Joel pushed open the front door, stepping into the kitchen. "Hey Tommy."

"Hey Joel," Tommy stood in the middle of the floor, sipping his coffee. He held up a hand. "Before you tell me anything, you need to go check on Ellie. She panicked a bit when she came down here and it was me and not you, and she ran upstairs. Been quiet as a church mouse up there."

Joel pushed past him and headed up the stairs without a word, with Tommy calling after him, "I'm gonna see myself out, talk to you later!"

Joel threw up a hand in farewell as he reached the top of the stairs, turning his focus on finding Ellie.

"Ellie?" A quick search of her room revealed Ellie was not in there. He moved to his room. "Ellie? Ellie baby, it's me." He pulled open his closet door, and there beneath the few flannel shirts hanging up sat Ellie, her knife clutched in both hands.

"Did you really think I wasn't coming back?" Joel tried the lighthearted approach. "After all we've been through, that one little girl in the hospital was going to take me out?"

"You ran off into the jaws of the lion, Joel, what else was I supposed to expect?" Ellie's voice held no malice but her eyes were afraid. Joel held out a hand and she took it, allowing him to help her crawl out of the closet and stand. Once she was on her feet, he pulled her close.

"Ellie, she's going to be alright. She's a little confused right now, but that's because of her injury to her head. She will recover and be just fine. Same thing happened to me."

Ellie frowned up at Joel's scar on his right temple and sighed. Joel said he had been shot at and the guy missed. He recovered just fine. "So you were sick like that, too?"

Joel nodded, a muscle twitching in his jaw. "Yeah. For a while. Didn't remember a lot of stuff. Once it all came back, it made sense. We just have to be careful with her for a while. She's pregnant too, and that's sending her emotions all over the place."

"All I care about is you," Ellie admitted flatly. "Joel, Silver-" She choked on her words, and he was patient, frozen in place, lest a slight move break her concentration. "Silver Lake fucked me up, mentally, and I - I need to know that you'll always be there."

"Of course I will, Ellie," he replied softly, eyes softening. "You're a little shit sometimes, and you annoy the fucking daylights out of me with your headstrong ways, but you're my little shit now. Nothing will change that."

"Joel, promise me no more talk of leaving. No giving me up, pawning me off on someone else, we are in this together, you and me, for life, right?

Joel nodded. "Yes. You and me, Ellie. Forever." Forever was such an odd word to say. He thought about how it sounded on his tongue and he half smiled. It was a good word.

"Promise?" Ellie's lover lip trembled and he tilted his head to one side. His broken, fragile Ellie.

"On one condition," he replied. "You talk to me. About anything and everything you need to talk about. Silver Lake, fucking homework, stupid puns, kids here inviting you to go places and do shit. Don't keep secrets. And I promise I will do the same for you."

She nodded once. "Kay. Promise?"

"Promise."

"Alright." Ellie sniffed, swiping at her chin with her sleeve, where tears had long ago dried. "It's a deal."

Joel wanted to laugh outright at the adorableness of the exchange, but he also knew that she was saying a whole lot in such few words.

Ellie needed him. Depended on him. And fuck it, he depended on her too.

"Do you want to go downstairs and eat now? Pancakes might be cold but we can warm them up on the stove."

Ellie sighed, feeling the fear and loneliness seeping out of her with every second of breath that left her lungs. Rough days may still be ahead, but Joel was there.

And he wasn't going to leave her this time.

"Hannah!" Ellie bounded into the clinic room where Hannah sat, working on a knitted scarf, Maria at her side.

"Hi, Ellie. Did you bring lunch?" Hannah's eyes were clear and bright, and her hands rested atop a very visible baby bump.

"Yep." Ellie dropped a crate onto the side of the bed, leaning over to look into its depths. "Tommy sent baked potatoes, fried chicken, and some kind of fruit pie."

Maria laughed. "That would be the grouse whortleberry, better known as a huckleberry. We pick them and dry them, and make them into pies. If you two want, you can help with the picking this fall."

"Fuck yeah!" Ellie exclaimed, eager as always for a chance to explore outside of the city gates.

"Ellie, language," Joel chided, entering the room with a coat over his arm and Tommy at his heels. She rolled her eyes at him, and he tossed her coat at her head, where it landed, completely covering her.

"Joel!"

"Serves you right for rolling your eyes," he chuckled. "Hannah, baby girl, how are you doing, sweetheart?"

"Alright," Hannah replied. "Maria has been teaching me to knit, it has been quite an adventure."

Joel nodded at the project in her hands. "You've made good progress. You should teach Ellie some of those finer womanly things."

"I would rather be thrown off a moving horse," Ellie replied dryly, and everyone laughed. Tommy nodded her direction.

