“They have iron in them.” Ellie protests. “And they have vitamin J for joy, and- uh vitamin F for fuckin’ amazing.”

 

“Mm. Definitely important nutrients.” Joel deadpans. “You ain’t gettin’ a Pop-Tart. You’re eatin’ the eggs I make.”

 

“Aw, c’mon!” Ellie complains. “Just one? I’ll eat the eggs too.”

 

Joel sighs, sitting up and stretching his back with a series of crunches that make him groan and even Ellie cringe. “Dude, are you okay?”

 

“Fine. Need to sleep in a bed. An’ you can take one Pop-Tart to school.”

 

“Both in the package?”

 

“One Pop-Tart, Ellie, not the whole damn box.”

 

“They come in twos. That’s how God intended them to be eaten.”

 

Joel rubs a hand over his face, then through his hair, which is a mess from tossing and turning on the couch all night. “Since when do you care ‘bout God?”

 

Ellie sighs and turns away back towards the kitchen. “Fine, you’re right. I’m an atheist who’s willing to blaspheme to get sugar.”

 

Joel’s glad her back is turned, because he smiles a little despite himself. “My mama woulda washed your mouth out with soap.”

 

Ellie snorts. “Your mama apparently wouldn’t have lasted long in the same room as me.”

 

Joel stands, stretching his legs with another groan, and Ellie scoffs. “Is the reason your knees are so pop-y really because you dislocated your knee chasing the raccoon?”

 

No, it’s because of breaking and dislocating things falling off ladders and roofs for thirty years.

 

“No.” Joel dismisses, slowly stumbling to the kitchen. He’s so glad that they’re in this place, even if it’s sterile - there’s not much like a stocked kitchen, especially after eating nothing but diner food for ages.

 

(There’s not much like a stocked kitchen when you have somebody to cook for.)

 

“Get the eggs an’ cheese?” Joel says, pulling out one of the provided pans and taking it over to the sink - he has no idea where the hell it’s been, so he’s gonna wash it. “Gon’ make you make toast, too.”

 

“Sure.” Ellie says, opening the fridge.

 

It’s quiet as Joel scrubs the pan and Ellie places the real food on the counter, then resumes her search. She doesn’t complain again about him having hidden it.

 

“So, uh… yesterday.” she starts. Joel ‘mm-hmm’s as he dries the pan with a towel he bought at the grocery store last night. “When we were eating breakfast with Marlene. She, uh… you knew each other? And you hated each other? And you both have a history with kids, and she said you ‘had a history of violence and addiction’?”

 

Shit.

 

“That a question?” Joel says, putting the pan down on the burner and trying to find where he put the olive oil.

 

“I don’t know, man, I just want to know why you and my social worker have massive beef.” Ellie shrugs as she gets up on the counter to look in the back of the top shelves. “Seriously, dude, where’s the Pop-Tarts?”

 

Joel ignores the second half of her question as he tries to think of how to explain without freaking this little thirteen-year-old kid out.

 

“Marlene says a lotta things. Some of ‘em are true, some of ‘em ain’t. She ain’t a reliable source.” Joel says, finding the oil in the cabinet over the stove and drizzling some in the pan.

 

“There! Why don’t you think she’s a reliable source?!” Ellie complains, waving her hands. “Just- how does some random contractor from Texas know my social worker from Boston?!”

 

Joel stays quiet for a second, trying to put it together in a way that would make sense to her.

 

“I don’t trust Marlene ‘cause she don’t have a good track record with her choices.” Joel says, picking his words very carefully. “I’ve known her since we were twenty-two. She was in the army with Tommy. They were alright friends - close enough he was bringin’ her over to our house for breaks for a couple years. He-”

 

Joel freezes up for a second. He’d made Tommy stop bringing her home and stopped trusting her when Marlene had shouted at Sarah for misbehaving (she’d been five and, as an anxious little five-year-old girl who was in a single-parent household and probably concerningly attached to her dad, had started crying in relief and clinging to his leg when she got home from kindergarten with her little ladybug backpack and curls in tiny buns) and Joel had almost hurt her because he thought she was going to hit Sarah. He can’t say that, or Ellie will know about her.

 

“-well, I stopped trustin’ her when she started actin’ like someone completely different. Was right to - ‘bout a year after I stopped lettin’ her in my house, she stopped a group of refugees tryin’ to flee the fightin’. Buncha civilian families an’ kids. She opened fire, killed several dozen folks with an assault rifle, includin’ ‘bout twenty kids. She wrote it off as them bein’ terrorists. Tommy got honorably discharged ‘cause he couldn’t hold an automatic without screamin’ and woke up cryin’ from nightmares every night after that, Marlene got dishonorably discharged ‘cause she murdered innocent folks.”

 

Ellie is very, very still on the counter where she’s started sitting.

 

“Are you serious?” she asks, voice quiet and low.

 

“Wish I wasn’t.” Joel says honestly. The oil is bubbling, so he turns around, grabs the eggs, and starts cracking them into the pan with loud hisses.

 

“You- you can’t be serious. She’s a social worker-”

 

“She might’ve changed.” Joel says, grabbing a spatula. “I don’t know. People do. But she still looks at every problem like she wants to fix it with a gun instead of words. An’ even if she’s different, I don’t think she’s trustworthy after killin’ a bunch of people in cold blood before lyin’ about it to her commander an’ Congress. Someone who leads like that don’t care who gets caught in the crossfire or how much blood ends up on the ground.”

 

When he glances at her, Ellie’s staring at nothing, arms wrapped tight around herself.

 

“What about you?” Ellie asks quietly. “Did you hurt people?”

 

Joel, once again, tries to find the right answer.

 

“I have.” he says finally as he stirs the eggs. “‘Bout ten years ago, I was in a real dark place. Made a whole lotta mistakes.”

