Chapter Text
“If that isn’t chocolate pudding, I’m throwing you out this eighth-story window.”
Tommy collapses with fanfare into the chair at Ellie’s bedside, propping his feet up on her bed, completely unmindful of her IV line, which she has to free from underneath his heel. A pudding cup is sloppily plopped on her lap tray, making friends with the terrible pile of magazines and crossword puzzles she hasn’t had the attention span to finish.
A pudding cup that is, very clearly, not chocolate.
She glares at him.
“I’m not too worried,” Tommy says as he settles in. The jacket he’s wearing is big, too big - it’s gotta be Joel’s. The collar starts to hunch around his neck when he slumps into the hard cushion. “Not sure you can really throw much these days.”
Ellie lifts her left hand - three fingers to its name - and thanks the universe she still has her middle finger to flip him off with.
“Does it look weird?” Ellie asks the moment she does it. She turns her hand back and forth, mouth slightly agape and eyes squinted as she studies her new and strange form. “I think it looks weird.”
“It looks a little weird.”
Ellie always wants honesty, but she doesn’t always expect it. But Tommy usually delivers. Her expression is a little hollow as her gaze lingers before she makes a mission of ripping off the plastic cover on her not-chocolate pudding.
“Christ,” she swears, getting a whiff. “Is this banana? You couldn’t at least spring for vanilla?”
She licks the foil lid before Tommy gets a chance to answer. “S’all they had.” He finally says.
“No spoons either, huh,” Ellie complains, already using the lid to scoop up the cursed treat.
“You got fingers, don’t you? I’m countin’ at least eight.”
She sticks her tongue out before she crumples the tiny plastic container and downs the rest of it like a jello shot. “At least it’s not butterscotch. No one likes butterscotch.”
Tommy’s smile is wry. “Joel likes butterscotch.”
“That’s because he’s, like, ninety years old.” She reaches over and tickles his ankle, swearing and laughing when he twitches enough to nearly yank out her IV and tumble to the ground. Still, he rearranges himself so his feet still lay propped up on her bed. When she reaches for him again, she’s softer, giving the top of his shoe a pat. “How’s he doin’?”
“You saw him four days ago. I had to listen to you guys talk over an entire season of The Amazing Race.”
Ellie shrugs. “We like to play along, and decide who would do what.”
“You two would get lost on the first leg.”
“Wrong. We’d lose midseason when one of us had to eat something insane like snake skins. Or pecan pie. But hey, speaking of legs -”
Tommy sits up a little more properly in the chair, feet coming to the floor. “His leg is fine. He’s got his wheelchair when he needs it. Already whittling away at a cane. But, uh.” Tommy stumbles for a second, and Ellie’s heart monitor picks up in response. “S’not his leg I’m most worried about.”
Suddenly, the paper-thin blanket of her hospital bed seems very interesting. She twirls a loose thread around her left index finger tight tight tight, just like a tourniquet. "I can handle it."
She keeps her eyes down, deliberately avoiding whatever pained expression takes hold on Tommy’s face. But she still hears his sigh. “He’s my brother, Ellie. I can take care of ‘im.”
“I know,” Ellie is quick to amend. “It’s not that. It’s just -” This time she’s the one that sighs, letting go of the thread so as to avoid amputating another finger. “ I know you guys just got back to a good place. I don’t want that to get all fucked up.”
He’s so close to rolling his eyes. She can just tell. “Having Joel stay with me isn’t gonna -”
“He forgets.”
Such a simple, wispy truth - but it’s a heavy weight between them. Ellie watches as Tommy’s brows knit together, contemplating her words.
“Even if it’s just a moment here and there. It adds up. Trust me, I know. He’ll get frustrated. And he’ll probably take it out on you,” Ellie tells him. “I don’t want to open any old wounds.”
Tommy sinks a little in the seat and curls a little more snuggly into his brother’s borrowed jacket. But Ellie knows he’s still anxious; His foot taps incessantly on the linoleum floors. “I don’t want you opening any old wounds, either.”
Ellie tries a smile, but it comes out more like a grimace. “Joel isn’t sick like Dina was.” Tommy opens his mouth, a rebuttal on the tip of his tongue, and she charges forward. “I can do it. I want to do it. I don’t know if you know this,” she drops her voice like she has a secret. “But that geezer is kinda my best friend.”
