Chapter Text
14
“I need to tell Dina.”
The words made Joel pause. They were crossing the wide-open field in front of Jackson’s main gate, the looming walls casting a colossal shadow across the tall grass.
Tommy glanced between him and Ellie, rocking back and forth on his heels but not relinquishing his grip on Joel’s hand. The movement was swinging his arm, but his attention was on Ellie.
She was gazing at the guard towers on either side of the gate, absently twisting her bracelet around her wrist. “She should know about…well, everything.”
He kept his face impassive despite the slither of unease crawling its way up his throat. After everything that’d happened with the Fireflies—with Marlene—he didn’t want anyone else knowing about Ellie. It felt like a risk—like losing her was still a possibility.
She faced them, the light catching on her black eye and the cut slicing through her lips. She looked exhausted. “This is, like, a full disclosure thing. She should know what we—what I—might be bringing here.” She wrinkled her nose. “And I’d rather know sooner than later if we need to find another place to live.”
His grip on Tommy’s hand tightened even as he nodded, begrudgingly agreeing with her.
When they reached the entrance, a guard waited with them in a cramped break room near the gate while someone ran to retrieve Dina.
They all sat together at a table, Joel trying to ignore the way the man kept glancing between him and Ellie with a suspicious frown. Maybe he thought she’d hurt him.
The idea was laughable.
He silently endured the scrutiny, but it was irritating Ellie. She was slouched back in her chair, her finger tapping with increasing speed against the scratched tabletop while she stared the man down.
“Hey,” she finally snapped, making the man jump. She leaned forward with a mean scowl. “Take a fucking picture—it’ll last longer.”
The man’s face reddened with embarrassment. Joel was embarrassed too, but also absurdly grateful.
“I wouldn’t take it personally, Dan. She’s like that with everyone.”
Ellie’s head whipped up, and Joel didn’t think he’d imagined the hitch in her breathing. She stood so quickly that her chair slid into the wall. “Dina.”
She took a stuttering step forward before hesitating, but Dina didn’t seem to share her reservations. She closed the distance between them and enfolded her in a tight hug. “Ellie…I’m so glad you’re safe.”
They pulled apart a moment later, and Joel definitely wasn’t imagining the blush staining Ellie’s cheeks. “Thanks. I’m glad you’re—good too. I mean, you look good. Well, uh, you always look good, but—yeah.”
Joel met Tommy’s bemused gaze and shrugged.
Dina looked like she was biting back a smile. The blush on Ellie’s cheeks deepened. She cleared her throat. “Anyways. This is—this is Joel’s brother, Tommy.”
Dina returned Tommy’s bright smile, but it faded as her gaze slid between the cuts and bruises scattered across his and Ellie’s face before landing on Joel’s forehead.
“Let’s head to the clinic,” she said slowly, nodding at Dan. “I’ll take it from here.”
She led them to a brownstone building sitting on the edge of a bustling street. The number of people he saw walking up and down it—all of them calling out pleasantries or engaging in friendly conversation with their companions—made his neck prickle.
Once inside, Dina gestured at them to wait and vanished through a door. She reappeared several minutes later with a stern-looking woman in tow. “This is Dr. Everston. She’s gonna give each of you an exam.”
“Call me Doc. Everyone else seems to,” she said briskly, turning a shrewd gaze onto Joel. “Let’s take a look at you first, young man.”
“I’ll stay with Tommy,” Dina offered when Joel made no move to follow Doc. She sat in one of the vinyl chairs and directed a reassuring smile at them, patting the seat next to her. “It shouldn’t take too long.”
Joel reluctantly released Tommy’s hand when Ellie touched his shoulder. They followed Doc through the door and down a hallway, turning into one of the exam rooms.
“Jump on up there,” Doc said curtly, nodding at the bed pushed against the far wall while she pulled on a pair of latex gloves. “I want a look at that wound.”
He held still while she examined and stitched his head. After bandaging it, she gave him a full examination. She tsked the entire time.
Ellie watched them closely from a chair across the room. She straightened in her seat when Doc stepped away to jot a few things down on a notepad.
“We’ll have to keep an eye on that injury, but—barring any potential concussion—it should heal up nicely,” she said, facing them again with a deep frown. “To be frank, I’m more concerned about the malnourishment.”