 

He was detained about fifteen times - once for possession, four times for vandalism, three times for assault, and six or seven times for disturbing-the-peace-slash-public-intoxication - and only got off because half of San Antonio saw him on the news after he tried to shoot himself on his murdered daughter’s grave and the stupid goddamn news stations took it and ran with it, only got off because the judges and cops and DA knew who he was and felt bad enough for him because of Sarah or his mental health record or found his actions justified enough to either let him off or put him into rehab or therapy instead of prison and expunge his records of the misdemeanors.

 

“Got into a few fights. Nothin’ serious. Broke a few bones when people talked shit an’ we were both drunk.” Joel admits as he mixes in some cheese. “Cops, the district attorney, an’ the judges took it easy on me. Got detained fifteen times, only got charged twice, both of ‘em got expunged six years ago.”

 

“So you were violent and an addict.” Ellie says. “Or- did Marlene lie about that?”

 

“No.” Joel says. “Had some problems with pain pills a couple years ago. Went to rehab, ain’t touched ‘em in ‘bout seven or eight years.”

 

“Oh. Okay.” Ellie says.

 

It’s quiet for a minute as Joel pulls out the toaster and starts some.

 

“I’ve done heroin before.” she pipes up.

 

Joel drops the spatula, and he doesn’t even bother to pick it up before he whips around. “‘Scuse me?!”

 

Ellie’s shoulders shoot up, and she holds her hands up like she’s been caught red-handed. “Jesus, calm down!”

 

“No fuckin’ way am I calmin’ down! The hell you mean?! You’re thirteen!” Joel says, far too loud and almost-shouting, and when she flinches, he takes a deep breath and forces his voice lower and calmer. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

 

“You didn’t scare me,” Ellie obviously lies, and Joel takes another deep breath as he stares at her, trying to slow his breathing, trying to delete the image of this scrawny little kid who’s practically a toddler shooting up, potentially overdosing, ending up dead and alone in an alley-

 

“Ellie,” he says, gripping the counter behind him so tight that his knuckles hurt, “what do you mean you’ve tried heroin?”

 

“Done.” Ellie mutters, avoiding eye contact. “I didn’t try heroin, I did heroin, and it was just a few times, Jesus. I didn’t get addicted or anything.”

 

Joel cannot speak. He cannot even take a deep breath anymore. His throat is tight, vision tunneling as he stares at this tiny kid on the counter, looking anywhere but at him, her shoulders hunched defensively. His hands are shaking, and he has this hot-cold feeling washing over him that makes him feel like he’s going to pass out.

 

“Joel? Are you okay?” Ellie’s voice sounds far away.

 

He forces himself to take in air - one shallow breath, then another. His brain is cycling through all the worst images. Needles, track marks, overdoses, ambulances, a little girl younger than Sarah-

 

“When?” he finally chokes out. “Who?”

 

Ellie’s still perched on the counter, but her posture’s changed completely, going from playful to serious but open to defensive. She’s gripping the counter so tight that her knuckles match his.

 

“From about a year and a half ago to a year ago.” she mutters. “I was in a group home with this older kid. She sold a bunch of different drugs, and when I kept waking her up by accident because of nightmares, she started giving me some to rub on my gums. Called it ‘brown sugar,’ said it would help me sleep.”

 

Joel moves his hand up to press over his eyes, so tight that he sees stars. He doesn’t want to cry. He won’t cry. But his chest is splitting open like someone’s wedging a crowbar between his ribs and prying them apart, because somebody looked at a- Lord, a year and a half ago she would’ve been barely twelve- and gave her heroin.

 

“How many times?” Joel asks hoarsely.

 

“...dunno. A couple dozen? I didn’t take it unless she yelled at me because it made me feel really sick the next day.”

 

“Jesus Christ.” Joel breathes, desperately fighting tears. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ.”

 

“I’m not an addict, I swear! It was only a little, and I didn’t even like it, and I- I didn’t even know what it was until the fucking cops raided our room! I didn’t want to take it! I wasn’t fucking shooting up or anything!”

 

Joel has to turn around and hang his head over the counter - not because he’s mad, of course he’s not, but because if he sees this little girl with squishy cheeks and fuzzy pajama pants and keeps thinking about some teenager giving a twelve-year-old heroin, his body’s going to shut down.

 

“Man, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t know!”

 

He desperately tries to bury the mental image of an even-younger, even-squishier Ellie with poison rubbed into her gums to force her to sleep as deep as the memories of the day Sarah died.

 

“I didn’t mean to- make you upset or piss you off or something, I just-”

 

“Ellie, I ain’t mad.” Joel says, remembering the eggs and fumbling the spatula up to scoop them out before they burn. “I just- fuck, you- fuck, that shit shouldn’t be around a kid, let alone-”

 

His hands shake as he finds the plates. “Shit. You- hff- you go through withdrawal?”

 

“Not really. It was just a little bit, and after, like, a week of feeling really shaky and dizzy, I was fine.”

 

Joel can’t breathe again. God, no-

 

“If you ever, an’ I mean ever, want any of that again, tell me.” Joel chokes out as he moves on from the eggs, now plated and with the burner off, to the toast. “I’ll- fuck, Ellie, you can’t touch that shit again.”

 

“Wasn’t going to. It’s shitty.” Ellie says, voice small. “Sorry.”

 

“Don’t apologize.” Joel says, and he almost turns around and tucks her against his chest where she’s safe in his arms, but no, he’s not her fucking dad. “Ain’t mad someone hurt you.”

 

It’s back to silence as Joel finishes buttering the toast and getting out forks.

 

“Can I have two Pop-Tarts now?” Ellie asks, and her voice is still small, but it has that little undertone that means ‘I-think-I’m-funnier-than-I-actually-am.’

 

Joel almost loses his shit.

Notes:

So anyway, if you like this, please leave a comment or Kudos to keep me well-fed and fueled or check out one of my other TLOU fics to see if there's any you like! If you want to stay up-to-date, please bookmark or subscribe! Thank you so much for reading and see you soon, beloved readers!! <3

Chapter 17: In Which Joel & Ellie Have Lunch

Notes:

I love them :[

That day, Joel manages to get through the day. His hands still shake as he finishes fixing the drywall, the nerves of having a little girl he knows in a school still a lot, but he doesn’t devolve into a full panic attack or pull her from school again.

