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The sun hasn't been up for an hour before the daylight sees Ellie pounding her fist on Joel and Tess' door. She knows it'll only be Tess in. She saw Jesse speaking to Tommy and Joel by the stables. They'll be out for hours, and Ellie imagines this conversation will only take minutes.

When the door doesn't immediately open, Ellie knocks louder and calls up towards the upstairs windows.

"Tess! Tess, get up!"

She doesn't give a fuck if it sounds like something's wrong because something is wrong. She's known it since they returned to Jackson. It's been eating at her, always in the back of her mind, and that last outing with Joel has lit a fire. She hasn't been sleeping. Last night, she couldn't manage more than a few minutes at a time before the conversation would replay in her mind, over and over and over.

Not so much the words, but the look in his eyes as he said them.

She's always been able to tell when Joel is lying to her even before she realized it.

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“I know you will,” Tess says, but the thought sticks with her longer than it rightly should; what if it’s that bad? “Look, Ellie... he will pull through for us. For you.”

The last time he hugged her she hated he. He made her skin crawl. The last time he tried to console her, she yelled at him to not touch her, and now she feels like she could vomit.

"For me. When I've been nothing but a prick to him."

“You have been,” Tess says, without thinking. It’s true. She gets it, but it’s true. “But I don’t think he ever cared about that, not even for a heartbeat. He’s just...”

She trails for a second, not sure if it’s her place to say it, but then again, what if he does die? What if he never gets to say it himself? Tess dances away from what she’s thinking:

“He’s your dad, Ellie.”

It hurts. It hurts so much Ellie has to cover her face with her hands, not quite crying, but damn near close. She knows. Of course she knows. It'd be impossible not to, and maybe that's why his lie hurt so much. There's no denying that both Joel and Tess are her parental figures, guardians, but there was something between her and Joel that was unlike anything else. And, of course, Ellie knows that's because of Sarah. Or the loss of Sarah, to be precise.

How fucking miserable.

And here she is, hoping Joel doesn't go and decide to join his daughter.

"We're supposed to have enough time to work through this."

She always thought they would. No one could have predicted this... or could they? Did he ever suspect someone would come for him? She has so many questions.

“I know, sweetheart,” she says. “And I’m saying you will, because that was his plan too.”

And when does Joel not follow through with something he’s stated?

Again, Ellie nods. She wants to believe Tess with her whole heart.

"I feel like I need to punch someone."

“I feel that too.” Tess closes her eyes for a minute. “Joel aside, you okay? Shoulders alright? You got pinned pretty hard back there.”

Her shoulders ache because she tried to fight, even when outnumbered and out-muscled. There's a black eye, and bruised ribs hurt the most of all, but she merely shakes her head. She didn't get her leg shot off or head beaten in with a golf club.

"Yeah. You?"

She can't remember much of what happened. All she can remember is Joel's swollen, bloodied face, and how much blood there was on the floor.

“Just tired,” she replies. “Fuck, though, I hate firing indoors. I thought my ears would never stop ringing.”

Worth it to down Joel’s attacker, at least. The rest is just general aches: hauling Joel, even with help, was no small feat, especially with him in such bad shape.

“You talked to Dina or Jesse yet?”

Ellie nods. "Yeah. They said to let them know if we need anything. I think they're with Maria and Tommy, now."

"You're going to need extra hands moving your stuff back home."

Back home slips easy.

It is home. She's not going to correct her on that.

"I don't have that much stuff." Boxes of comics, other books. Art supplies. A growing shoe collection.

“Well, we’ve got time until he’s ready to come home,” she replies. “Take your time getting packed up. Maybe keep the garage for a little bit anyway, in case you need some space still after all.”

"If I'm going to be honest with you, I don't think I'm going to want to leave the house once he's there."

She walked away from him too many times. That last time, leaving the porch, is going to be the last time.

"I'm so dumb."

Tess opens her eyes at that, and she watches the back of Ellie’s head like a hawk.

“You’re not dumb,” she says, as a fact. “You’re just stubborn. And hurt, too. You needed that time apart.”

"Yeah. And I stopped talking to him because I knew it'd hurt him. I wanted him to feel like shit for--what? Making sure I lived?"

It all seems so stupid now.

“For not giving you a choice,” Tess replies, pointedly.

She hauls herself to her feet. It feels like she had to extract herself from the chair cushion, like she’d put down roots in it from exhaustion alone.

She looks over when Tess moves, and then back to Joel. She feels like if she takes her eyes off of him for too long, that rise and fall of his chest might stop.

"I know why he didn't."

She's always known.

“You weren’t going to understand that choice,” Tess says. She puts her hands on Ellie’s shoulders from behind, bracing.

She's probably right. She sighs, wishing it would release some of the tension in her body.

"... is this why you asked about my shoulders?"

Very maternal, Tess.

“No,” she says, but it is, at least a little. She and motherhood fit together surprisingly well, but she still doesn’t like to say it out loud, not when she can show it.

"I won't tell anyone." Her way of joking, even now. Tess is the one her friends give wide berth, not Joel. Little do they know.

“You’d better not,” she murmurs, stooping to hug her — Ellie may not be her kid, but she’s still her kid, if that makes any sense. The desire to protect her runs deep, even if it’s not always the same as Joel’s take on it,

But god, she does not want to be doing this alone. Joel has to recover. He has to.

A hug makes it real hard not to bawl like a baby, grieving for Joel's quality of life and feeling sorry for herself, but she manages to keep it together. She leans into it, hands on Tess' forearm.

Tess sighs into Ellie’s hair.

“Makes you miss a little bit of rebar, doesn’t it?” she murmurs, but truthfully, that had been worlds scarier in other ways. At least in Jackson they have resources.