Chapter Text
Ellie launches herself into your embrace the moment Joel ushers you into the house, and you catch her readily, squeezing her close with one arm as your free hand cradles the back of her head automatically.
“I’ve fucking missed you,” she declares fervently as you duck your head to nestle your chin into her coppery hair.
“I just saw you a few hours ago, Ells.” Your voice is even raspier than usual from crying earlier, but you’re smiling - albeit tremulously - and the sight eases the tight knot in Joel’s chest a little.
“That’s not the same thing,” Ellie huffs indignantly as she pulls back, her keen gaze darting over the obvious puffiness and redness of your eyes and then Joel’s palm resting against the small of your back. Thankfully, she doesn’t mention any of it as she offers instead to you, “C’mon, I need your expert opinion on this new recipe I’m trying.”
“Go ahead,” Joel reassures you when you glance back at him skeptically. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
You hesitate - like you’re afraid he’ll disappear again the moment he’s out of your sight - and he throws all caution to the wind as he ducks down to kiss you firmly.
“Ugh,” Ellie groans good-naturedly as she shuffles back into the kitchen. “You two are so gross.”
Joel deliberately ignores her, pecking your lips again before pulling away and pressing his forehead to yours.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” he promises you quietly. “Just gotta shower real quick and change, okay?”
You blink bemusedly before your gaze drops to the front of his jacket as it finally registers for you that he’d come straight to you without even bothering to change out of the clothes he’d been traveling in.
“Okay,” you relent, reluctantly untangling yourself from him and making your way into the kitchen after Ellie.
Joel rushes through the quickest shower he’s ever taken, scrubbing his skin and hair free of grime and dust before hurriedly toweling himself dry and shrugging on an old threadbare T-shirt and sweatpants just as he hears Ellie swear loudly downstairs.
He stumbles down the stairs, nearly losing his balance before catching himself on the wooden banister as he calls frantically, “Ellie? Y’alright?”
“Fine,” Ellie answers, sounding a little like she’s gritting her teeth, and when Joel rounds the corner into the kitchen, he realizes that you’re clutching her hand in yours and pressing a clean rag to her palm.
“The knife slipped and she grazed her hand,” you reassure him. “It’s not bad, won’t even need stitches. Can you grab the first-aid kit for me so I can clean it out?”
“Yeah.” He takes a breath, letting it steady his heart rate and his trembling hands. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”
He can feel your worried gaze on the back of his head even as he crosses the kitchen to retrieve the first-aid kit from the top shelf of the pantry, but ignores it until he’s forced to come face-to-face with the furrow between your eyebrows when he returns with the kit and props it open on the counter beside the two of you.
Ellie hisses when you tear open an antiseptic wipe and replace the rag with it, cleaning the admittedly shallow cut with smooth, precise dabs.
“Ow,” she huffs as she squirms under your ministrations. “Jesus fucking Christ, that stings.”
“Stinging means it’s working,” you dismiss. “Now quit fidgeting and hold still.”
All the same, the moment you’re done plastering a butterfly bandage over the wound, you lift Ellie’s hand and press your lips to the white gauze almost as if it’s an offhand instinct as she gapes at you, visibly bewildered.
“The fuck was that for?”
“Oh.” You flush when you realize far too late what you’d just done, releasing her hand hurriedly. “Sorry, it, uh - it was a thing from before.”
Ellie’s eyebrows climb even higher on her forehead as she glances askance at Joel, clearly not believing you.
“She’s right,” he confirms. “Used to do it for Sarah all the time whenever she scraped up her knees.”
He sees the moment the significance of what you’d done hits Ellie as she blinks rapidly several times before sniffling sharply and turning away from both of you, massaging her bandaged palm absently.
“Well, um - thanks,” she mumbles as she picks up the knife again to return to her meal preparation. Her tone is forcibly neutral and just a little too loud, giving away how rattled she still is, when she adds, “Hey, Mom, come check the salt in the sauce.”
You’re smiling when Joel chances a startled peek back at you to gauge your reaction; the moniker is clearly nothing foreign to you.
“Sure thing, Ells.”
If you slide an arm around Ellie’s shoulders when you’re close enough and squeeze her tightly against your side as you drop another kiss into her hair, Joel doesn’t call attention to it.
After dinner, Ellie vehemently vetoes rewatching Top Gun - to Joel’s half-hearted dismay - and settles for your suggestion of Sharknado instead; your mutual love of so-terrible-they’re-funny movies and Ellie’s growing fascination with sharks had pushed Joel to forgive the grave transgression of bringing that accursed DVD home after a supply run months earlier.