 

Though that thought makes him worry. He’s a man who- sure, he works at the school, but he isn’t listed as approved to check Ellie out- he’s a random man who walked in, asked for Ellie Williams, and they just handed her over? That’s a goddamn safety hazard. Someone could- shit, someone could kidnap her or something.

 

As he helps hold up the actual board of the wall, he thinks about it, and the more he does, the more it churns in his gut like bad coffee. He shouldn’t have been able to take her out of school like that. No questions, no ID, not even a phone call home.

 

Jesus, what if it hadn’t been him? What if it had just been some random person who looked like they gave a shit?

 

He just stormed in mid-anxiety attack, barked her name looking like a lunatic, and what, they just handed over a thirteen-year-old girl to a forty-year-old man that has no obvious relation? That’s so fucked-up.

 

Shit, that reminds him that he needs to start setting things up to go to Texas. He’ll rent a truck, drive them down to Texas, make a thing of it - road trip or some shit - and that’ll be fine, he can stop at the Smithsonian or some shit she’d like, take three or four days, and that’s fine, but what then? He needs to set up a room for her, he needs to make sure the license is all set up, he needs to-

 

He’ll need to enroll her in eleventh grade in the fall.

 

Joel’s hands still on the wall.

 

The closest school is Sarah’s old one, but Lord, he can’t send Ellie there. Not after the shooting, and not with the way that it still haunts its hallways.

 

Tommy goes to the memorial they hold every year - he’s always been better with grief than Joel - and last time he went, he told Joel about it. How the place is like a ghost town, people no longer wanting to send their kids to the home of the second-worst school shooting in American history, eighteen dead and twenty injured, only beaten by Sandy Hook and barely beating Columbine. How the classroom that the gunman cornered the majority of his victims in - Sarah’s social studies classroom - is full of flowers and stuffed animals, turned into a shrine. How there’s a full wall in the entry memorializing the kids and teachers, Sarah’s ninth-grade picture up there with the same flowers and candles as everyone else’s. How they still have a minute of silence every morning for the dead even though it was ten years ago.

 

He can’t put Ellie in that school. He won’t. Even if it’s closest, even if it’s convenient, even if they ‘refurbished’ the building or put up a new gym or whatever the hell they did to hide the blood that literally stained the tile because there were over 466 bullets that landed-

 

He forces a deep breath. He knows that school because it lives in his nightmares. He knows it because he dreams about it having a gaping maw that swallows his world whole.

 

He won’t feed it Ellie.

 

Joel swallows around the lump in his throat. On top of the fact that Ellie simply cannot go to that godawful cemetery of a school, he can’t imagine her learning about Sarah like that, coming back from school asking ‘hey, there was this picture of this girl, her last name was Miller and she looked like you, did you know her?’ He doesn’t think he’d survive that conversation - he’s only survived the past ten years by talking about it a number of times that he can count on his fingers, and all of those were drunk.

 

Not to mention, he wouldn’t ever be able to step foot in there again. Parent-teacher conferences, school drop-offs, all that normal shit he hasn’t done in years - Lord, the teachers would recognize him and try to offer condolences (most of them still work there), or he would have a massive panic attack knowing he was standing in the place where his daughter died, or-

 

He’s so caught-up in his thoughts that he doesn’t register the kid standing behind him until she shouts, “HEY, OLD MAN, ARE YOU DEAF?!”

 

Joel starts, hands slipping slightly, but Marco doesn’t seem to care, just huffing a laugh, drill pausing as he looks over his shoulder at Ellie. “Assumin’ that’s you?”

 

“Unfortunately.” Joel says automatically.

 

Marco chuckles. “Get.”

 

After making sure the drywall isn’t going to fall, Joel obeys, turning around and glaring at the thirteen-year-old girl currently holding a lunch tray and looking far too pleased with herself. “Ain’t you supposed to be learnin’ somethin’?”

 

“Lunch time, motherfuckers, and I figured you were so bored and lonely without me that I would come put you out of your misery.” Ellie grins at him.

 

Joel rolls his eyes. “Don’t you have friends to bother?”

 

“Nope!” Ellie says cheerfully, marching away to sit criss-crossed in front of the wall where Joel found her for the first time. “Come on!”

 

Joel looks over the site, making sure everything’s handled, before slowly walking over, popping his ankles before slowly sitting down next to the kid who’s started devouring a Sloppy Joe at breakneck speed.

 

“Easy, kid, ain’t gon’ run from you.” Joel says before he can think, watching in horrified fascination.

 

“Are you actually deaf?” Ellie says through a full mouth instead of coming up with a retort.

 

“Chew your damn food.” Joel says automatically.

 

Ellie rolls her eyes, obeying and swallowing before repeating herself.

 

“No. Why?” he asks, rubbing the web between his pointer finger and thumb.

 

“‘Cause you don’t hear out of your right ear.” she says.

 

Joel blinks.

 

His hand stills.

 

His breath, too.

 

For a long minute, he just stares at the floor, his thumb rubbing a hard circle on the thick flap of skin and sinew between his fingers.

 

“Sorry.” Ellie says after a while, almost awkward. “Didn’t mean to-”

 

“Didn’t realize it was noticeable.” Joel says before clearing his throat, trying to push the gravel out of it. “You’re right. Lost ‘bout ninety percent of my hearin’ in that ear, ‘bout thirty percent in the other. So… guess I am deaf.”

 

“Yeah. You turn your head towards me when I talk. Like, you do that a lot. So I figured…”

 

Joel forces himself to huff a laugh. “You’re a goddamn observant little pest.”

 

“Thank you, thank you. I do accept tips.” Ellie says, mock-bowing.

 

“Never do anythin’ you don’t want to explain to a paramedic.” Joel tells her.

 

She stares at him for a second, sandwich still in hand, before she bursts out laughing. “Oh my God, was that a dad joke?!”

 

“Alright, alright.” Joel sighs with a small smile. “Get it together.”