Joel glanced over at Ellie in time to see a flash of guilt cross her face. He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t her fault. She’d always made sure he had food—even gave him part of her portion some days. Instead, he looked down at the linoleum.
“Most people coming in from outside are,” Doc continued in a no-nonsense tone. “I normally prescribe a protein supplement for folks this underweight. Plant-based and made here in Jackson. Not the tastiest, I’m afraid, but it gets the job done.”
His cheeks warmed. “I don’t need—”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
He and Ellie looked at each other. Her knee was bouncing so fast that the chair was vibrating against the linoleum. He was the first to drop his gaze. “Alright.”
Joel picked unhappily at a loose thread on the hem of his shirt, tuning out the rest of the conversation and only distantly registering words like monitor and damage. When they finally left the room, he knew the concession had been worth it when Ellie paused to touch his shoulder before they re-entered the waiting room.
“Your turn,” Ellie told Tommy, giving him a lopsided smile. She looked surprised but gratified when he jumped to his feet and grasped her hand, smiling up at her sweetly. It made the corners of his lips twitch up.
He sat in the seat Tommy had vacated, leaning his head back against the wall and letting his eyes slide shut. His headache was coming back full force.
“Joel.” He blinked, lolling his head against the wall to see Dina gazing at him with concern. “Do you want to lay down?”
He nodded tiredly, following her into another dark exam room and sitting on the bed. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Dina said, giving him a gentle smile. She paused at the door, adding quietly, “I’m glad you all got here safe.”
The kind sincerity in her words made him look down at his dirty, bloodstained jeans. The door clicked shut a moment later, plunging the room into darkness.
He rubbed his eyes, trying to wipe away the grittiness. Now that he knew Tommy was safe—that Ellie was safe—he finally gave-in to the exhaustion washing over him in waves.
He didn’t remember falling asleep, but something made him jolt awake with a half-strangled gasp. He pushed up on his elbows, his heart pounding against his rib cage while the dark room swam into focus.
“Joel?”
Tommy was leaning against the side of the bed, peering up at him with concern.
“Hey,” Joel said in a rough voice. His temple throbbed, a persistent ache that bloomed across his face and into his eye. The stitches tugged uncomfortably at the bruised skin beneath the bandage. “You alright? Doc finish your check-up?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tommy said, clambering onto the bed when Joel made room for him. He breathed in the smell of disinfectant, suppressing a wince when Tommy squirmed against his stomach. His limbs were just as boney as he remembered, digging uncomfortably into his thighs and chest until he resettled. “Ellie is talkin’ with Dina right now. Your head okay?”
“Yeah. It’ll be fine,” Joel murmured, gently smoothing a few strands of Tommy’s wild hair before letting his hand fall to his shoulder.
Tommy frowned and inspected him closely. He examined his brother too, taking a moment to just look at him.
Like Joel, he’d always run on the small side—never enough to eat, even with Joel always making sure he had food—but he seemed healthy. If nothing else, the Fireflies had at least kept him safe and fed over the past year and a half.
Despite having slept in the car and for most of the walk to Jackson, Tommy still looked tired. He reached out and clumsily touched the scars on his face. Joel let him, trying to swallow past the lump that seemed to have settled in his throat. “You been okay? They take care of you?”
“Yeah. It weren’t much different than the orphanage—there were some other kids there, and they had us doin’ drills and chores and all that,” he said, sighing. He traced one of the deeper scars on Joel’s arm, a deep furrow forming between his brows. “Was it…was it bad gettin’ to the hospital?”
He shook his head tiredly and pressed his eyes shut. He pictured artificial light filtering through half-dead plants and blood-orange flames stretching toward the night sky. Of pale blue eyes and the never-ending burn of a blade.
“Joel?”
His eyes snapped open. He covered Tommy’s hand and forced out a response. “It was nothin.’ I’m just—sorry it took so long.”
His face fell. “Marlene told me you weren’t comin.’ That—that somethin’ had happened in Boston. I thought—"
He cut off, lip trembling. He hadn’t cried when they’d been reunited yesterday—like Joel, he didn’t cry easy. But the tears were coming now, rolling thickly down his cheeks and dripping onto the bedding.
Joel exhaled. His shirt was encrusted with dirt and blood—God only knew what’d been in that water—so he used his fingers to carefully wipe the tears from Tommy’s cheeks before pulling him close. “Hey now, it’s okay. Nothin’ was gonna stop me from gettin’ you.”
