AN: I wrote this in honor of tomorrow being September 26th, 2013. Posting it a wee bit early because I literally have classes from 9:30 AM to 10:00 PM with one hour break, so I can't do it tomorrow XD Hope you enjoy!
Eleven o'clock p.m. comes and Joel is gone.
Tess realizes it when she is startled awake by a nightmare and it throws her, but then remembers the day and is able to stop her heart from racing so painfully fast. Waking to an empty bed can mean many things, none of them good, but it's September 26th, and that changes everything.
Normally she'd try to roll over and just sleep through it, but there's no getting comfortable again tonight. So instead she goes to the kitchen and gets herself some water to think over.
She never knows where Joel goes, mentally or physically, on the 26th of September, but she imagines it's where most people go – back to that moment, that place where their lives were turned upside down. For her it's…no, she won't even discuss that with herself. She can't go back there.
So she plops herself on the couch instead and takes the opportunity to go over a few notes about the drops and pick-ups they have arranged for the week. She's halfway through her review when Joel comes in through the door, eyes dark and looking like he aged 10 years since she saw him that morning.
Brown eyes shoot open wide when he sees her. "Christ," he gasps as he fumbles the door shut behind him. "I wasn't expecting you…"
She waves the pad of paper she's looking over. "Just going over a few things for this week. You're not the only one who couldn't sleep." Her eyes turn to the clock, it's way after midnight now. A part of her starts trying to remember where she was at this very moment 20 years ago, the smarter part shuts down the thoughts immediately. What use was it?
That's the way September 26th always goes for them: Silence, denial, unresolved pain – all the things psychologists would cringe over. It couldn't be good for them deep down in their souls, but sometimes it's easier to bury something alive rather than having to wrestle it to death before putting it in the ground.
Yes. That's how it always goes. But instead of slinking off to bed this time, Joel retrieves a glass of water too and joins Tess on the couch. Something about her being awake upon his return this time calms his mind a bit. It's obvious but only in very subtle things. Subtle things that only Tess can see. She can tell in how his eyes soften just a hair, in the way his jaw isn't set so hard anymore, in the way his shoulders lose their tightness…the way his body drifts closer to her over the course of the hours they spend on that couch.
They talk about the most mundane things, from certain suppliers being assholes, to how they need to stock up on food soon but it keeps getting put off because of one thing or another. At a certain point Tess makes a snide remark about one of said suppliers that actually makes Joel break out laughing. Tess takes pride in this– it's a first, seeing Joel so much as crack a smile, let alone laugh, on the morning of September 27th.
It's then that they realize that dawn's breaking. Pure red bleeds over the horizon in a way that the two of them find ironically fitting, but daybreak is soothing to them.
It means yesterday is gone. It's time to move forward.
Tess is noticeably drowsy now, eyes heavy-lidded in a way that Joel finds undeniable. Before she can protest, he has her scooped up in his arms. He carries her into the dark bedroom, placing her carefully amongst the rumpled sheets and depressingly thin blankets before dumping himself next to her.
It only takes him an instant to gather her to him, consuming her body with his, kissing her forehead, eyes, even that little beauty mark on her cheek, before pressing his lips to hers so desperately that it shakes her even in her half-awake state. All she can do is wind her arms around him, tangle her feet with his, and kiss him back, but it seems like it's enough for him.
It would always be enough.
No matter how much of him felt like the world had left him with nothing, it wasn't true. After losing Sarah, after losing Tommy, after losing his home, his job, his life…he had been given her.
And that made her everything to him.