 

“That’s deserving of, like, eight puns!” she grins, dropping the sandwich and going for her backpack.

“Lord no. Go to class.” he sighs as she withdraws the goddamn Will Livingston book.

 

But, to be fair, he sighs it with a smile on his face.

Notes:

Thank you so much <3 if you like this, please leave a comment and/or Kudos, and if you want to stay up-to-date, please bookmark or subscribe! Thank you so much and see you soon!! <3

Chapter 18: In Which There Is A Foster Care Interview

Notes:

AAAAAAHHHHHH MY BABIES

Her showing up for lunch becomes part of a ritual over the next few weeks.

 

Joel wakes up at 6, makes a cup of coffee for himself and breakfast for the two of them while texting with Tess and Tommy (currently in Texas and being forced to sleep on the couch and eat outside because Maria is seven months pregnant and going to kill Joel’s brother if he dares to eat too loud or infringe on Maria’s pillow nest), wakes Ellie up at 6:30, gets dressed, re-wakes Ellie up at 6:45 (usually resulting in a pillow thrown at him, which he’s not above throwing back), they eat breakfast together, then Ellie gets dressed and brushes her teeth while Joel picks up around the apartment, Joel brushes his teeth, they’re out the door at 7:15. Then he works for about four hours while Ellie goes to class, and at 11:15, she shows up with a lunch tray. Joel, naturally, finds it his obligation to tell her to eat with other kids and ask if she wants him to make her lunch, she says to fuck off and no, thank you, she makes fun of him with the guys (who have both immediately taken to Ellie like a match to kindling - they both think she’s hilarious and adore her), then she leaves at 11:55 to get to class. Joel works another three hours before Ellie shows up again and plops down in the corner to do her homework while she waits, they go back to the apartment at 5, Ellie curls up on the couch and watches TV as Joel makes dinner, then they sit down at the table (at Joel’s insistence - only pizza and Chinese food is allowed on the couch instead of at the table) to have said dinner, then they return to watching TV while Joel does something on his computer or phone and Ellie does her own thing on her phone. This usually means foster training for him and Candy Crush for her, but sometimes she makes him play Animal Crossing with her, which usually leads to Joel getting irrationally pissed off about fishing mechanics and how much debt a raccoon is allowed to saddle a child with.

 

“The goddamn tanuki is a goddamn scam artist, I’m tellin’ you.” Joel mutters one Thursday night, squinting at the screen as his little digital avatar struggles to fish in order to get enough bells to pay the damn thing.

 

Ellie’s borderline-crying laughing, sprawled sideways across the couch with her head near his hip as she watches where she’s visiting Joel’s island on her own phone. “You sound like you wanna unionize the villagers!”

 

“I should! Ain’t no way some woodland creature’s runnin’ a mortgage business without government oversight. Bet the damn place don’t even have FDIC.”

 

“What does that even mean?!” Ellie howls, kicking her feet while she laughs. “And- what government?! It’s an island with six people and a drunk seagull that washes- pff- up once a week!”

 

Joel smiles despite himself. “Ain’t the point here.”

 

After a few minutes of Ellie laughing as he fails at fishing in a way that, in real life, would get a hook stuck in the back of his neck, he gives up, instead trying to catch bugs for an owl that owns a museum (which totally makes sense.)

 

It’s not a big life. It’s not an exciting one. But after the past few years of silence and grief and dust, only broken up by his friends and family and otherwise dark and dull, it feels like a damn miracle.

 

Mostly because of Ellie.

 

She’s strange, Joel has to admit. She collects everything she can find that seems interesting, won’t stop talking about dinosaurs and space and Savage Starlight and science and random fun facts and shows she likes (she swears she’s going to make him watch one show called ‘Over the…’ 

 

…well, shit, he doesn’t remember the name, something about a garden, he thinks, but she swears it’s amazing and says he has to watch it in October because it’s such a good show and it’s super creepy so it’s better to watch around Halloween.)

 

Joel doesn’t mind her strangeness. When she wears mismatched socks or hums out-of-tune when she brushes her teeth or spins in a circle for no reason or tears through the apartment like wildfire, something in him relaxes, says ‘yes, this is right.’

 

Which is why Joel is talking himself into leaving Ellie at the school for the first time.

 

Joel’s completely done with his training for Boston and almost done with his training for San Antonio, which means he’s able to do his foster care interview for Boston and the home inspection and thus legally have Ellie in his care instead of technically having a homeless thirteen-year-old girl live with him. (At least her foster parents disowned her - it means Joel’s not legally liable for kidnapping.) He had Marlene schedule both for today - interview in the morning, home inspection in the afternoon - and he thinks it’ll be fine (sure, he’s a little worried, but it’s fine, he stayed up all night making sure everything was right in the house), but at the same time, he’s not only worries about something going wrong at home with his stuff, but also at the school. This is the first day that she’ll be at the school without him there, and-

 

Well… Sarah.

 

She doesn’t know that he’s going to be gone today, as that’s what the websites he read told him to do in order to keep her from worrying, and that makes Joel nervous - what if there’s a shooter - but if there’s a school shooting, she’ll still go to the gym because he’s drilled it into her and Marco and Joseph will keep her safe.

 

The odds are low. The odds are low. Joel knows that.

 

His heart still hammers as he takes another dose of anti-anxiety medication as he drives away without Ellie in the truck for the first time. She still thinks he’s in the gym.

 

That shouldn’t feel like he’s betraying her.

 

-

 

Joel can’t help but shift uncomfortably as the foster interviewer - a woman around Joel’s age named Jodie who, apparently, will also be doing the home inspection (six weeks past when Marlene swore she’d come because, you know, the foster system and the fact that the lady rescheduled with Marlene maybe six times) - changes how she’s sitting on the other end of the couch, putting one arm over the back of the armrest and tucking one socked foot under her knee. They’ve been having a normal conversation for about an hour, and overall, Joel thinks she might be too cheerful. 

 

Eventually, it goes quiet, and Joel shifts again as he tries to calm down. 

