Chapter Text
Hands on Tess’s hips, he keeps himself upright on the edge of his bed while she dabs gently at his throat.
He’s awfully weak, more so than he can remember being thus far, and as he drags his thumbs across the jut of her hip bones, he sways a bit.
Being bed bound because of his trach ain’t been all that helpful, his body damn near withering away on that godawful mattress, but now that it’s been removed and stitched, he’s supposed to keep his weary bones moving.
A feat he’s not so sure he’ll actually be able to achieve consistently.
At least Ellie hadn't been here to see him shake and shudder like a fucking ninety year old hunched over a squeaking walker, he doesn't the extra insult to injury.
She’d never let him live that shit down — the jokes would practically write themselves.
“If you’re counting my nose hairs, I will smother you.” Never looking away from the finely sutured skin at the base of his neck, Tess cocks a brow at him as he stares at her.
He winces when she gets a little too close to the agitated flesh, but blows an amused breath out of his nose.
Not what he was focusing on.
No, what he’d been surveying are the hollow dips under her eyes that are stained by a lack of sleep and spider-webbed with small veins that run beneath the unusually transparent skin. The worry line that has begun to linger on her forehead even when she isn’t furrowing her brow.
The pinched draw of her face that has become somewhat permanent.
She’s worn out and she’s stressed.
“Hand to god, darlin’. I have never kept track of the little hairs inside your nose.” Smoothing a bandage over his newly closed incision, she huffs and tries to suppress her smile.
The light blonde hairs that he can actually see very well from this angle shift with the force of the air escaping her, but he don’t say shit about it.
He may not be the smartest man, but ain’t all that unwise.
“Real charmed to know, Texas.” That smile breaks free and stretches brightly across her face, a relief to see and a burden to bear.
He’s the reason it’s become something of a rarity these days. Him and his goddamn cancer have been sucking the joy right out of her life.
Tess don’t deserve that, but he knows that it’s her choice to be here.
“Have you talked to Ellie yet this morning?” She’s just about ready to break out of that isolated room of hers, having only been granted a brief reprieve while he was too tied down by his various connections to move.
He’d been freed of his tracheotomy tube after ten bitterly long days at the beginning of the week, and that has meant more lockdown for her.
And she ain’t been quiet about it neither.
Lord have mercy, that girl hasn’t let a single soul in this hospital pass her by without airing her grievances — loudly.
A laugh, sardonic and a little frustrated gets snarled in Tess’s chest as she bows forward to lean her forehead against his.
“Talking would be too kind of a word for what we did, but yes, I spoke with the feral kitten you decided to take in without testing for rabies first.” Relief settles on his shoulders, knowing someone has laid eyes on her today.
It’s still following him in the back of his mind, that taunting voice that won’t let him fully believe that she ain’t gone. An entity he’s going to have to get real comfortable with for a while, he knows, but having people to watch over her when he can’t, helps.
Especially when their walkies act up and the reception goes to shit like it has decided to do today.
“She’s been through a lot, I figure if she’s still foaming at the mouth after a few weeks, then we can take her to the vet.” This earns him an eye roll as her arms tighten around his shoulders.
If they took Ellie to the vet, they’d be leaving with no less than three animals and they both know it.
She’d seen a damn squirrel all alone outside her window the other day and had lamented about not being able to get to it for two hours after — called it her son and deemed him Pee-paw n’ everything.
Tess very vehemently refused the title of Mee-maw, but he’s fairly certain Ellie has been calling her that behind her back.
“If she chews through the couch when we bring her home, just remember that you were the one that picked this kid out.” She tells him dryly, pulling away to rake her gaze up and down him.
Looking for anything out of place, something that maybe he’s trying to pretend ain’t hurtin’.
Or maybe stalling, buying time.
“Are you sure about this? Won’t be able to walk it back once we ask her.” He ain’t willing to rip a home away from that kid after offering it willingly, not after the shit she’s seen and been through.