Something soft twinkles in Tommy’s eyes. “Strangest two peas in a pod I ever did meet.”
“Damn straight. So please.” She adjusts her posture, fluffing her own pillows around her before she pretends to fix an imaginary tie around her neck. “Consider my application as Joel Miller’s Full Time Wrangler. I’ll feed him, I’ll walk him, I’ll teach him all the basic commands.” She winks. “He’ll be Amazing Race ready before you know it.”
She holds her hand out - the bad one, unconnected to her IV - and Tommy’s stare lingers a hair too long before he’s blinking out of his mini-trance and grabbing her hand; Ellie barks out a laugh when he dodges her fingers and reaches forward to grab her wrist, wrapping his fingers around it. She does the same, the sensation odd, and for a moment she almost sees all her fingers there again.
“I want the video of y’all eating the snake skins,” he jokes, and she mumbles out a promise of some kind. When he lets go, he leans in closer, cupping her cheek with his hand. “And, kid?”
“Mm.”
“Might do ‘im some good if you let him help you, too.”
Ellie’s acutely aware; she’s promised Tommy this whole setup isn’t going to reopen any wounds, and she hopes she isn’t lying to herself - but she knows the only chance she has is if she meets Joel halfway. “I know,” she tells Tommy gently, hoping the sincerity seeps through before she’s back to her sharp tongue. “He’s going to be the designated Top-Shelf-Grabber. Pancake Flipper, too. Come to think of it, I think I’ll just let him cook everything.”
“Joel? Cook? Man, he leaves eggshells in the scrambled eggs.”
“Perfect. No need to change my recipe.”
Tommy leans back in, grin crooked. “Not even the first leg.”
“Hey now -”
Despite his earlier teasing, Tommy manages to also spend an ungodly amount of time discussing their potential as paired television personalities. They quarrel about who would win when the nurse comes in to unhook her IV and have her sign her discharge papers, they bicker about if the two of them would make a better team than her and Joel as a nurse wheels her down to pick-up, and Ellie laughs about the probability of actually eating snake skins until Tommy leaves and returns with the car.
She’s only been in a car a few times in her back-and-forth trips to the hospital in the attempt and now certified failure to save her fingers. So far she’s managed to avoid anything even related to a post-traumatic stress episode, but she does insist the radio is always off and the windows are always up.
The drive from the hospital to her farm outside of Jackson is about thirty minutes. Tommy jokes that the drive from the bottom of her driveway to the top is just as long. Farm feels like a loose definition - her fields are sparse with a few free-range chickens and goats. A failed strawberry patch. A small stable that can hold four horses, but only has one - she looks and tries to find Callus somewhere out in the rolling hills, maybe munching on some grass, but she doesn’t see him.
Her wrap-around porch is littered with chalk drawings - some more faded than others, but as Ellie climbs up the steps she can tell that several have been added in her absence. Most of them are JJ’s and Frank’s, but she sees a few on the top of the steps that are distinctly Joel’s - butterflies, the only thing he knows how to draw.
“JJ!” Ellie screams at the top of her lungs in lieu of knocking, ringing, or walking into her own home. “Come out here and see my new T-Rex hand!”
She barely dodges a broken nose when the storm door slaps open and JJ barrels out into the porch. “Mom!” He runs straight into her, wrapping his arms around her middle and burrowing his face in her stomach.
“Hey, buddy,” she laughs lightly, voice already hoarse from her scream. JJ tightens his hold on her in response and says nothing. When she focuses hard enough she feels her t-shirt starting to dampen with his tears. “Hey, hey, hey,” she soothes, rocking them back and forth. “I’m okay, baby.” She plants a kiss on the top of his head. “C’mon, have a look.”
With a shyness he normally doesn’t possess, JJ carefully peels himself away, turning to look at her offered hand. Ellie goes the extra mile to emulate her best Jurassic Park roar. “How’s that? You think this’ll polish up my Dinasaurus routine?
He smiles a little. It’s probably scary to see a parent like this, but JJ’s a sweet and simple soul - if Mom’s okay with it, then he is, too. “T-Rex have two fingers. You still have three.”