 

“So I was perusing your file, and there were some good and bad aspects that I wanted to talk to you about.” Jodie finally says.

 

He nods, exhaling slowly to stay calm. “Figured that one was comin’. What about?”

 

“Well, I do see a lot of positive aspects. You’re very financially stable, your recommendations were all absolutely glowing - though I will say, one said ‘the man’s a bastard but he’ll protect a kid with his life and give them everything he’s got,’ which was a bit of a surprise-”

 

Bill. Goddamn Bill.

 

“-and you clearly have a very established support system in Texas with your brother and his family as well as your friends, which is extremely important and good, especially when looking at their backgrounds and how physically close they live. Steady, flexible work is good. Based on your answers and how in-depth you’ve been and involved in the training, I can tell that you care a lot about becoming a foster parent, which is one of the biggest pros.”

 

Joel waits for the other shoe to drop.

 

“However, I will say that I Googled your name and found some concerning things as well as some inconsistencies in your background.” Jodie tells him, grabbing the file off the side table and opening it. “I printed some of them out to review with you.”

 

Joel already knows what they are, but he stays silent anyway as she starts talking.

 

“Your criminal record is sealed, but that implies that there was a criminal record, which is mildly concerning, even if there’s clearly a lack of felony violent crime or anything to do with children or sex, as you’re not on the registry. On top of that, I found some news articles that you were in, and looking at your timeline, I saw that there was some time that you were in a psychiatric ward as well as rehab.”

 

Joel grinds his teeth.

 

“Would you be willing to talk about Sarah?” Jodie asks. “She’s the biggest part of all the newspaper articles you’re in, and all of the areas I’m concerned about occurred in the five years after.”

 

His jaw clenches so hard it pops as he tries to fight his original thought to push back and say it’s none of her damn business. He needs to go about this right in order to get Ellie legally.

 

“I am.” Joel manages to get out. “But it’s a real sore spot, so don’t expect it to be neat.”

 

“Of course.” Jodie nods.

 

He takes a deep breath, staring into nothing before he manages to speak. “Sarah was my daughter. She died ten years ago in a school shootin’ when she was fourteen years old. The Sam Houston shootin’ - you probably heard of it.”

 

“I have. The second-largest shooting behind Sandy Hook.” she says, very gentle. “Eighteen dead and twenty injured. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

 

Joel nods once, slow and stiff, unsure of how else to respond and choosing to just keep going from the beginning. “Sarah was… my entire world. See, I grew up in a rough household, an’ I raised my younger brother since I was ‘bout five years old. Then, when I’m nineteen, my wife has our baby, an’ I’m terrified, but then I hold her an’ I just fall in love. My wife leaves when Sarah’s ‘bout two months old, an’ I take care of both her an’ my younger brother for years. Eventually, my little brother grows up an’ moves out to join the army, an’ my world narrows down to just her ‘cause Tommy didn’t need me raisin’ him anymore. My world centered around her - even when I was workin’ lots, it was to make sure she had what she needed.”

 

He digs his nails into his palm. “An’ then she died, and I was completely lost. Everythin’ I lived for was taken from me in one fell swoop. I didn’t protect my daughter. She was gone. An’ that… pushed me to a real dark place.”

 

“I saw the article about your suicide attempt on her grave.” Jodie says softly.

 

“Yeah. That was the first.” Joel admits. “There were others - that’s why I spent that week in the psych ward you’re talkin’ about - but I mostly just lost my head. Started gettin’ into barfights, takin’ some pills I shouldn’t’ve, got drunk in public, broke some things when I was havin’ daily panic attacks and thought the shootin’ was ‘bout to happen again - that sounds dumb, but it’s true.”

 

“It sounds like trauma.” Jodie says.

 

Joel nods jerkily. “Yeah. I had a backlog of it, goin’ all the way back to when I was a little kid, but that was when it really hit an’ damn near took me out. Sorry- didn’t mean to cuss.”

 

“It’s alright. It’s a common figure of speech.” Jodie says. “Please continue.”

 

“So I was in a real bad place, tryin’ to survive an’ failin’ an’ then tryin’ to do somethin’ I shouldn’t when I couldn’t figure out how to survive the grief, but after a couple years, got my head on straight. It was mostly ‘cause of my friend Tess.”

 

“She wrote a lovely recommendation. Said we need to give you the license because you’d be good for kids.” Jodie nods.

 

Joel tries not to look surprised at exactly how good it apparently was. “Uh- yeah, that’s Tess. She’s real important to me. Met ‘bout ten years ago, few months after Sarah. She got me out ‘cause she went through the same thing. Her son Charlie died, an’ she understood what I was goin’ through an’ made me get better. Courts sure helped with the mandated therapy an’ rehab, but Tess got me through after. When I was in such a bad place, I wasn’t good for my brother to be around, an’ since I didn’t have friends thanks to my whole life bein’ Sarah an’ work, I was completely alone when he cut me off. Tess is the one who made sure I got up in the mornin’, made me take my anti-anxiety medication - which I been on for eight years straight, had been on it for ‘bout sixteen years before that but stopped after Sam Houston - made sure I didn’t have access to anythin’ I could use to hurt myself or any substances. He- heck, even when I was too bad to get out of bed an’ could hardly eat, she stayed at my place when she was off her shifts - she’s a firefighter-EMT - an’ looked after me.”

 

Joel stops, looking at the half-moons he accidentally left on his skin, and forces his fingers to unclench. “I owe Tess my life. She’s the one who got me to start bein’ a person again. I think she’s a big reason that I am where I am. I’m eight years completely sober from pain pills an’ only drink once or twice a month, ain’t been detained in seven years. I rebuilt my relationship with my brother an’ got myself back up on my feet. Tess is most of why. We still talk every day an’ she’s over a lot.”

 

Jodie nods slowly, absorbing all of it with a sharp look that contrasts with her otherwise gentle act. “I appreciate you sharing that and understand it couldn’t have been easy.”

 

Joel focuses on getting his legs to stop bouncing, which they’ve started doing involuntarily. He doesn’t explain that it’s easier than any other time he’s explained because it’s the only way to get Ellie.