Not after dealing with that piece of fucking work Marlene who’d had the damn audacity to say that if Ellie made it to remission she’d look into getting her placed with a well-suited family.
Maria had flown out to Salt Lake to deal with that highfalutin, self-important, bitch herself.
He ain’t privy to all that transpired between the two of them, but he does know his sister-in-law had returned less than three days later with one helluva smug look and Marlene had backed the fuck off.
Now, they just need Ellie’s permission.
Is she wants to stay here, then he’ll be hauling his sorry ass back to spend as much time as he can with her anyway, but they’ve been approved as a placement and she’s been responding well enough to the transplant to be discharged.
She’ll have a laundry list of rules to adhere to, and she won’t be able to go around town being reckless, but they can get her out of here.
Take her home.
So long as he keeps up with the classes he's got to take to appease the state.
“Seriously? After the fucking hell the two of you have put me through? Yes, Joel, I am sure about getting that girl somewhere safe. That’s with us.” Shoving him gently, she pushes him further onto the bed before steeping away and volleying an acerbic glance his way that says he needs to shut the fuck up before she throttles him.
Watching as she pops open a wheel chair with his ass print already melded into the pleather, he sucks a rough breath in and holds it. He isn’t trying to sway her away from doing this, that’s not what he wants.
What he does want is to do this right and make sure that no one is going to have any regrets.
Reaching out and snagging her hand when she moves to help him into the chair, he makes her really look at him.
“I know this shit has been endless, and I’m sorry. I guess I just don’t want you to feel like these are things you have to do.” Taking a seat in the wheelchair, she scoots between his knees, using his hand as an anchor to pull herself closer to him.
She lifts that hand until the cool skin of his palm rests against her cheek.
“I’m not going to repeat this shit to you again, so I hope your ears are working.” Tucking her hair behind one ear, the longer than normal strands sliding free from her hair clip, he chafes his hand over the side of her face until his fingertips brush against the back of her scalp.
“I love you, you big fucking idiot, and I love that kid - massive attitude and all - which means that I am here because I couldn’t be anywhere else with anybody else if I fucking tried.” He sees the frustration lining her forehead and creasing beside her eyes, the little bit of exasperation that’s aimed at him now instead of Ellie.
He’s hearing her loud and goddamn clear, seeing her too.
Tess isn’t going anywhere, and he knows this.
“Then I guess we got a kid to see and an offer to make, don’t we?” Standing swiftly, she lets him put his weight on her to maneuver his stiff as shit hips into the chair she'd vacated.
“About fucking time, I nearly broke down and threw our cards on the table this morning when she was being contrarian.” Raising hell is what Tess means. Ellie’s been causing a ruckus for days now.
She’s tired of sitting still and at her wits end with being kept away.
He is too.
“Broken down by a teenager? You’re better than that.” Just for that jab, she hits the door jam on the way out, jarring him enough to make his knees knock.
“Whoops.” She says flatly, not an ounce of remorse slipping from her tongue.
It’s almost like her and Ellie are exactly alike, but hell, who is he to make that very accurate comparison.
Especially when he’s greeted by Ellie’s near perfect recreation of Tess’s signature glare upon arriving to her room, staying on the outside because he ain’t masked up and she still isn’t supposed to be doing constant contact.
“This is bullshit, man. We’ve already breathed each other's air.” She’s up and pacing, throwing nasty looks through the very same glass he’d come a hairs breadth away from watching her die through.
It helps a little that much like him, she ain’t in one of those paper thin hospital gowns anymore, her sweatpants - his - dragging along the floor with every step and her sleeves - also his - flapping as she bitches.
She’s a damn baby swaddled in a pool of fabric, screaming her head off at a world too unkind for a kid like her.
“Can you quit yer’ fussin’ for five damn seconds?” Snapping her arms down by her sides, the extra length of his flannel falls more than a few inches past her hands and slaps against her legs as she stomps a foot and goes stiff.
She at least looks at him while she has a fit, even if that scowl of hers deepens something good.