Despite the way you laugh along with Ellie at just how awful the B-movie really is, it’s obvious you haven’t forgotten the emotional turmoil earlier that day; your fingers are white-knuckled around Joel’s as your entwined hands rest against his thigh, and your eyes keep darting toward his face like you’re afraid he’ll vanish the moment you look away long enough. When Ellie is distracted by the tornado of sharks hurtling toward the beach, Joel takes the opportunity to drag you further into his side, pressing his lips into your hairline firmly.
“I’m here,” he promises under his breath so that only you can hear. “Not lettin’ you go again, sweetheart, I swear.”
Your smile is a little watery when he pulls back, but to his relief, you nod and nestle your cheek against his shoulder, allowing him to brush another kiss against the top of your head. Your grip on his hand doesn’t relax and he doesn’t dare pull away.
Later that night, long after Ellie goes to bed and the two of you have settled back into your old routine of cleaning up the kitchen and locking the doors to the house - and locking again, and locking a third time because old habits die hard no matter how many years you spend in safety - you both return back to the couch, gravitating toward each other like two oppositely charged magnets that have been separated for far too long. You climb readily into Joel’s open and waiting arms, tucking your head beneath his chin as his lips find the crown of your head automatically.
“We’ve got a lot to talk about, huh?” he guesses when enough silence has passed that it begins to weigh heavily in his chest.
“Yeah, we do.” You remain silent for another beat, evidently debating what to say before finally landing on a place to start. “You can’t protect everyone from everything, you know.”
“I can damn well try,” he grumbles half-heartedly and is relieved when he feels you smile against his collarbone.
“Yeah, and maybe thirty years ago, that would’ve been enough,” you agree. “But this is the world we live in now, Joel. It’s more dangerous than ever, and we’re always gonna run the risk of getting hurt whenever we set foot outside these walls.”
You fall silent again briefly as you collect your thoughts, and Joel waits patiently until you’re ready to continue.
“I know I messed up out there,” you say quietly at last. “I probably could’ve gotten Tommy out of the way without getting shot myself, and I might’ve managed it if I was thinking more clearly, but all I could think about in that instant was making sure he’d be safe - for Maria, for their baby, and for you and Ellie.”
“But you-” Joel begins to protest and you lean up to kiss him firmly, cutting him off.
“I know,” you insist as you settle back down in his lap. “I know what I am to you and Ellie now. And now that I do, I’ll do better at keeping myself safe, too. I’ll be more careful, I promise - for you and our girl.”
You tilt your head toward Ellie’s separate garage unit to make your point, and Joel’s eyes sting sharply at the corners as he nods, the lump in his throat painfully tight.
“That being said-” You grimace slightly and Joel knows what’s coming even before you say it. “You handled that spectacularly badly.”
He winces and nods again.
“I did.”
“And I know you feel awful about it,” you add a little more gently to soften the blow. “But it’s been almost two months, Joel - almost two months of thinking everything we had was gone for good, of not even knowing where you were, of wondering if you’d just left us all behind without so much as a goodbye, of - of -”
Your breath is hitching dangerously like you’re going to cry again, and Joel hauls you into his chest immediately, squeezing you against him until you can gather your composure once more.
“You need to talk to me when something like this happens,” you whisper bleakly at last. “If you shut me out like that again, I - I don’t know if we can ever come back from it.”
“I won’t, sweetheart. I’ll never shut you out again, I swear.” Joel presses his face into your hair briefly and breathes in your familiar scent. You smell of your bakery - cinnamon and honey with a pinch of salt to offset the cloying sweetness. “I’m so sorry. And I’m not just sayin’ it for the sake of sayin’ it.”
“I know.” You brush a kiss over his collarbone. “And I forgive you. Of course I do.”
Joel shuts his stinging, damp eyes to give them a brief reprieve; of all the things he deserves, forgiveness is at the bottom of the list.
“But we really need to work on our communication.” Your lips twitch into a wry smile against his skin. “And coming from me, that’s really saying something.”
Joel huffs a laugh that sounds shaky even to his own ears; if you’re joking around again, that means things really can’t be as dire as he’d imagined, right? He prays that’s the case.
“We’ll make it work,” he promises.
“We will,” you agree with a strange sort of fortitude in your voice he doesn’t think he’s ever heard before as your fingers twist into the fabric of his worn shirt. “Because I am never letting you go again. You hear me, Joel?”
Joel smiles despite himself and nods even though you can’t see it with how firmly your face is tucked into the hollow of his throat.
“I hear you,” he says and adds your name before ducking to kiss your forehead tenderly. “That’s my girl.”
Your responding smile when you look up is more brilliant than any sunrise he’s ever seen and ten times as beautiful.