He ran a hand soothingly down Tommy’s back until his shaking subsided. Until he asked from against his neck, his voice small and muffled, “Promise you ain’t gonna leave again?”
“I ain’t goin’ anywhere,” Joel murmured against the crown of his head. “I swear.”
When Ellie and Dina finally came to retrieve them—both looking pale and worn—Joel stirred from his half-doze and slowly pushed into a sitting position. Tommy grumbled at the movement, pressing closer before going still again.
“Hey, little dude,” she said, her face softening as she looked at them. “How’re you feeling?”
“Like a pile of horseshit,” he said roughly, his lips quirking up when she huffed out a startled laugh. “You alright?”
“I’m fine,” Ellie said, sitting on the edge of the bed and pushing a few strands of hair off his forehead before resting her hand on his shoulder. He couldn’t help but lean into the touch. “Better than fine, actually.”
He glanced cautiously at Dina, who was smiling at them from where she was leaning against the door frame. “We stayin’ here?”
“Yeah,” Ellie said quietly, smiling crookedly. “Yeah, we’re gonna stay.”
__________________
And, just like that, they were living a normal life.
Or at least Joel thought it might be normal. Between Boston and traveling across the country, he didn’t exactly have a baseline of what normal looked like—especially when everything in Jackson felt so goddamn strange.
He wasn’t used to the genuine sense of community pervading the entire town. Everyone played a role in keeping the town running, whether it was fixing crumbling buildings for new inhabitants or making hygiene products. Everyone wasn’t just expected to help—they were happy to contribute.
After the first few days, they’d filled new roles too. Ellie had started patrol while he helped with farming rotation until a spot opened in the stables. Even Tommy was expected to attend school during the week.
The thing was—even though he’d been given a task, Joel didn’t have a clear purpose anymore. His entire life had been dedicated to keeping Tommy safe—keeping him fed and protected—but he was safe here. More than that, he was happy. He’d made friends with kids his own age within a single day—had already adapted to life here in a way that Joel just couldn’t do.
A week after they’d arrived in Jackson, Joel was reading a comic book in the room he shared with Tommy when a soft knock made him look up.
Ellie leaned against the door frame with her arms crossed, tapping an index finger against her bicep. “Hey, spud. I was thinking…”
“Try not to hurt yourself.”
“Ha ha,” she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes as she pushed off the door frame and moved into the room. “Give the kid a microphone, ‘cause he’s got jokes.”
His lips twitched. He waited for her to continue, but she just wandered over to examine Tommy’s unmade bed before running a hand over the dresser. She was absently rubbing her fingers when she finally turned to face him. He frowned and sat up, giving her his full attention.
“Okay, so I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and I think the garage out back would be pretty fucking easy to restore into a fully functioning apartment.”
The garage had been some kind of guest home for the house’s pre-Outbreak owners, but had long since been turned into a de facto storage unit. When they’d first moved in, Ellie had taken one look at all the junk piled inside and slammed the door with a disgruntled ‘fuuuck that.’
“Sick of me already?” Joel asked nonchalantly, the words leaving a sour taste in his mouth.
“Don’t be stupid,” Ellie scoffed, giving him a look that was equal parts affectionate and exasperated. “I just thought you might want your own place and that it’d be cool if you could, like, come and go without feeling like you had to tell me.”
“I…reckon that’d be nice,” he said slowly, trying to keep the skepticism from his voice.
After traveling with Ellie for a year—surviving with her—he was still trying to adjust to the sudden expectation that they have a routine that didn’t involve each other 24 hours of the day.
Now she wanted them to have even more space?
The mattress dipped when Ellie sat beside him. She flipped through the comic before tossing it onto the foot of the bed with a sigh. “I know this is a shit-ton of change, but you’re gonna want more independence when you finally get settled here.”
Yeah, but when was all the change going to stop? Joel frowned and ran his fingers over the faded comforter, feeling the places where the fabric had worn thin.
“Hey.”
He reluctantly looked up, the poorly concealed worry in her eyes making his stomach clench. “This is still your home, Joel. That won’t change just ‘cause you have your own space.”
He considered that, absently running his fingers along the too-large watch that he’d taken to wearing since getting here. His dad’s watch.
“I reckon it wouldn’t hurt,” he offered tentatively.