 

Jodie is quiet for a minute, obviously giving him a minute to collect himself before speaking. She continues looking at him with a look that Joel generally associates with therapists and caseworkers. “That kind of self-awareness and recovery might actually help your case. Caregivers with their own struggles can generally provide some of the best care because they don’t minimize or dismiss pain as easily and are more relatable to kids in the foster system.”

 

Joel lets that sit for a minute, tries to think through it and believe it.

 

“So this interview-” Jodie gestures vaguely “-is more for me to get a sense of you. Understand where you’re coming from, your past and experience with children, why you’re doing this, yada yada yada. The home study is where I do the inspection - obviously - as well as discuss more of the practical aspects like discipline, trauma-informed parenting, meals, rules, et cetera, et cetera. I will say, so far you’re doing really well.” 

 

Joel blinks in surprise. He figured the foster system would be even a little put off by him having a dead child and a rough history.

 

(But then again, look at Ellie’s file. The foster system is shit.)

 

“Personally, I think based on our conversation so far, you’re generally a gruff person but genuinely care, which is better than a lot of foster parents. You’re stable and supportive, you’re in relatively good mental and physical health, you already raised both your brother and your daughter and have a strong support system - I think you’re an ideal foster parent, actually. I do have a few questions, though-”

 

She flips open the case file again from where she’d apparently closed it. “-surrounding the application itself. Specifically, around the types of children you’d like to foster.”

 

Joel gets ready to tell her. Shit, it might get Ellie taken away, even if, thanks to Marlene and her shitty group home, it’s not legally wrong-

 

“You didn’t list an age range, whether you preferred siblings or single children, preferred disability status, birth family relationships - basically, everything that helps us place children with you, you haven’t checked a box. You also didn’t check foster to adopt despite doing the extended modules.” Jodie says.

 

He takes a deep breath. “I ain’t lookin’ for fosterin’ in general. Just one, an’ I already have her.”

 

Jodie’s head tilts slightly, eyes narrowing. “You… already have her?”

 

“Like I said in the application, my situation an’ setup here are temporary. I got a life in San Antonio, but my brother had a connection an’ had our company come out here for a while to fix up a school. I kept runnin’ into this lil’ girl, both ‘round town an’ at the school, an’ then I came into the school early one mornin’ an’ found her sleepin’ in my construction zone an’ injured. Apparently, her group home had kicked her out, but they told her to live on the street for a year instead of callin’ in her social worker to steal the foster checks. I fixed her up an’ bought her breakfast, but then she said she was gon’ sleep in the park if I wouldn’t let her sleep in the construction zone, an’... well, this lil’ girl, she’s thirteen. I couldn’t let that happen. I brought her back to my motel for her to get some rest, an’ the next mornin’ I talked to Marlene, her case worker, an’ started the application when I realized there wasn’t nowhere for her to go.”

 

Jodie blinks. “You’ve already been housing her?”

 

“Yeah.” Joel admits. “An’ I know that’s a gray area, but I’ve been in touch with her caseworker an’ lookin’ after her. She’s been goin’ to school every day, been makin’ sure she eats three meals a day, rented an apartment so she’s got her own space-”

 

“You didn’t call the police or CPS?” Jodie asks, almost incredulously.

 

“She was obviously scared of both of ‘em an’ asked if I would when I found her, lookin’ on the verge of a panic attack. Figured it was more important to get her into a warm place, considerin’ it’s January in Boston, an’ to stop her from bleedin’ all over the place an’ to get some food in her. Turns out she’s really fuckin’ scared of cops for good reason.”

 

“What’s that reason?” Jodie asks politely.

 

Joel realizes he cursed again. “Sorry, didn’t mean to cuss. Ellie, the lil’ girl, she saw her friend get murdered by a cop couple months back.”

 

“Do you have her full name?” Jodie asks, reaching over and grabbing her bag from the floor, zipping it open and grabbing her computer. “She sounds like a complicated case.”

 

“Ellie Williams.” Joel says. “An’ the file says she is, but she’s actually a real easy kid to handle.”

 

Jodie types for a minute, then goes quiet as she starts reading. Joel fidgets, then gives up and opens his phone, sending a text to Ellie telling her that he won’t be there for lunch before visiting her island in Animal Crossing. It’s scarily developed, and from the looks of it, her mortgage to the goddamn raccoon is paid off.

 

He wanders around checking it out for a bit while Jodie reads, and eventually, she sighs and closes the computer. “Ellie is considered one of the hardest cases. The behavioral issues, trauma, and neurodivergence combine to make someone who’s-”

 

“-a good kid.” Joel interrupts. “She hasn’t acted out since she moved in.”

 

Jodie snaps to look at him. “What do you mean?”

 

“I’ve had her for almost six weeks an’ she’s been doin’ good.” Joel says. “She’s got all A’s ‘cept for an A- in math ‘cause the teacher don’t like her. She’s gained some weight an’ has some meat on her bones now. She’s smart an’ funny as hell, an’ she’s weird but in a good way - she won’t stop talkin’ about shows we should watch or do watch, she loves the X-Files, an’ she likes to talk ‘bout dinosaurs an’ space an’ tell me her puns. She makes me play Animal Crossin’ and does her homework an’ eats, an’ I’ve gotten her to start goin’ to bed at eleven instead of three AM, an’ she’s actually actin’ like a normal kid.”

 

Jodie watches him closely, and when he stops, she exhales slowly. “She hasn’t had any issues since living with you long-term? No running away, no fights at school, no-”

 

“No. Only time she’s even gotten close is when she had a panic attack, an’ I was able to calm her down an’ bring her on home.” Joel says.

 

Jodie stares off before closing her eyes and sighing. “It sounds like she’s doing well. Because of the circumstances, I’m going to interview her as well and talk to Marlene and her school to verify, but as a general rule, if you pass the home evaluation, you get the license.” Joel exhales, a weight coming off his chest he didn’t know was there.

 

“So let’s do the home evaluation, hm?” Jodie says, putting away the file and computer. 