“Put your mask on, kiddo. Tess n’ I will do the same, but we’re keeping to separate sides of the room. Can’t be riskin’ you gettin’ an infection now.” Not this fucking close to her getting to break out.
Sheryl had allowed them a few visits to ease the fear threatening them both, but they’ve been keeping-to protocol since.
“Joel. This is so fucking dumb.” The nasally whine is accented by one churlish as shit jerk of her torso as she pivots for where her mask rests on the bedside table.
But she pops it on with a sharp snap of the elastic and they follow suit before coming in.
Ellie sits on her bed with her arms crossed, still whispering shit under breath, her forehead nearly creasing as she pouts.
“Sister, we know this sucks as you keep putting it, but we’re trying to help. Hear us out before throwing yourself on the ground like Benny after he’s told 'no', okay?” Tess mimics Ellie’s standoffish posture by crossing her arms and squaring her feet.
Jesus Christ.
If Ellie is a feral kitten, then Tess is a damn wildcat.
“Tess and I wanted to ask you somethin’ and if it’s not what you want, then that don’t change a damn thing for us — understood?” Leaning forward on his knees, he presses the sharp points of his elbows into his thighs.
It’ll hurt a good bit if she decides that they ain’t what she wants. He knows that she’s his kid regardless, but leaving her here has gotten beyond old.
She don’t belong here, and she sure as shit don’t belong in another home with a bunch o’ strangers that don’t know her like they do.
When her knees rise for her chest and her arms untuck to wind around them, she nods.
“Understood.” Chin resting on her knees, looking so very fucking young, she watches them expectantly.
There’s a whole lotta trust in that gaze of hers.
“We’ve been approved to foster — to foster you. If it's okay with you, once you’re cleared to continue recovering from home, then we’d like for that to be with us.” Tess leans her hand against his shoulder as she stitches together the offer, his words failing to come to him first.
She’s more eloquently spoken anyway, more succinct.
Ellie’s eyes dart between her and him, one leg dropping away from her middle as her arms slacken with surprise.
“You want me to live with you?” It ain’t Tess she’s asking, her stare — her terrified, cautiously hopeful, stripped bare look of utter fucking longing - is firmly planted on him.
He doesn’t hesitate to propel himself forward a few feet with one hand wheeling him forward, his hand jutting out to land palm up on the lip of her mattress.
Shimmying his fingers, he waits for her to take it as he breaks his own rules of engagement. Distance when it comes to her is never going to be something he’s good at.
When fingertips that have finally lost their bandages slide into his awaiting hand, he squeezes.
“Babygirl, I’d like nothing more than to take you home but I ain’t gonna make you do a damn thing you are not comfortable with.” Not after David, not after the abuse she’s seen at the hands of adults that have failed her, and not after so much of her childhood has been controlled for her.
Only Ellie gets to make this choice.
The rule about keeping a safe stretch of space between that he’s already toyed with goes to shit when she lunges off the bed and into his chair with him, both of ‘em flying backward until Tess jerks them to a stop.
Clambering into his lap with clumsy knees and weaponized elbows, her arms wrap around his neck as her face fits into the crook of his neck.
Tears, freshly hot and familiarly wet, dampen his skin.
“Yes please.” She hitches into him, her voice muffled by the emotion sitting claggy in her throat and the mask that’s thrice as thick as his own.
He chuffs a breathless laugh at the response, his chest feeling lighter than it has in decades.
“Well, shit, I didn’t know you had manners. I already told Tess we might have to get a jar of treats to train you up.” She huffs indignantly, bubbles of snot rattling beneath her mask.
'Fuck you’ and his favorite lilt of ‘motherfucker’ get lost to the messy mumble of her crying.
He holds her a little tighter, pulls her just a bit closer.
Just for the moment.
—
“And you got all of your comics? There ain’t still one of them things shoved up under that pillow of yours?”
Ellie’s mouth says yes and then no, but a slide of her hand beneath her flattened pillow unearths not just any one of her comics, it unveils her favorite issue.
Would’ve been missing that something fierce later.