Her face lit up with a smile. She’d been doing that more since they’d gotten to Jackson, and—besides having Tommy back—it was one of the best parts of living here.
“Awesome, dude. Let’s take a look at it in the next day or two.” She paused as though remembering something. “You have your first shift at the stables tomorrow, right?”
Joel nodded emphatically. “I’m definitely lookin’ forward to bein’ off farm rotation.”
“Oh man, I bet. By the way…” He waited for her to continue, frowning when her face grew serious. “No horsing around tomorrow or you’ll stirrup trouble.”
“Terrible,” he groaned, shoving half-heartedly at her shoulder while she snickered. “Maybe my own place wouldn’t be so bad after all.”
“Yeah,” she said, grinning so wide that her eyes crinkled at the edges. “We’re gonna be neighbors.”
He released a huff of laughter that turned into a sigh when she nudged him in the side and waggled her eyebrows expectantly. “Ellie, I’m gonna need you to rein it in.”
When she cracked up, he couldn’t help but laugh with her.
__________________
Joel arrived early at the stables the next morning.
He loitered out front for a minute before resting his arms against the fence and watching several horses graze in the enclosure, grateful for the warmth of his jacket against the morning chill.
“Joel!”
Jesse was leading a saddled-up horse from the stables. He stopped several feet away and beamed at Joel like he was genuinely pleased to see him. “Hey! I’m glad we were able to get you on the roster so quick.”
Joel smiled tersely, still unused to Jesse’s sincere friendliness. He and his wife Rory had stopped by their house during their first few days in Jackson with food and warm welcomes. Besides Tommy, they were both the most outgoing people he’d ever met.
“There’s been a slight change of plan. I got tagged to do the wall inspection today to see where we need to focus repairs during the summer, but Tess here—” Jesse nodded toward the girl who’d followed him out as far as the entrance and was leaning against one of the barn doors. “—volunteered to show you the ropes. She’s been helping out at the stables a long time now, so you’re in good hands.”
Joel nodded and tried not to stiffen when Jesse clapped him on the shoulder. “Great! I’ll let you two get to it.”
Tess surveyed him coolly from the entrance while Jesse led the horse away, her gaze assessing as it slid over his face and landed on his half-healed temple. Doc had taken out the stitches earlier that week, but it was still surrounded by vivid bruising.
Everyone had been staring at it. Everyone had been staring at him. New kid.
She looked older than him—tall and lean with a no-nonsense air that reminded him vaguely of Riley. After a few seconds, she pushed off the barn door and gestured at him to follow her.
“It’s nice to finally meet you. It’s always a big deal when we get a new family, so you’ve been the talk of the town.” She shot him a sly look over her shoulder. “Not that anyone here needs an excuse to gossip.”
She paused outside an empty stall at the far end of the stables and placed her hand on the door. “We’ll be doing a few different things today, but we’ll start with mucking out the stables.”
The next several days passed in a blur of dirty, grueling work, but Joel vastly preferred it to farm rotation. He enjoyed the constant sound of horses shifting in their stalls—their soft huffs and the whoosh of their tails flicking. It was nice. Familiar.
Tess or Kieran, the nice but awkward stable master, occasionally provided training or issued instructions, but otherwise left him alone while he completed his assigned tasks.
On his fourth day, Tess waved him over to one of the work benches. “Hey, there you are. I wanted to go over horse care today.”
Joel perked up. “That mean we finally gonna work with the horses?”
“He speaks,” she said, smirking and propping a hip against the work bench. “What’s that accent?”
“Texan,” he muttered, watching a nearby horse lazily flick its ear.
“Huh.” She gazed at him consideringly, tapping a scuffed boot against the dirt packed floor. After a moment, she smiled. It was sharp, but it wasn’t mocking. It eased some of the tension from his shoulders. “Alright then, Texas. Let’s go work with the horses.”
Over the next few hours, Tess walked him through every step of caring for the horses. It was the most she’d spoken with him since he’d started working there. In between blunt instructions, he learned that her family had been one of the first to seek refuge in Jackson after the Outbreak.
“Jackson never really had a FEDRA presence outside the dam and a few isolated outposts,” she explained while showing him how to clean hooves. “The town was isolated—move it down. Yeah, like that—and everyone was too spread out to enforce evacuation anyways. Not worth the effort when all they really cared about was protecting Cheyenne QZ’s main power source.”