She blinks once, twice before she throws her head back and screams “Fuck!” at the roof. It startles the keys out of Tommy’s hands and sends JJ into a more honest and relaxed fit of giggles. “They done did hecked me up. I specifically asked for the Cretaceous Treatment. We gotta go back, have ‘em cut off another.” She strains, reaching for the keys with her foot before Tommy picks them up and kicks them JJ’s way. “You drive.”
The storm door opens again, this time without nearly taking the hinges off. Bill squints at her, a half-formed scowl on his face. “What in hell’s name are you screamin’ about, girl?”
“Someone literally cut off my fingers.”
He rolls his eyes. “Well when the shock of the medical procedure you signed up for wears off, get your ass inside. I made your favorite,” and he props the door open a little wider, beckoning JJ to come inside.
“You made a box of frosted brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts?” She grins and playfully knocks elbows with an already snickering Tommy. “This I gotta see.”
She almost regrets the teasing once she walks into the house. The temperature is just on the edge of too warm, heated by the oven that’s been working overtime the past few hours; she smells a lot of things, mostly garlic, but when she sees the cobbler cooling on the counter she knows it truly is her favorite meal, dessert included.
“No way, I get Bill’s eggplant parmesan?” She heads over to the counter, right hand poised for the crime of a clean swipe. “I should guillotine my fingers more often."
Her wrist is given a light slap. She looks up to see Bill already paying her no more mind, busing himself with plating the meal. “Dinner first, Eliana.”
Frank comes to flank her on the other side of the island; his touch is gentle as he lays a soft hand on her shoulder. “Quick, grab a spoon, I’ll distract him.”
Her mind is temporarily flooded with being seventeen and sneaking pieces of pies, cakes, and cookies before dinner. Frank used to help her get elaborate with her methods - she’s pretty sure they built a pulley system one time.
“No,” Ellie sighs dramatically. She fists her hands on her hips, ignoring the twinge of pain in her left. “Not yet. I haven’t sniffed out the vanilla ice cream.”
Bill snorts. “Ain’t got any.”
“What the fuck do you mean you don’t have vanilla ice cream to go with the cobbler -”
The screen door opens again. She hears the distinct scrape of a cane against her hardwoods before Joel's voice follows. “Don’t worry, kiddo. You can call off the hounds." Joel rounds the corner, a grocery bag slung over his shoulder. “I went and got your ice cream.”
Tommy was right - she had seen Joel just last week, but their accident has given her something a shrink might call separation anxiety. Their respective injuries had them toted back and forth to the hospital for the last several weeks - aside from the initial two weeks, they hadn’t been there at the same time. But the brain bleeds have stopped and the mangled dead limbs have been shucked - they can start to slip back into a new normal.
Ellie waits for Joel to come to her, even though he looks a little tired and she has the intense need to give him a big bear hug. Maria follows behind, giving her a wink and a flash of her car keys to silently let her know he didn’t Tokyo Drift himself to the grocery store.
He barely sets the bag on the counter before Ellie’s rifling through it. “Did you get -”
“Yes, I got the good vanilla bean.”
“See!” She scoffs, gesturing loosely Tommy’s way. “It’s not hard to get vanilla.” She looks at Joel and pouts. “He gave me banana pudding.”
“ Pobrecita.” He gives the button of her nose a little tap. “But no worries. We’ll take him out back and give him the Old Yeller treatment.”
“Oi,” Tommy snaps.
She nods her approval as she pulls out the, yes, good vanilla bean ice cream. As well as a box of cinnamon Pop-Tarts. "The true favorite."
Joel just smirks. “I know what to get. I ain’t stupid.” It’s just a joke, harmless enough, but Joel’s had more than his recent fair share of bad days where he felt like his brain wasn’t good enough anymore for the lot of them. But before she can even defend him on his self-deprecating joke he’s reaching into his back pocket and producing a single, long-stemmed sunflower.
“Welcome home.”
She takes the flower, bits of laughter bubbling out of her. “Where’d you get this?” she asks, twirling it in her good hand - Joel takes her other, surveying the doctor’s handiwork.
“The store.”