“Oh, whatever. I was gonna check there before you said anything .” Her eyes roll and her hand waves dismissively through the open air, but it’s a damn lie.
She’d had no recollection of that damn thing being there and she knows it.
“Uhm-hmm. Whatever you say, kiddo.” Brushing a hand over the top of her head, he moves stiffly for the door with her backpack thrown over one shoulder, the small weight of it making him slower than he’d like.
It’s the last of her shit, the only thing remaining that marked this room as hers.
All her other belongings have been hauled down by Tommy, his truck packed to the gills with both of their belongings.
A dual discharge, two homecoming in one go.
Technically he’s supposed to be wheeled down as per hospital guidelines and so is she, but once she’s done a final sweep of the barren little room, they lean on each other and meander down the hall as Sheryl and Tess follow along closely.
One last elderly enrichment walk for them in these in these halls they've become far too familiar with, and this time when she leans her head into him, it doesn’t shake him or throw him off guard.
Ellie has long since slotted herself into place right next to her sister in his arms.
Getting into the truck once they’ve made the slow trek down is a brief production, and there’s a small argument about him sitting upfront before Tess relents and plants her ass in the passenger seat.
He’d rather cram his legs into the backseat and keep close to his kid.
Especially when they roll up to the house and she catches the wide paper banner celebrating her that he’d known they were going to hang, her eyes roving across it before landing on the small group of people crowding up his front porch.
They can’t throw a party or socialize but they’d all shown up regardless — just to see her home.
“Jo-el! Henry’s here! And his boyfriend!” Ellie screeches as her seatbelt goes flying, the metal nearly clipping him as she jolts forward to lean between the front seats.
There’s more than just Henry and the partner he's yet to fess up to having, a development he hadn’t seen coming but as Tess had so kindly reminded him, he is quite oblivious to these things.
Ain’t his damn fault he didn’t notice the extra boots by the front door or the second toothbrush the last time he’d been by to check on the boy.
He’d been a little preoccupied by making sure he wasn’t resourcing nothing to hurt himself with.
“It’s almost as if I invited them.” He drolls playfully, smiling at her when she turns glitteringly bright eyes back to him.
There’s a smile under that mask of hers, ain’t no doubt about it.
But he can see it fade when she turns back to assess the people welcoming her home, her aunt and cousin waiting inside the doorway for them with a wave.
They gotta keep her contact limited and the five of them is already pushing their luck.
“What’s wrong?” Rubbing a hand over the back of her shoulders, he curves forward to look at her more closely.
“Florence is here.” She is. He’s been checking in on her ever since she’d left the hospital.
Maybe not as frequently as he would’ve liked given the circumstances, but her n’ Marlon were good people and they were kind to his kid.
He’d wanted to make sure they got any help he could offer.
“Yeah, I thought you’d like to see her again now that she’s doing better; she’s in remission.” But Ellie is smart and observant and far too soft hearted for a kid who’s seen the cruelty this world has to offer.
There ain’t a thing he has to say for her to understand the gravity of the situation.
“But she’s here alone.” Ellie’s soft drawl and cracking tone break his heart.
“Yeah baby, she is. Marlon's heart gave out on him a few weeks ago, we didn’t know until after the family had their private services.” And by that point, Ellie had needed to keep her head focused on healing. Florence herself had asked them not to tell her.
Marlon — well, he’d had a soft spot for Ellie’s foul mouth and wild spirit, he wouldn’t have wanted her to risk her health grieving for him.
A quiet sniffle and not so inconspicuous swipe of her face on her shoulder gives her away, the grief washing over her too quickly for her to hide.
“Florence wanted to make sure you got better before makin’ your heart hurt, kiddo, but she is looking forward to knitting with you and Tess.” Cupping the back of her head, he urges her to look at him.
Ellie’s not going to be able to sweep this under a rug, she feels much too deeply for that, but for Marlon, she can take the day.
Enjoy this win.