 

Joel quickly follows suit, pocketing his phone and standing, before heading straight to the kitchen to start the tour.

Notes:

Joel ToT ToT ToT I love them.

Anyway, thank you so much and see you soon <3 if you like this, please leave a comment and/or Kudos, and if you would like to stay up-to-date, please bookmark or subscribe! Thank you so much and see you soon!! <3

Chapter 19: In Which There Is Ice Cream

Notes:

Hey! Sorry this is late, I had a really bad depressive episode and almost was hospitalized. Sorry! I'm good now! Please enjoy! I love y'all and I'm really sorry!! <3

Ellie has a shitty day.

 

From the beginning, it sucks. Her classes are boring - she’s ahead by about a week on all her homework (stupid Joel, making her have specific homework time) and she’s already studied, and it’s a workday in almost all of them because midterms are coming up because spring break is a week away (which she’s already studied for, fuck you) - and Bethany throws crumpled-up paper and erasers at her back for literal hours. When she gets to math and Bethany starts again, resuming a four-hour streak, she whips around and starts to get mad at her, but then Mr. Smith catches her and gives her after-school detention with him.

 

And then, when she’s pissed off and her hair is half out of her ponytail and Ellie feels like she wants to punch a wall but also like she’s been hit by a truck, she goes to the gym to bitch about it to Joel, but then - get this shit - the fucker isn’t there!

 

(Yeah, yeah, he told her he wasn’t going to be and kept texting her reminders, but seriously, it had to be today that he decided to take a day off? Without her?!)

 

And then her afternoon classes sucked because her history teacher just went right ahead and assigned a ton of bullshit even though the term is almost over, and then she went to detention, which was-

 

“Ellie! Come sit down.” Mr. Smith beams as soon as she walks into the classroom, like this is a casual get-together instead of her being punished for an absolutely bullshit reason. He nods to a seat next to his, the chair already pulled out like he’s been specifically planning for her arrival for a while.

 

Normally, Ellie would be focused on just getting through. Nod, quietly sit in the back, do homework, keep an ear out. 

 

She has negative three patience right now, especially for this fucking weirdo.

 

“I don’t want to sit with you.” Ellie snaps, kicking out the chair at the desk closest to the back. “Actually, Mr. Smith, I don’t want to talk to you!”

 

“David, Ellie. We’ve been over this.” he says, not dropping the smile for a second. If anything, he looks more amused.

 

Ellie slams her backpack down so hard that the lead on the pencil sticking out from the water bottle pocket breaks. “I don’t want to call you David, either!”

 

David’s smile falters slightly, just for a second, before it comes back up, but the small crack in the mask fills Ellie with pure, unadulterated satisfaction. “It’s not fair that you gave me detention when Bethany’s the one causing problems, it’s not fair that you keep giving me B’s on assignments that I did perfectly, and it’s not fucking fair that I have to do this alone!”

 

She doesn’t know if she’s talking about Joel or Riley, but it doesn’t matter, because as soon as the words are out of her mouth, David lights up, reaching down and pulling a file out from his desk drawer.

 

“You know,” he says, getting up and starting to walk over as he flips it open, “I was looking over your file, and I noticed something very interesting.”

 

He sits down on the desk - yes, on the desk, not even the chair - and starts flipping through the pages. “So the first two terms of the school year were a little rough, just like most of the past few years, according to your transcripts. Mostly B’s, the occasional C, A’s in art and science. But then, just like magic, you start doing better. Near 100s in every class except for mine, where you have a 92.95% - which is less than a twentieth of a percent away from a plain A. You don’t have detentions like you used to, you don’t get into fights like you used to - something very clearly changed.”

 

“Yeah, I started giving a shit.” Ellie snaps. She doesn’t like people knowing about her when she can’t have a file about them. “So?”

 

“No, that’s… not it.” Mr. Smith says, snapping it closed and looking up at her. “I’m a very observant person, Ellie.”

 

“Fuckin’ congratulations.”

 

He smiles again. “Language. And no, that’s not for applause. I’m saying that, around the beginning of February, you started trying in class. Started turning in your homework, started paying attention - and there’s clearly personal changes. You’ve gained weight, you look happier - and around the beginning of February, you changed your soap.”

 

And just like that, Ellie no longer feels like she’s boiling with anger. She feels like she’s been dunked in ice water. “Fucking excuse me?”

 

“Lan-”

 

“Why the hell are you paying attention to my weight and my soap?”

 

“It’s my job-”

 

“It’s not your job!” Ellie shouts, smacking her hand on the table. She doesn’t know why - she just knows that the louder and angrier she is, the less afraid she’ll feel. “It’s not your fucking job to monitor my weight and what soap I use!”

 

“Ellie-”

 

She grabs her backpack and shoots up even though she still has another twenty minutes in the detention. “Fuck you!”

 

“Ellie, sit down.”

 

She doesn’t, just backing up until she’s against the wall. “You know, it’s no wonder that everyone thinks you’re a fucking creep when you’re watching what your thirteen-year-old student looks and smells like.”

 

“I’m not a creep, Ellie. Do you know how you can tell? You can look at my record.” Mr. Smith suddenly looks very serious. “I have never been arrested, not once. I’m a pastor at my church. I’m a licensed foster parent. I’m a teacher. I’m a good person, Ellie. Everyone can tell.”

 

Ellie’s skin itches with the bone-deep urge to run. “That doesn’t make you a good person.”

 

“Why do you think that?” Mr. Smith says, suddenly cheerful again. “Is it because-”

 

He flips the file open again. “-you’ve been arrested so many times, or is it because of a… bad experience in foster care?”

 

Ellie’s mouth tastes like ash and bile as the memories of Mr. Robinson and Mr. Johnson hit, of that terror of being told to sit on laps and of hiding in the closet and under the bed after Mr. Robinson started trying to come into her bed at night and of learning how to stab someone in the thigh the first time Mr. Johnson grabbed her.

 

“Fuck you,” she snarls, and she storms out, even though she knows it means she gets two more detentions.