“Sunflowers aren’t in season.”
“Hmm. Then maybe I’m magic." He reaches over and kisses the side of her head. “You feelin’ okay? Any pain?”
Ellie lets herself lean into him and he lifts his chin, kissing the crown of her head once more before his knuckles rub gently back and forth along the part of her spine between her shoulder blades. “No pain,” she finally admits, which is true. She’s still marinating in whatever they had given her at the hospital. “But ask me again in a few more hours.”
He hums, knowing that truth all too well, before he starts to hobble over to where Bill and Frank are dishing up dinner. He tries to grab two plates - likely one for her - but Tommy gently takes one out of his hands and gives his brother a smile, nodding to the table for him to take a seat.
JJ calls the chair across from Ellie and next to Tommy’s daughter Laura, who emerges from the back porch covered in chalk and promises that her masterpiece is finally done. They all disperse into the unclaimed seats, Joel taking the one on Ellie’s left. He sets the one plate Tommy let him have between them before he grabs her knife and fork and begins cutting up her eggplant parmesan.
“I can do it,” Ellie scoffs, but there’s no heat to it. She wasn’t lying about her hand not hurting all that much, but she knows as soon as she really works at using it, the pain and stiffness will come crashing back.
“I know, baby.” But he doesn’t stop until it’s all cut up for her.
Dinner is a casual, loud affair - something Ellie loves. It’s a cacophony of overlapping conversations. Bill and Maria talk shop concerning whatever it is they do these days while Tommy keeps her, Laura, and JJ entertained with a vibrant play-by-play of the last little league game he coached. Joel and Frank bond over art - Frank is a painter like herself, but Joel likes to do woodwork and picks his brain for inlay designs and tricks on how to do finer details on chairs for a dining set he’s been wanting to make.
The thought of him using anything more powerful than hand drills and hammers make Ellie a little nervous.
“You should see his guitars,” Tommy says, a third helping of mac ‘n cheese making its way to his plate; he and Ellie are in a silent competition to see who can eat more, and Ellie, not keen on losing, grabs a little more to make her serving about three and a half. “The last one he made was real pretty.”
Ellie likes to think she’s been pretty up to date on Joel’s garage workshop - she’s seen desks he’s made, the birdhouses, the benches, and swings. But she hasn’t seen any guitars. “You make guitars?”
“Oh yeah,” Tommy says, stuffing a roll into his mouth. At this point, Ellie’s wondering if he would make the better Amazing Race partner. The dude packs food away like a black hole. “He’s been making them for like, what? Thirty years?”
Joel clears his throat. “Just about. But, uh, I never really made that many. Maybe a dozen. Only half of ‘em were any good.” He sniffs, eyes down on his food; but Ellie sees the hand not gripping his fork working the muscle of his bad leg. “I’d like to think I can play ‘em a bit better than I can make ‘em.”
She resists the urge to frown. He’s still never played for her. He’s mentioned it - definitely seemed shy about the whole thing - but she could tell he was never entirely opposed to the idea. In fact, he had once mentioned that he’d teach her how to play a song or two - they just needed to carve out the time.
And now, as Ellie glances at her hand, she realizes no amount of time can make that ever happen.
“Eliana.”
Her head snaps up at the sound of Bill’s voice rumbling out her name. To anyone else, he looks as stoic as ever, but she knows him well; the slight furrow of his brow, the sad little twinkle in his eye. He’s worried.
And when she surveys the rest of the table she sees that seems to be a universal feeling.
“Sorry,” she apologizes, even though she’s not really sure what for. She shines up her metaphorical red clown nose and oversized shoes, ready to deflect. “What shining achievement of mine were we talking about?”
Bill’s face returns to something more normal. “We weren’t.”
“Then you can understand why I spaced out.”
“Can’t exactly make a conversation out of nothing.”
Ellie mimes getting shot, going the extra mile to nearly fall out of her chair on impact - it gets the kids howling. “Joel,” she says dramatically, coughing up nothing. “Re-remember me…”
Joel scrapes his plate clean. “I’ll be sure to do that when I’m eating your slice of cobbler.”
“Wait,” she rights herself. “It was just a graze. I’m gonna live. Cobbler me.”