“She baked you a cake with her daughters — made sure not to put any raspberries in the filling and everything.” Her nose scrunches and her eyes narrow, a hint of good natured annoyance flitting across her features.
He’d found out only by accident that she didn’t enjoy the small red berries because they made her lips tingly and her sinuses itchy — the back of her throat raw.
Allergic and she didn’t even know it.
“Just for me?” And God, she sounds so fucking young when she says it like that.
Soft, hopeful, and a little broken.
Finding both Tommy and Tess wearing equally stricken faces in the rear-view mirror, he nods and swipes at the tear trying to break free from the corner of Ellie’s eye.
“Sure is, babygirl. It’s not everyday you turn fifteen.” An age Sarah never got to see, an age that has him more than a touch terrified.
He’s facing the unknown here, he’s never had a fifteen year old before.
“I’ve never had one before; a birthday cake.” A low murmur of Jesus cuts up out of his brother as Tess twists in the front seat to put herself in the center of Ellie’s view, his eyes pinching shut as his fucking innards tug painfully at that admission.
Christ.
Who lets a kid make it to fifteen without ever getting a damn cake?
“From now on you get to have a cake. You get to be celebrated for being here and you get to have real birthdays. If Joel and I are ever caught slacking, then Tommy and Maria will make sure we get our shit together because you deserve to have that.” Tess glances briefly over to him before settling back on Ellie, who looks like she doesn’t know what to do.
“You are important to us.” I love you.
That’s what is hidden beneath Tess’s declaration, three words he still hasn’t found a way to give volume.
Swallowing thickly, he tugs her back and into him, letting Tommy slip from the cabin quietly as he tries desperately to turn the heavy mood around.
“Tess and Maria did some things in the house for you as well, but if you get overwhelmed at any point, just tell us and we’ll take a breather, alright?” When she nods jerkily into his side, he swings the car door open and allows Tess to help him down before they ease Ellie out behind him.
She shrinks and blushes as they shuffle towards the house, a small chorus of cheers erupting from the ragtag group of folks who’ve come to celebrate with them.
But at the end of the day, after Maria and Tess proudly show her the guest room that’s been painted a shade of forest green he knows she loves and decorated with all her favorite things, after food and cake, after getting to catch up with their friends through a very different window, and after Tommy and Maria bid them farewell for the night, there’s a smile on her face.
Openly displayed now that she’s been freed of her mask since it ain’t something she has to wear in her home.
“Good day?” He asks her when they’ve collapsed on his old, weary couch, his feet propped up on the coffee table as she tucks herself up into his side.
Long day, he knows.
Possibly too long judging by the ache climbing up his back and throbbing in his knee, but he’s hoping that she’d enjoyed herself.
Feeling her head turn against him he glances down with a small grin.
“Are you kidding me?” She asks in disbelief, that smile widening as she hugs her new NASA blanket tighter to her chest, the green and navy blue of it perfect for her room.
Craning her neck, her face wiggles into his armpit as she giggles under her breath.
“Best fucking day.” That’s all he’d wanted.
To bring her into his home and celebrate her, for her to have one moment of peace.
—
They revoke David’s license pending further review and ask Ellie to give another statement.
She goes with Maria down to a precinct where they clear a room for her. She looks down the lenses of a camera and leans towards the tape recorder resting on the cheap metal table— and tells David to go fuck himself.
Calls him a sick-fuck with a hard-on for little girls.
It’s not the statement they had been looking for, but it’s the one she was willing to give, words that she has needed to say to him for months now.
Maria pulls her from the small room with an unrelenting grasp after a detective calls her uncooperative and starts throwing threats around.
She calls him detective dickhead and suggests that he’s brain damaged; Maria barks her name in a tone that she knows means she’s in trouble.
Too bad she couldn’t give a shit.
The car ride back home is long and awkward, the heat of her anger making her cheeks throb in time with her pulse, and she passes the time by tearing at her cuticles with her teeth even though technically she’s still supposed to have her mask on.
She’s tired of the fucking mask.
