Chapter Text
The stupidest fight Joel and Tess have ever had was over whether or not to shoot a pigeon.
The summer of 2012 had been unusually hot. Hot in the way that pricked against their necks and stuck their shirts to their skin. Joel had gotten headaches from the heat, and had spent most of the summer laying across their couch when he wasn’t out on a job or a run, springs digging into his back and arm draped over his eyes. Tess had been sunburned to hell and had spent most of her time coming up with increasingly unsafe plans to steal more bottled water.
The pigeon was really just the last straw, the build-up from everything else. But it was still so goddamn stupid. Tess remembers it to this day, the smug look on that fucking bird’s face as it stared at them through the window, eyes unblinking.
It came every morning. Just peeking out at them with that empty-eyed stare. A pair of eyes, even bird eyes, constantly watching them in the “comforts” of their shitty apartment. was the last thing they wanted. They already spent most of their days trying to slip undetected through FEDRA surveillance.
So Tess wanted to shoot the bird.
Joel didn’t want to waste the bullet.
Hence, the resulting shouting match.
The pigeon watched them the entire time, still flitting around outside of the window. Tess won. She shot it. It wasn’t the tastiest meat.
Joel went out of his way to avoid her for the rest of the day, and forgot about it all by the next morning. Because really, even if it had stemmed from greater issues, it was still insignificant. Simple. And that was that.
This isn’t the same. This doesn’t feel like the kind of thing you can roll away from someone in bed because of, and then forget about the next day. This comes from years upon years of actions and feelings, not just one shitty summer. She knows it. He knows it.
The fact that Joel starts choking seconds after hearing the question, though, doesn’t bode well for how this is going to turn out. Tess gives him a moment to compose himself, leaning her elbows against the table.
It’s later than they usually stay up. The sky is navy blue outside the windows, the moon radiating light as it sits round and full in the sky. The shadows cast pitch black across the corners of the kitchen. The old clock on the wall reads 1:43.
Maybe she should have waited until sunrise to bring this up.
Joel wipes his mouth against his arm, taking a quick sip from the glass of water he’s been spending the past hour staring at. He clears his throat, then meets her eyes. “What did you just say?”
She rests her cheek against her hand, elbows still propped up on the table. “I asked if you wanted to get married at some point.”
Joel nearly chokes again. “I mean, I— Tess.”
“Take your time.”
He lets out a long breath, scrubbing his hand over his face. There are shadows under his eyes, purple and pale. They look like bruises. Tess knows she sports a matching pair; neither of them have slept well over the past week. The moon is too bright, and Ellie has nightmares, and really, it’s just been one of those weeks, where time seems to slow down as the past and present try to blend themselves together again.
“I don’t see why we would,” Joel says slowly. He’s looking at the table instead of meeting her eyes, repetitively tapping his fingers against the wood.
She snorts. “Why wouldn’t we? It wouldn’t have been worth anything in Boston, but it means something here.”
“It still don’t mean that much here, though. Just something you say and rings that you wear. We’ve already… we’ve already got everything that we need.”
“20 years, Joel,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’ll be 20 years, by the end of this one.”
He slowly looks up, meeting her eyes.
She’s breaking one of their rules right now. One of the unspoken ones they’ve had in place for a long time, one of the ones they’ve carried even after they crossed half the country with a little girl in tow, going through things that bound them so firmly in all of the most important ways.
She’s talking about what they are.
“We have a house.” She reaches across the table, laying her hand over his tapping fingers. They still under her touch, and she brushes her own fingers over a hand she knows by touch, slides them down to palms that have fought with her, held her, and slipped into hers in the dead of the night. “We have a kid. We’ve got a family. A town. This is as close as it gets, you know that.”
“I know.” He turns his hand, moving his fingers so that they intertwine with hers. “It’s good. So why would we wanna bring something else into it?”
“It wouldn’t change anything.”
“Then why can’t we just leave it as it is?”