Tommy clears the table while Bill ends up dishing the cobbler - he rolls his eyes when she makes a loud buzzer noise when he only puts one scoop of vanilla ice cream on her slice. The bastard should really know better. After the second she gives him a thumbs up which he returns with a middle finger; she blows a raspberry when he sets the cobbler down in front of her.
“Remember to chew, you animal," Bill warns as she starts scooping up her dessert.
“Fuck off,” she says, mouthful. It starts to dribble down her chin and Joel reaches over to wipe her face with a barely concealed grimace. “I haven’t had this shit in like.” She trails off and looks down at her hands, intent on counting on her fingers. “...I dunno if I have enough fingers anymore.”
Frank guffaws a laugh at that, and Ellie’s chest twinges with pride. “It hasn’t been that long, Ellie.” The sad truth is that it is, but neither of them wants to admit it. “Honestly, it feels like it was just yesterday we were in my sunroom painting the days away.”
Bill tuts his disagreement.``I wish that was all she was doing. I swear I’m still making repairs on my house from those years of havoc she wrecked on us.”
“Dude, you have got to get over the roof thing.”
“I will not.”
JJ spoons his cobbler with the same exuberance as her. Meanwhile, Laura’s got the face of a kid with a pressing question, she leans into JJ and whispers something; her son shakes his head in response. “They were her foster parents. She lived with them for like a year before she became a grown-up and moved in with my mom and dad.”
“You know,” Ellie says, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Frank wasn’t just my foster parent. He was also my middle school art teacher. He taught me everything I know.” She shovels more soupy cobbler into her mouth. “He’s the reason Savage Starlight is popular enough to be made into a high-production mini-series.”
Bill grunts. “We’re still waiting for our cut of the HBO check.”
“You want a new roof? I’ll buy you a new roof. I’ll buy you two new roofs.”
“I’m still waiting for her to buy a lawnmower.” Tommy gruffs. “All this land and that girl was using a push mower.”
“It works!” Ellie defends. “I tried one of those fancy riding ones but it’s broken. Besides.” She waves her spoon around. “I told you that you didn’t have to mow my lawn while I was in the hospital.”
“I’m a landscaper. I couldn’t watch your house with a lawn that looked like that.”
“Where’s the riding one?” Joel interrupts. “I can fix it.”
Ellie adds an industrial lawn mower to her list of fears of the things she’s worried Joel will fiddle with and subsequently get hurt on. “Don’t worry about it right now. S’posed to snow this week.”
JJ throws both hands up in the air and hollers. “Whoo! Snow Day! I’m gonna build the biggest snowman ever. Or at least taller than Joel.”
Joel hums. “That so, huh? Well, I can’t wait to see it.”
As Tommy chimes in with a childhood regale about his greatest snow day creation (he claims it had all the likelihood of famed cryptid Sasquatch. Maria says if he had just one more working brain cell he’d realize that snow Sasquatch is literally the Yeti) Ellie becomes acutely aware that her hand is starting to actually hurt. A few more minutes and she’s not sure company will be a good enough distraction.
And the way that Joel is shifting in his chair and grabbing at his leg, she knows she isn’t the only one.
But she doesn’t have to say anything - Frank is smart. And kinder than she deserves. “Well, it’s getting late - we best start wrapping things up.” Bill already moves to help Tommy with the dishes. “JJ, kid, you need any help getting ready for bed?”
“Nah, I got it,” he says. He then looks at her. “Mom? You need any help?”
Ellie squeezes at her wrist - as if that’ll do anything. But she likes pretending that she can cut off some of the blood supply to her hand and subsequently some of the pain. She’s got enough pill bottles that fill a gallon plastic bag thanks to all these surgeries but she doesn’t want to scare the kid. So she picks something else. “You want to put my sunflower in a vase in my room for me?”
He nods, happy for a task, and runs off. Joel is slow to get up, but he manages on his own, leaning heavily on his cane. “I think I’m gonna wash up and head on to bed if that’s alright with y’all.”
Tommy frowns at him. “Leg okay?”
His brother waves him off. “It will be. Just best be gettin’ off it for the day. Thanks, Tommy.” He pats Bill and Frank on the shoulder on the way out. “Let me know when you want to show me that inlay trick you was talkin’ about.”