Day one hundred can’t come fast enough when she’s eighty-two deep and losing her fucking mind.
It’s late July and it’s hot and she’s suffocating and she’d like to go outside alone or to a store without a chaperone.
Independence.
Nine very long months without it is starting to make her itch and not in a surface level kind of way but in a I’m going to roll out of this moving vehicle kind of way that she does not think neither Joel nor Tess would appreciate.
She’s very proud of her one, singular hospital visit that was unplanned in the last two months- thank you very fucking much.
And it wasn’t even her fault, not really.
How was she supposed to know Joel’s kitchen knives were that sharp? The most she’s had to work with while cooking is a butter knife and even those had been worn down and nearly smooth they were so dull.
Slicing through a few layers of her middle finger had not been the intention but Joel still won’t let her use the knives, which does kind of fucking suck.
Her secret switchblade has come in handy since then.
“Are we gonna like, talk about it at all?” It’s starting to feel like she’s in the car with her caseworker, a sigh of disappointment and irritation incoming because she’s fucked yet another placement up somehow.
The silence is the same.
Suddenly, panic starts to set in, the anxious clench of her gut making her mouth water as she realizes that maybe she has fucked it all up again. Clutching the armrest of the car door until the little bits of nail growing back on her torn up hands flush bright pink, she starts sucking in air faster than before.
What if they get back and her shit is all set out by the door?
“Ellie?” Maria glances toward her with a crease in her brow but she’s too busy cooking up a thousand different ways Tess and Joel can kick her out. She really does not want to go back to the hospital or into a group home.
She really wants to stay.
“Slow your breathing, try pulling through your nose and blowing from your mouth. Counts of eight.” The command leaves no room for arguing, not that she could, but the air just won’t fucking enter her lungs.
It goes into her mouth in short gasps and gets stuck somewhere in the middle of her throat.
She’s going to fucking suffocate and all her shit is probably being packed into yet another black trash bag and she really, really liked having people.
The interview - statement - what the fuck ever, was not important enough to ruin all of that.
“Please.” She whistles out through her nose, the vibration of her voice rattling her sinuses.
It’s finally happening.
Everything is collapsing in like she thought it would and it’s not even David that does it.
No, it’s her own dumbass fucking fault because she never knows when it’s time to not run her smart ass mouth and now she’s going to be alone all over again.
Her chest burns and the world is dark, the leather squeaking beneath her fingers disappears and she thinks she’s stopped feeling but that’s impossible when all she can do is feel.
The fear, the panic, the longing.
Sounds muffle and voices blend, and at some point, she finds her head shoved between her knees as a familiar hand runs over the knobs of her spine.
The warmth of a heavy palm and long fingers has her blinking her eyes back open at the oil-stained concrete slab of Joel’s driveway as she inhales like she’s been held underwater.
“Easy, baby, easy.” The soft hum of Joel’s murmurs bleed past the anxiety trying to drown her and the shaky squeeze of his hand on the back of her neck grounds her.
She feels the sweat-slick skin of her forehead press into the crook of his neck as he rocks her awkwardly.
“Please don’t make me go.” She begs tearfully, the drop of a tear dangling from her chin as she watches his chest rise and fall.
She can fix this, she can go back to the station and apologize - give a real statement - if they’ll just let her stay.
“I can be better, I promise .” The scratch of Joel’s shoe grinding fine bits of dirt as he leans back onto his haunches makes her flinch and her eyes slam shut again.
If there is one thing she doesn’t want to see, it’s the disappointment on his face.
Two fingers grip her chin and tilt her face up, catching the moisture that’s been running freely down to her neck.
“Ellie, who the hell said you were goin’ anywhere?” She did, it’s what always happens.
People don’t fucking keep her when she fucks things up, they just don’t.
Never have.
“I fucked up.” She admits, cracking her lids just enough to stare at his chin. He’s done with chemo now, the last round almost a month ago and he’ll be starting radiation later this week.
This means the first scruffy patches of facial hair returning to his chin have begun to fill in. She’d noticed a few days ago that his mustache is darker than the rest.