She lets out a small huff. Her chest is tightening, her jaw clenching. She can’t help it. All of their years from before come flashing back to her. All of those years of mutual coldness towards everything, a contrast to their tender touches alone. Nothing spoken. Nothing clear. Everything just muddled into one mess of time and fear, and wounds that could never heal.
She hadn’t asked for more, then. It had felt like a death sentence to put a title to any feelings you had for someone else, romantic or familial. Because parents died, partners died, siblings died, daughters and sons died. Your neighbor didn’t. Your roommate didn’t. None of the random people you knew did. Because they were replaced too quickly after for it to have really mattered. Because all of the faces blurred together, and even when they didn’t, it was best to pretend they did.
But things are different now. And they both know it.
“A confirmation,” she says. “That’s all it is.”
“We don’t need to go around confirming it. We already know it.”
“It’s what people in civilized places do.” Tess is using his own line against him. It’s what he always says to Ellie when it comes to things like not climbing the cabinets, or not scraping her silverware against the table, or refraining from punching other kids in school.
“Not all of them.”
“Fine, then.” She stands up, pushing her chair into the table with a little more force than necessary. “If after last year you’re still too afraid to fully commit to us, then we don’t need to have this fucking conversation.”
“You know it ain’t like that.” Joel’s voice drops an octave. She turns towards the stairs. Then she turns back around. She wants this, all of a sudden. Wants to keep pressing.
“Then what’s it like?”
He stands up, pushing his chair into the table much more gently than she had. He sighs after, laying his hands against the back of the chair. “If it’s that important to you, then we can do it, I guess.”
She sucks in a breath. The wind howls as it sweeps by the window, the leaves on the tree just outside the kitchen rustling with the breeze. “No,” she says, shaking her head. “No. I don’t want your half-assed acceptance of it. I want something to matter, for fucking once.”
“That don’t even make sense. Does nothing here matter, without it?” He gestures across the kitchen, his hand sweeping in the direction of their mugs together in the sink, Ellie’s drawings up on the refrigerator, one of Maria and Tommy’s baby son’s toys wedged between the wall and the fridge.
“Of course not. It matters. That’s why I want to do it.”
I want you to say that it matters. I want you to confirm that we matter in the oldest way we know how. I have hope for the first time in 20 years. I need this. I need you.
Her thoughts all make perfect sense in her head. But they aren’t coming out the way she wants them to, the way they usually do. They never do, in situations like this.
“You still ain’t making any sense.” He’s getting frustrated now. She can tell by the furrow of his brow, the tightening of his jaw.
“Because you aren’t fucking listening, you -”
Joel holds up a hand, quickly shaking his head. “You’re gonna wake her.”
She hadn’t even realized how loud her voice had gotten. They both suck in quick breaths and look up at the ceiling, waiting for the sounds of Ellie’s footsteps against the floor, or the creak of an opening door. Nothing.
“Goodnight,” Tess says after another minute of silence. She goes upstairs, her footsteps quiet and slow, snuggling into her side of the bed, the side facing the window. Because Joel always sleeps on the side facing the door, no matter where they are.
She lays her head against her pillow, staring at their horribly patterned curtains. A wave of something like guilt crashes over her, sinking into her stomach.
She knows he’s devoted. She knows he’s loyal. She knows he’s her partner, the only one for her, after everything that’s happened, everything they’ve watched each other do to stay alive. Everything they’ve done together.
And yet.
Joel is already up when she walks into the kitchen the next morning, eggs frying on the stove and three plates stacked on the counter. He’s still in the same faded flannel he was wearing yesterday, his hair curling and sticking out at the top of his head.
She wonders if he slept at all.
They don’t speak to each other as he watches the eggs and she opens a window, cleaning her revolver, which she was going to do last night before she got distracted.
He breaks the silence after five minutes with a short, “do you have to do that in the kitchen?”
She relocates to the living room.