"Careful, Ellie, next Joel will have you ironing his socks."

Joel grabbed Ellie's jacket and swung it at Tommy who dodged away, hands in the air.

"Alright, ladies and heathen, I am off to work on the new barn. If it snows again, the horses won't have anywhere to be. Give me a yell if you need anyone to run Joel off for you."

Joel snorted. "Tommy, you know good and well that I am coming over there with you. I was a contractor too, you know. Remember, we used to work together?"

Tommy tilted his head on one side, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Oh, yeah, that's right!" He turned and darted out of the room, laughing, as Joel frowned at him with the expression of a brother about to get into a fistfight. "See you all later!"

Joel turned his attention back to Ellie and the group, the annoyed lines leaving his face. "Alright, you girls have a good time visiting. Ellie, I will be home around six for dinner. If I am late, don't wait for me, but it should be no later than seven."

Ellie nodded, and threw an arm around him for a hug. "Be careful."

"Aren't I always?"

"No," Ellie replied promptly. "You are not."

Joel laughed. "Alright, well I will try."

"I am going to go too," Maria laughed. "I have to start dinner preparations, and Ellie, if you wouldn't mind staying with Hannah until the nurse comes to help her get ready for bed, I would appreciate it."

"Sure, I have no plans." Ellie shrugged, glancing at Joel. He looked proud of her, and it made her heart ache with joy. It was a rare sight, but a coveted one. "No problem at all."

The moment Maria and Joel left, Ellie and Hannah began to spread out their feast. Hannah laid aside her knitting aside, and accepted the plate Ellie handed her. "Ellie," she asked. "Can I say something without you getting really mad at me?"

Ellie sliced open her potato with a kitchen knife from the crate and salted it. "Sure, Hannah."

"You have to promise me that you won't get mad."

"You said that already," Ellie grumbled in a friendly manner. "And your gonna make me mad with all the stalling. What's going on?"

Hannah rubbed a hand across the baby bump gently, her forehead furrowed in thought. "Ellie, there are times I hate him."

Ellie nearly choked on her chicken. "What? Hate who?"

A tear slid down Hannah's face, and she sniffed. "Joel. Sometimes - I hate him."

Ellie froze, her mind racing different directions. "My Joel?" Hannah had never recognized Joel as the one who had killed her father, and after the initial time she had ranted about it in her fevered, swollen-brain state, she had never mentioned it again. Now, two weeks later, everyone had thought it had been forgotten.

Apparently not.

"Yes," Hannah replied softly. "Your Joel. Ellie, I remember it all now. It came back to me a few days ago like a flood of emotions, and it was horrible. It was the middle of the night and I was alone and it hurt so bad."

Ellie swallowed hard, unsure what to do. Hannah was crying, she should have been angry because it was fucking about Joel, but there was something broken in her tears that reminded her of Riley, right after being bitten, and the bitter, broken tears that they had both shed. These were not tears of vengeance. They were tears of pain.

"I don't blame him, I really don't. I just hate that he had to kill him. Couldn't he have just knocked him out, couldn't my dad have just not been so stupid!" Hannah pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, her entire body tense, trying to contain the flood of emotions that threatened to fall. She dropped her hands and looked at Ellie.

"I just fucking miss my dad, and I hate this fucked up world, and the infection and the constant fucking fight to live. Yo get to go home to a dad, and I will never have that. Joel can't possibly see us both the same way."

Ellie nodded, dropping her chicken onto the plate. "Hannah," she said softly, laying aside the plate and scooting closer to the other girl. "When I was in the QZ, I had no one. I was alone. I was part of a FEDRA school, but that was basically a bunch of us trying to survive. It was rough. Then Joel came along, and a bunch of shit happened. He hated me too, when we first met. Well, not hated, but he wasn't happy. There was this woman with him, names Tess. She and Joel were like, a thing, I think. Anyhow, she died later, getting bit, trying to get me a dangerous part of the town outside the QZ. Joel hated me for it. I could tell. Not in what he said, but the fact that he didn't fucking say anything. He still like gave me his coat, and shared their food with me. But he was blaming me, i knew it. I told him not to blame me for their decisions." Ellie took one of Hannah's hands in hers. "Hannah, don't blame anyone else for any decisions your dad made. He did what he thought was right at the time and he fucked up. We all will, at some point. I've done my shit share of fucking up. Look, I know you feel like you don't have anyone. But you got me. And Joel. And Tommy and Maria. We will all be your family now. And Joel, he's a pretty good dad. Old as the hills and creaks like a barn door, but he's good. Look, you won't ever be me, and I won't ever be you. Joel's just like that. He cares."

Hannah chuckled at the reference to Joel's creaking, and sniffed back her tears. "You - you're not mad at me?"