 

So yeah, her day was shit.

 

And when Tommy shows up driving the truck, obviously just arrived from his trip back to Texas to take care of his pregnant wife and bring the truck back, instead of the person she wants, she’s probably a little meaner than she should be.

 

“Hey, Ellie-girl-” he starts, giving her a smile, but she just smacks the radio on and slams her seat belt buckle into the slot.

 

“Whoa, you alright?” he asks, chuckling slightly.

 

“Do you take a fucking hint, or do you have to talk to me?” she snaps.

 

She immediately regrets it, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to breathe through the guilt. “That was mean. I’m sorry.”

 

Tommy’s quiet for a second before huffing a small laugh. “Shit, you’re gon’ like Texas.”

 

“Why?” Ellie manages.

 

“Joel’s got a punchin’ bag in the garage. Uses it to blow off steam on bad days. Might be better than takin’ it out on the ol’ man who drove outta his way to pick you up after a two-day trip.” Tommy says lightly. “But seriously. Bet if you asked, he’d help ya get started. At least give you permission to use it.”

 

Ellie still feels guilty, and she cringes at ‘taking it out on the old man who drove out of his way to pick you up after a two day trip,’ even if they’re said lightly.

 

“Nah, it’s alright. Shitty days happen. You were late gettin’ out - somethin’ happen?” Tommy asks.

 

Ellie fights the urge to just swallow it and bottle it up before she manages it.

 

“My teacher’s an asshole and a creep.” she mutters. “He gave me detention because I almost yelled at a girl who’d been throwing stuff at me for four hours. ‘Almost!’ I didn’t even shout at her, I just said her name kinda loud and stared her down! And then I go to detention, and he tries to get me to sit with him, and he starts being weird and asking about my past and saying he knows something’s changed because I smell different!”

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what?” Tommy interrupts, and when Ellie looks over at him from where she’s been glaring out the window, he looks freaked out, looking between her and the road with this alarmed look on his face. “He said what? He did what?”

 

Ellie remembers Joel’s face when she first mentioned that he asked her to call him by his first name, and she also remembers that Tommy is Joel’s brother and they have similar reactions to things.

 

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” Ellie mumbles, looking at her hands as she twists her fingers.

 

Tommy pulls over. He literally pulls over, going to the shoulder of the road and parking before turning to look at her.

 

“Ellie, tell me ‘bout this guy, yeah?” he says.

 

Ellie can’t look at him, focusing on her hands.

 

“Hey, I’m the cool one, remember? I ain’t gon’ go apeshit. Just tell me what’s goin’ on with this teacher.”

 

She shrugs a little bit, still not looking at him. “It’s kinda just how he is. He asks all the girls to call him by his first name - gets annoyed when I don’t - and gives people low grades and detention for no reason. He keeps trying to get me to go to tutoring to get an A even though I have a 92.95%, which is basically an A, and he keeps giving me B’s even though I get every question right. He just- he had my file and was asking about a big change in my life, because I have better grades and I look ‘happier’ and-”

 

Ellie almost goes to mention the weight comment, but it makes her feel humiliated, heat in her cheeks, so she just says “-’healthier,’ and then he started asking if I thought he was a creep because of a previous foster home. I think he was trying to imply-”

 

He was trying to ask about the Johnsons and Robinsons, Ellie realizes. Only way he could have known.

 

“Anyway. He’s just a creep. Normally, it’s fine, I just- I was pissed off, and-”

 

“He pulled that shit before?” Tommy interrupts, his twang half-faded because of how serious his voice is. “He doin’ this to anyone else?”

 

“He picks on me a bit more, but I think-”

 

“We need to tell Joel. You ain’t goin’ back to school tomorrow.” Tommy interrupts again.

 

Ellie snaps around to look at him as he turns the truck on again. “Are you fucking kidding me? You don’t get to-”

 

“Ellie, that ain’t normal.” Tommy says.

 

“I know that, but I can handle-”

 

“You’re younger than all your classmates. Skipped a few grades, you’re probably the only thirteen-year-old in the school, right?” Tommy interrupts again.

 

Ellie scowls. “Yeah, so?”

 

“And he knows you’re a foster kid?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Nah. Hell nah. You ain’t goin’ to be around that teacher ever again.” Tommy says, rushed like he’s angry even though his face has shifted into neutral. “Hell fuckin’ nah.”

 

“Dude, chill!”

 

“He’s pickin’ on you ‘cause you’re young, you’re alone - at least, he thinks you’re alone - an’ you been in trouble, meanin’ you won’t tell anyone an’ if you do nobody’ll believe you.”

 

Ellie blinks. “What?”

 

“Think ‘bout it. If it were some seventeen-year-old girl who’s got lotsa friends an’ family behind her, would he be givin’ her bad grades an’ detention on purpose an’ talkin’ bout her soap an’ shit?”

 

She shuts her mouth.

 

“Hell fuckin’ nah. Either you go or he does. Either way, you ain’t seein’ him again.” Tommy mutters as he starts to drive again.

 

Ellie realizes that he’s changed the route, and her stomach drops even further.

 

No. No, no, no, he can’t. 

 

“Wait, wait- I don’t wanna go to the police station, are we- please don’t.” she chokes out through the lump making itself known in her throat. “Please don’t take me to the police, I don’t wanna- I don’t wanna see them. I don’t wanna talk to them. I don’t- no.”

 

Tommy’s jaw tightens for a second before he turns up the radio again. “Nah, ain’t goin’ to the cops. Fuck the pigs. We’re gettin’ ice cream.

Notes:

If you were wondering, yes, Tommy and Joel hate cops because their abusive dad was a cop and, as a result of the corrupt system, they were stuck with him until he left with no support from anyone because the police wouldn't do anything against one of their own. (True story lol - cops have the highest rate of domestic violence allegations but are rarely prosecuted! Fun fact!)

Anyway, please leave a comment and/or Kudos if you like this fic, and please bookmark and/or subscribe if you want to stay up-to-date! Thank you so much and see you soon!! Once again, so sorry!! <3