She can hear the light pitter-patter of Ellie’s feet against the stairs after another few minutes, skipping every other step on her way down. It’s followed by footsteps across the hallway, and the hum of voices from the kitchen. The kid always goes looking for Joel first in the mornings. Tess gets the privilege of being looked for first at night, the later and more distraught the better (although the fact that the kid’s even willing to go to someone now speaks volumes).
She wanders back into the kitchen at Ellie’s call, the three plates from the counter now on the table. They don’t always eat breakfast together, but it’s nice when they do. Usually.
Ellie talks about Shimmer, and what Dina said to her yesterday, and, please, can they say she’s 16 so she can go on patrol (no). Then she goes quiet. Tess and Joel’s forks scrape against their plates, their gazes fixed in opposite directions.
“Is something going on?” she asks.
Tess looks to Joel, who’s already focused his gaze on Ellie. “No,” he says.
“Well, that was convincing. Seriously, what’s wrong?”
Tess stands up and takes her plate to the sink, rinsing it off. “Nothing’s wrong, kid.”
“O-kay then,” Ellie says slowly. “I’m going to school.”
She’s already grabbed her backpack and run out of the kitchen before they can say anything else. Joel goes up to one of the windows and watches her race down the street, looking away once she’s out of sight. He sighs.
“We both got longer shifts today and Tommy’s out overnight, so Maria’s getting her after, don’t worry about that.” He rinses off his own plate, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair. He’s already got his boots on, holster at his hip. “We’re out of eggs. I’ll get them on the way home.”
“Okay.”
“I’m on patrol with Cody and Esther this morning, but I’ll be in the workshop after, if anything comes up.”
“Okay.”
He pauses, turning around to face her. “There something you wanna say?”
She brushes past him, grabbing her own coat and shrugging it on. “We really gonna do this?”
“Do what?”
They head out the door together once Tess has laced her boots. There’s a light coating of snow across the ground, and she’s careful not to slip on the hidden ice across the porch steps. “Pretend nothing happened last night.”
He huffs. “I ain’t pretending anything. But we need someone to get Ellie, we need eggs, and we need to know where the other will be.”
Fair enough.
Joel turns to part ways as they reach the stables. She places a hand on his shoulder before he can, waiting for him to meet her eyes. “Be safe.”
His gaze softens in the way it’s only learned to since they acquired Ellie and came here. “You too.”
It was hard to be mad at each other, back in Boston.
It was hard to be much of anything, to be honest. Not with alcohol that burned her throat and wiped her mind, or the constant need to take on a new job, or the everpresent sound of bullets cracking through the air. When everything else was dulled, so was anger.
It was even harder to be mad at each other on the road. There wasn’t time. They were always running, always on edge, always one step away from disaster, or right in the thick of it.
In Jackson, though, there’s nothing but time. She comes home everyday to a house with lights and running water, and a sad little garden outside that she and Ellie have been trying to start.
There’s space to feel things. So she does. She feels a wave of peace at sunset, when Joel is lightly strumming his guitar out on the porch. She feels a sudden pit in her stomach, when she sees the tiny shoes and overalls of Tommy’s son. She feels something familiar and just as overwhelming as before when she sees Ellie curled up on the couch in her pajamas, her stomach full, her breathing clear, and a little smile across her sweet sleeping face.
And she also feels pretty fucking pissed the longer she and Joel go without mentioning that tense conversation again. She sleeps on the couch a couple of times over the next few weeks when she’s particularly mad, and makes a point to sit next to Maria in the dining hall instead of him. Maybe it’s petty. It’s been a long time since she was allowed to be petty.
It takes her two weeks to put her irritation back into words.
“You don’t gotta save a seat for me at the meeting tomorrow,” Joel says as he shuffles through the kitchen drawers for a clean rag. “My patrol doesn't get home until halfway through, I’ll stand in the back once we’re in.”
“Fine. Wouldn’t want anyone to think we were together.”
There’s a pause, the silence punctuated by the closing of a drawer as he turns to face her. “What the hell has gotten into you lately?”