She smirked. “Not that the people here would’ve accepted FEDRA rule anyways. Bunch of stubborn bastards. The town didn’t really turn into a unified survivor settlement until Dina and Jesse got here. They rallied everyone—made them believe an independent settlement was possible.”
That didn’t surprise him. In the short time he’d known them, Jesse and Dina had impressed him with their kindness and drive. Looking at them, he could understand why Ellie loved them so much—and why, despite a complicated past, they all got along so well. In their own unique ways, all three were a force to be reckoned with.
“The military abandoned the state when Cheyenne fell, and Jackson was finally able to tap into the grid.” She took the tool and showed him another motion before handing it back. “It’s not perfect, but it definitely beats growing up in a fucking QZ.”
Joel hummed in agreement, keeping his gaze focused on the hoof. He may have felt uneasy in a place like this, but it was perfect for Tommy—and he wouldn’t jeopardize that for anything.
“Good,” Tess said, nodding in approval as she examined his work. “If we don’t lose you to patrol duty, you’d make a decent farrier.”
He picked up the toolbox and followed her over to the work bench. “Are you startin’ patrol next year?”
“Nah, I prefer working in town. I can make more of a difference here than out there,” she said, taking the toolbox from him and sliding it onto the table. She looked at him shrewdly. “I take it you’re gonna put in for it when you’re old enough?”
She sighed when he nodded. “That’s a damn shame. Could’ve had you running the stables by the time you were eighteen.”
At the end of his first week, Joel arrived at the stables and nodded a greeting at Tess before examining the horse roster tacked to the bulletin board next to the patrol schedule. Over half the horses were out for patrol or work duty, but there was a tag in a separate section reserved for training.
He reached out and touched it before glancing down the row of stalls, wondering if he should take care of it before it started training for the day.
“Not that one,” Tess instructed, coming to stand next to him. “He’s the mean bastard that tried taking a bite out of you yesterday.”
Ah. That horse.
He’d been cleaning the part of the stables reserved for wild horses when one of them—an ornery black stallion—had leaned out from its stall and nipped at him.
She smirked at his grimace and tapped another tag. “Take this one instead.”
He’d just led a mare out into the field when he spotted Tess shepherding the stallion into the training paddock. She shook her head with a wry expression, looking up when someone called her name.
A boy leaned against the fence in the same spot Joel had stood before his first shift. He was wearing a weathered black hat that reminded him of the cowboys he’d read about when he was younger.
Tess joined him and gestured at the stallion, who was tossing his head in agitation while he paced the enclosure. The boy responded with something that made them both laugh before climbing the fence and heading toward the paddock.
Joel kept glancing in his direction while he worked, mesmerized with the boy’s easy confidence. He handled the stallion with a mixture of sureness and gentleness while murmuring a steady stream of reassurances that occasionally drifted over on the breeze.
Over the course of an hour, he watched as the horse turned from aggressive to docile—even allowing the boy to ride him around the paddock.
The longer he watched, the more he became aware of something strange happening in his stomach and chest—something that felt different from the usual anxiety. He only half-noticed the mare nosing at him for his inattention.
“You done grooming that horse?”
Joel started. Tess eyed him with amusement from several feet away, and his gaze slid from her to the mare, who’d finally given up trying to get his attention and was grazing on a nearby patch of grass. His cheeks warmed. “Uh, yeah. I reckon I’m done with her.”
Christ, how long had she been standing there? How long had he been standing there?
“Uh huh.” She raised an eyebrow. “Something catch your attention?”
The flush spread to his ears. He made a noncommittal sound, but his eyes flickered toward the training paddock before he could catch himself. Tess followed his gaze to where the boy was petting the horse’s muzzle.
“Ahh. Arthur,” she said, a smirk curling up the corners of her lips. “He’s something, isn’t he? Has a real gift with horses.” She shook her head and sighed. “Another one we’ll be losing to patrol. Want me to introduce you two?”
“No!” Her eyebrows shot up. He cleared his throat and grabbed the mare’s reins in a poor attempt to hide his face. He said, more nonchalantly, “That ain’t necessary.”
Tess scrutinized him for a long moment before giving him another sharp smile. “Well, there’s not too many teenagers our age around, so I’m sure you’ll cross paths with him at some point.”
Joel nodded and shot the boy—Arthur—one last look before leading the mare back into the stables.