“Will do, Joel. Night.”
He disappears around the corner and down the hall towards the guest room and bath she knows he’s been set up in for the last week or so. She trails behind, listening carefully for any trouble.
“I put a stool in there for him, so he can sit when he showers,” JJ says, seemingly appearing from nowhere. “And I lay out all his stuff for him every morning when he’s eating breakfast.”
"Yeah?”
Her son nods. “Yep! I’ve been feeding all the cats and chickens and goats. I get the mail and do the dishes. Laundry. Bill said not to mess with Callus though. Says Tommy still has to come over and do it.”
“Bill’s right,” she says, smoothing JJ’s hair back. “Callus is a nice horse, but he gets spooked by mice. And I don’t really like that you’re the perfect height for him to nail you in the face with a kick of his back leg.”
JJ leans into her, gently wrapping his hand around the wrist of her left hand. “Okay. But I can still do the other stuff. Promise. I want to help. I couldn’t help last time.”
Her heart twinges. JJ, in a lot of ways, is Jesse’s little clone. My friend’s problems are my problems he used to say. And even so young, JJ seems to have adopted the same credo.
“Jesse,” she says, gently - his first name is the big guns. She wants him to know she’s serious. Her son looks up and she sees her childhood best friend’s face with the love of her life’s eyes. “You did help last time. Just because you were too young to feed goats or do dishes doesn’t mean you didn’t help. Seeing your face every day helped your mama hold on as long as she did.”
Much like earlier, he noses into the fabric of her shirt, trying not to cry.
“Hey,” she whispers. “Jay. Look at me.” When he whines instead she crouches to his level, gently lifting his chin up with two of her fingers. Red-rimmed eyes and puffy cheeks. “Joel doesn’t have to stay with us if you don’t want him to.”
JJ immediately looks stricken. “What? No! I want him to stay! Didn’t the doctors say he shouldn’t live alone anymore?”
“Yes, but he can live with Tommy, too. I don’t -” She breathes harshly out her nose and moves to run her arm up and down JJ’s arm. “This kind of stuff is hard. It can be a lot of work. I don’t want you to think that taking care of Joel is all up to you. I’ll do most of the heavy lifting. ”
“But I can help,” JJ whines again. “I want to help. Joel’s our friend.”
And if that isn’t the same thing she told Tommy earlier. Maybe there’s a little of her in him as well after all. “Okay, okay,” she soothes, pulling him back into a hug. “But you gotta promise me if it’s ever too much, okay?”
He sniffs and nods. “Okay.”
“Jesse. I mean it.”
“I know, Mom. I will.”
“Good.” She smacks a fierce kiss on the side of his head. “Now, let’s go say goodbye to everyone before we get you to bed, okay?”
Turns out Bill and Co. had congregated out on the front porch. Ellie instantly wished it was summer - she misses the dusty nine o’clock skies and symphony of crickets. Instead, it’s brisk and she’s without shoes and a jacket.
“There’s plenty of food,” Frank tells her as he hugs her goodbye. “Shouldn’t have to cook for a week.”
“Yeah!” Ellie bounces on her cold, bare toes. “Joel brought Pop Tarts.”
That earns her a somewhat sharp but still harmless tug to her earlobe. She laughs and tries to squirm away, but instead, she’s pulled into a rare hug from Bill. “Finish the leftovers, Eliana.”
“I will, I will.” she hugs him back. “Thank you. For the food, and for watching JJ and -” she gestures helplessly to her house. “Everything else. I really appreciate it.”
“Anytime. Really.”
One by one they all slip into the night and into the cars; JJ curls into her, shivering, and waits while they watch the pinpoint dots of their headlights trail down the long driveway and out into the country roads. He lets out two long, consecutive yawns as she hauls him inside and locks the door, so exhausted that she doesn’t even have to tell him to go to bed.
“Night, Mom,” he says sleepily, dragging his feet. “Love you.”
“Love you, three.”
“You mean too .”
“Two didn’t feel like enough. I’m sticking with three.”
He turns around to give her an exasperated smile unbefitting for his age before he runs up the stairs and into his room.