She raises an eyebrow in response.
“I’m serious. Lately, talking to our teenager has been less confusing than talking to you.”
She knows what he means by it. But she also feels the sting of his words before they settle in her chest and burn, reigniting the flames she’s been half-heartedly feeding over the past few weeks.
She leans back against the table, stroking her fingers over the dark, scratched wood. “Maybe if you took more than two minutes to consider everything I’ve said, I would be easier to understand.”
“This again?” Joel drops the rag.
“Yeah, fucking this again.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
She tries again to consolidate her thoughts, to put them into words that don’t sound ridiculous and childish, like she’s one of those silly girls from the movies who’s never stepped a true toe out of line her entire life, instead of a woman who impaled a former human with a ripped-off table leg last Monday.
She wants his words. She wants him to say the things he never has before, just once, in the way she needs him to instead of the way he defaults to.
He’s not that man anymore.
Just acknowledge it. Acknowledge us.
“You want us to get married,” he says instead.
“Yes. Do you want us to?”
He picks up the rag again, wiping at the spot on the counter he’d brought it out for in the first place. She gives him a moment, the tension of the silence crackling through her ears, punctuated by the tick of their clock and the sound of children playing on the street outside.
“Why is it so hard to say?”
He meets her eyes again. There’s anger pulsing in his gaze, building up so fast that he can’t shield it from sight. It’s a different sort of anger than what she’s used to, though. It’s not muddled by anything he drank or swallowed, not flaring from the steel walls inside of his mind, not violent or unpredictable or terrifying.
It’s more of an annoyance than anything. Something exasperated and confused.
She softens under it.
The door swings open just as she opens her mouth to speak, Ellie tracking mud across the kitchen floor as she crosses between them. Her steps are brisk, her hair tie on her wrist instead of holding her tangled mess of hair back.
“Shoes off,” Joel and Tess say at the same time.
She ignores them and leaves the kitchen to stomp up the stairs, each step louder and more dramatic than the next.
Joel and Tess stand in silence for a few seconds, and he furrows his brow, meeting her eyes. She shrugs in response, looking out the kitchen door. “I’m gonna go—”
“Mhm.”
The expression on his face still plays through her mind as she goes upstairs. Why the fuck is it so hard for him to say it? There have been some things that both of them have been working through for a long time, things that rise and fall like the tide and never really go away, yes. But they’ve made progress in all of the most important ways.
Ellie changed things.
She knocks on the girl’s door, taking a few steps back.
“Go away, Joel.”
“It’s Tess.”
The door creaks open. Ellie’s face peeks out from the other side. She takes a few steps back to let Tess in, then flops down on her bed, eyes fixed on her ceiling.
Tess sits down on the edge of her bed and places a hand against the girl’s stomach, her breathing falling into the same rhythm as hers. She spots a pile of sticks in the corner of the room where there was most definitely not a pile of sticks before. Hm.
“You’re not planning on starting a fire or anything, right?” she asks.
“No. We’re making spears in school.”
Okay then. She flops back until they’re laying side by side, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars that Joel had spent an evening being bossed around on how to place. Her girl has stars across her face as she lays bathed in their reflections.
“Alright. Spill it, sister,” Tess feels the tension from earlier melt away in the darkness of the room and the feeling of her kid’s stomach rising and falling beneath her hand.
“Cat’s mad at me about something but Dina’s mad at me about Cat and Jesse’s mad at me because Dina’s mad at me and he always takes her side.” The words come spilling out of the kid faster than Tess can process them, and she takes a moment to try and wrap her mind around the sentence.
“Slower?”
“Cat’s mad at me, but Dina was already mad at me because I’ve been spending more time with Cat or something, so now both of them are mad at me. And Jesse’s mad at me too, because he always takes Dina’s side.”
“What’s Cat mad at you about?”
Ellie groans, rolling onto her stomach. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay. So Dina’s mad at you about Cat?”