"Course not," Ellie grunted, picking up her plate again. Her face became dead serious. "Just don't ever fucking threaten him or try to hurt him. I will kill you if you do, and that is not a fucking empty threat."

"I don't want him to die," Hannah replied softly. "I don't. I just miss what was."

"Cause of the baby?"

Hannah nodded. "Yeah. My dad would have loved it."

"Yeah," Ellie snorted. "Bet David would have too."

Hannah's face paled and her lower lip trembled, and Ellie knew she had touched a nerve. "Sorry, Hannah. I just meant that your dad and David, they would probably have had words, if he found out, then David would probably have killed your dad, then you would have been stuck there in that situation. At least this way, you're free, and Joel, he cares about you like a dad, and I don't mind sharing, if you aren't going to kill him."

Hannah was silent for a minute, her face turned away from Ellie, her thin shoulders shaking with repressed sobs. "I won't hurt him," she promised, crying softly. "I promise, I won't hurt him. It's just all been so much."

Ellie nodded, eyebrows raised in agreement. "Yeah, you're telling me. Do you want me to read to you or something?"

Hannah nodded, turning her attention to her potato. "If you want to."

Ellie nodded, pulling her pun book from her little backpack. "Alright, you asked for it." She flipped through the pages for a moment, before Hannah spoke again.

"It's kinda nice to have a sister. I - I never had one before."

Ellie looked up at her, grinning. "Yeah. It's fucking awesome, isn't it?"

Hannah laughed. "Yes. Yes it is." Her face became serious again. "Hey Ellie, would you mind if I talked to Joel privately, about everything, when he is done working tonight?"

Ellie's face was blank, emotionless, and her heart was pounding in her throat. "Sure, yeah, that's fine."

"I won't hurt him, I'm not going to, not ever. But I don't want to keep it all from him either. And I want to tell him thank you, for saving my life."

"Alright." Ellie shrugged, trying to calm her rising blood pressure, and looked through her pun book. "Alright, I'm writing a book about falling down the stairs...It's a step by step guide."

Both girls laughed hysterically, one pun after the other, and that was how Joel found them a couple hours later. He hesitated at the door, watching them. Both girls had fought for their very existence in this fucked up world, and had survived. A bit broken, a bit bruised maybe, but alive. Thriving.

It was all he could hope for that maybe the future would be okay.

Maybe they would live and die here, in Jackson.

A family, finally, that Cordyceps couldn't take from him.

"Hey kiddos, you doing alright?" Joel asked, stepping into the room.

"Yes," both girls chorused. "Joel, Joel," Ellie chuckled, "What do you call a narcissist criminal walking down the stairs?"

Joel shrugged off his coat, a wide smile on his tired face. "No idea, you tell me."

"A condescending con descending!"

Joel looked confused for a moment, then his face lit up as he got the joke. "Ah, that's fucking stupid but I like it."

"It's a good one!" Ellie exclaimed. "There's so many good ones in here."

Joel nodded. "I see you are enjoying yourself. I came to get you for dinner, you ready?"

"Yes," Ellie nodded, shoving her book into her pack. "What are we having?"

"Chicken and dumplings and some type of brownie thing that the kids helped make." Joel rubbed the back of his neck, tilting his head to stretch the muscles. "Apple cider too, the hot kind."

"Sounds good. Hannah, you want us to bring you some?" Ellie packed up the crate of leftovers, and stood.

Hannah waved her away. "No, Maria will bring me mine, you go have fun. But thank you, Ellie, I appreciate it."

"Okay then, see you tomorrow." Ellie made her way to the door, waiting for Joel to follow.

"Hey, Joel," Hannah asked softly, as he stood, grumbling about his aching knees. "Can I talk to you for a minute, just you?"

Cold chills ran over Ellie's spine, and she swallowed hard. "That good with you, kiddo?" Joel asked in Ellie's direction. "You could wait for me outside, and I will walk over to the restaurant with you."

"I'll head on over," Ellie replied, forcing her voice to remain calm. "I'll save you a place. Just don't be too long, that cider will be gone before you can say shit."

Joel laughed, a genuine fatherly laugh, and patted her shoulder. "Good girl, save me some for sure then. See you in a few minutes, kiddo."

Ellie waved and walked out of the room, and out of the clinic, feeling the very weight of fear trying to drag her back into the room with Hannah, to stand right there and keep Joel safe, watching for any weapon or attack that the pregnant girl would dare to being on her Joel.

But she had promised Joel.

And Joel was no pushover. He could take care of himself.

She had to trust them.

And it was a fucking terrifying thing to do.

YAY They are getting somewhere in their healing! As always, read and review, it means the world to me!