Ellie barely has enough time to consider stealing another piece of cobbler when there’s a bang that’s far too loud to be her son tripping up the last of the stairs.
“Joel?” She calls, heading down the rest of the guest room and bath. She can still hear the shower running. “Joel, was that you?” When she doesn’t get a response as quickly as she likes she rounds the bottom of his bed and heads straight for the bathroom door. She gives it two loud knocks. “Joel, did you fall?”
There’s a grunt. “Yeah,” he answers. “Sure did.”
Ellie swears, gripping the handle. She wiggles it just enough to tell that, luckily, it hasn’t been locked. “Did you hit your head?”
“No.”
“Are you sure -”
“Just get Tommy."
“He left. If you're gonna stay here, you're gonna have to get used to me. I’m coming in, okay?” She jiggles the handle as some warning before she opens the door to a cloud of steam and one Joel Miller half-wrapped up in her shower curtain outside the tub.
“I tried grabbing it on the way down.” He says, the rod laying along his chest. “I’ll, uh, fix it.”
Ellie rolls her eyes. “I don’t care about the curtain.” She picks up the shower rod and looks the other way while she hands him his towel. “I just want you off the bathroom floor.”
It takes a minute but she manages to get him off the floor and back to the bed with his modesty mostly intact. He explains that it was a leg cramp that did him in while he was stepping out of the tub, a cramp that must still be there because once he’s managed to put on his pajama pants without her help, he sits helplessly at the edge of the bed, silently admitting he’s too tired to bother with a shirt.
So Ellie puts his shirt on for him, careful not to joke about it before she stands between his legs at the edge of the bed and starts to gently towel dry his hair. “It's getting long,” she says. Grey, too, but she keeps that part to herself. “You’re so lucky yours didn’t fall out from the anesthesia. Mine’s a mess.”
Joel frowns as he reaches out to gently grab at some of the shaggy edges of her hair sitting on her shoulders. “Doesn’t look it to me. Looks like how you wore it in middle school, remember?"
She takes a pause, a heavy frown engulfing her face. No, she doesn't remember. And he shouldn't either. "...Joel? You okay?"
He blinks at her a few times. He doesn't look lost. "Yeah, hon. I told you I'm fine."
She simply hums in response and gives his hair a few extra scrunches in the towel to wring out the excess water and using the opportunity to look for any new bumps on his head - there aren't any. “There. I think that’ll do.” She flashes him her best winning smile and she’s rewarded with a warm and soft one in return. He grabs her good hand and kisses the back of it before he squeezes it in a way that lets her know he wants to try and stand; she helps him to his feet and they hobble a few feet to the head of the bed where Ellie turns down the covers and helps him tuck in for the night.
Joel sleeps on the left side of the bed - on the right Elliephant claims her spot on Joel’s second favorite pillow. “Aw, cute.” She takes a leap over him and crumples on the other side, crushing the plush elephant to her chest. “Did she keep you company while I was gone?”
He’s laying like a mummy in a sarcophagus, eyes closed and a shadow of a smile still there. “Every day.”
Her nose scrunches, amused and she rolls on her back, mimicking his position; she lays her hands across her stomach, left hand twitching. She flexes the fingers she still has but the uncomfortable tightness remains. It takes everything in her not to frown profusely.
But maybe she is. Or maybe her breathing is getting rough, or she’s sniffing too many times in a way that Joel knows by now means she’s about to cry because before she knows it Joel is reaching over, hand on her elbow, before his hand slides down to gently hold onto the fingers she has.
“You think my hand looks weird?” She whispers, eyes on the ceiling. It doesn’t have glow-in-the-dark stars on it like it does in JJ’s room. She should fix that. “I think it looks weird.”
“Babygirl," Joel breathes, voice on the cusp of sleep. “You look perfect.”
Ellie always wants honesty, and with Joel, she knows she gets it - she’s just always so surprised by how honest his love is.
She turns her head, not sure what the expect, but she sees his face slack and eyes closed. He’s almost gone. “Night, Joel,” she whispers, watching his face to see if he heard her.
He hums, the last bit of consciousness slipping away. “Night, love.”
Ellie falls asleep shortly after, staring at a hand that doesn’t feel like hers.