She nods into her comforter. “She hates her, but she won’t tell me why, she just keeps saying shit about her even though she knows Cat’s my… friend. She also keeps saying that I’ve ditched them, but I haven’t, and Jesse doesn’t say anything even though he knows that I haven’t.”
“Fuckers.”
Ellie rolls onto her back again, kicking at one of her pillows. “I hate girls.”
Tess smiles. “I know. They suck.”
“I hate boys too.”
“Ditto, kid.” She moves her hand from Ellie’s stomach, watching the reflection of the stars trail over her body as she shifts. It reminds her of standing in an aquarium, the water reflecting against her skin in ripples as she peers into a tank, watching a seal spin and dive while bright fish swim in crowds.
Ellie would have loved aquariums. Charlie did.
“So, what are we mad about right now?”
Ellie turns her head, meeting her eyes. “Everything?”
“Everything, huh? We can be mad about everything. You and me, baby.”
Ellie moves closer, letting her reach out and brush her hair from her face. “You’re lame.” She’s smiling as she says it.
“You’re short.”
“You're ancient.” Ellie’s voice is trembling with giggles now, her dark eyes sparkling in the gentle glow of her lamp.
“You’re impossible.” Tess runs her fingers over that spot on her baby’s stomach that still bruises easily, over her ribs that still jut out, onto the scar on her left arm from where she ripped out her IV four months ago, when she was out of her mind with pain.
The kid’s a fucking trooper. She’ll be okay.
“Are you and Joel fighting?” Ellie asks, shifting Tess’s focus back to now, to the pit in her stomach that’s still there, waiting to be fed with more fire.
“No,” she says instinctively.
Ellie fixes her with a look that she knows she’s seen before in the mirror. “I can hear you guys snap at each other. The walls are pretty fucking thin, man. And you looked pissed when I walked in earlier.”
“Well, man, we’re alright.” She gets off the bed with a groan, stretching out her arms as there’s a twinge in her back.
“You sure?” Ellie’s voice grows a tiny bit higher. Her fingers dig into the fabric of her blanket.
“Of course, kid. We’re working through some stuff right now, but we’ll be alright. We always are.” She gives her leg a light pat.
“Okay. I’m good, you can go back downstairs.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
Tess glances over her face. She can tell when the kid’s lying. She knows those expressions, those eyes, like the back of her hand. Joel never can. He always takes her at her word, his gaze tinted rose with a father’s sympathies.
“Alright.” She ruffles her hair, turning around as she reaches the doorway. “Seriously, don’t start any fires.”
“Only outside ones.”
Close enough.
She closes the door behind her and goes back downstairs. The sea inside of her has settled back to calm again, even when it was boiling just minutes before. The waters have been constantly changing since she hit fifty, storms coming and passing in the blink of an eye.
She tries to cling on. The world’s always moved around her. The last thing she needs is her mind moving with it.
“She alright?” Joel looks up as she comes back into the kitchen. He’s glancing over a map now, a pencil in one hand.
“Yeah, she’s fine.” She sits down beside him, following the lines and marks he’s drawn. He’s set to go on a two-week patrol next month. She’s not looking forward to it. “Just friend problems.”
“Jesse?”
She rolls her eyes. “No. The girls, mostly.”
“Makes sense.” He keeps his gaze trained on the map. “Girls ain’t the best communicators, sometimes.”
“Did you just fucking—”
She doesn’t have energy for the very thing she started, all of a sudden, and she stands up, pushing her chair into the table with a clatter. His head shoots up at the sound.
“Fine,” she says. “We don’t need to get married, we don’t need to do anything, but I want you to talk to me. Just… talk to me.”
He looks down at the floor.
“Joel.”
Show that you trust me. Say that you care.
Silence.
“Make sure that she eats.” She stands up, going to the living room to get her coat and boots. Joel follows her in.
“Tess—”
“I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
She brushes past him, stepping out onto the porch and letting the door slam shut behind her.
She needs some air.