A lot of it is gray, even a little of his eyebrows are coming in that way.
“Will you tell me why you think you fucked up?” Sniffling, she shakes her head and chokes on a sob.
It’s so stupid.
She’d just wanted to fucking scream at David, wanted to throw him a middle finger of some kind and tell him to go fuck himself. It hadn’t been her intention walking into that building, but once she was seated and being watched , she’d wanted an audience for her fuck you.
A few witnesses to her outburst.
“I called a cop a brain dead dickhead.” It’s all she offers up and when his lips do that weird little dance that says he’s either pissed or trying not to laugh, she risks a quick cast of her eyes up.
Brows tucked inwards and face lined with worry, there’s a little bit of humor making his eyes fold delicately at the outer corners.
Huh.
Not what she was expecting.
“You’re not mad?” Groaning, he falls back onto his butt as his knees click before shuffling closer to where she’s hanging out of the side of Maria’s rental car.
She doesn’t remember getting here or the door being opened, just the inability to breathe and then Joel being all around her.
“I ever tell you that my father was a cop? He was a real piece of work; definitely brain-dead dickhead material.” His fingers grip one of her calves and flex as he peers up at her.
A smile lifts one side of his mouth.
“No, kiddo, I ain’t mad. Your very brief conflict with the law don’t hold a damn candle to what that idiot brother of mine has managed.” Tommy did get arrested a couple of months ago.
She’d heard Maria had to bail him out and everything. What she wouldn't have done to be a fly on that wall.
“I also said some stuff about David that I probably shouldn’t have.” Shrugging, Joel looks at her as if to say 'and?'.
“Did you lie?” Shaking her head again, she sucks a deliberate breath in and winces at the ache of her chest.
Not really.
David is a sick-fuck with a hard-on for little girls, she would know, it’d been pressed into her leg.
“No.” What she said was true even if it wasn’t what the police or the state had wanted from her. They’d asked for a statement and she’d given them the one she’d wanted.
And it felt good in that moment - still does.
“Well then, fuck ‘em if they don’t like it. You gave the truth, that’s all you agreed to do.” That easy? Just, fuck them? She’d really thought this was going to be a fuck her moment.
Kind of like when Tess was arguing with her about the transplant.
She’d earned that fuck you, though.
“So, I don’t have to go?” Pulling lightly on her leg, he tugs her out of the car and onto the ground with him, locking his arms around her when she goes willingly.
They must look insane huddled up on the ground in broad daylight. There’s not a single part of her that cares.
“The only way I’m letting you go is if you make me, babygirl, and good fucking luck getting rid of Tess.” Winding her arms around his middle, she cries a little more.
This time, out of relief.
David’s done, she’s said her peace, and her family is still here.
—
They celebrate day one hundred and one after Ellie’s transplant by going to visit Sam.
She’s officially mask free but under strict orders to keep her public outings small and careful, and it’d felt right to bring her to see her friend.
The open air is good for all of them and while he’s still sore and tired, he’d needed this too.
A reminder of how precious this life is.
Sam’s headstone still looks the same except for the addition of a small black and white portrait of the boy a few years younger than he’d been when he’d passed that’s now set into the stone.
Sarah’s has something similar, the photo he’d chosen displaying her wide smile from a soccer game her team had won.
He ain’t set eyes on it in a very long time.
Henry joins them and instead of dancing around an excuse as to why his friend has tagged along, they’re officially introduced to Anton as his boyfriend. The nervous shuffle to the kids feet makes him feel a little bit like this is Henry’s way of having a meet the parents sort of gathering.
That’s alright with him, if that’s the space he’s filling in the young man’s life.
Ellie talks the ears right off of them, switching topics faster than his brain can comprehend as they eat lunch picnic style. She’s not had a whole lot of social interaction since the beginning of all this shit they’ve both been crawling through.
But even less so since Sam’s passing and now that Tommy and Maria have gone back to Wyoming with Benny in tow, she’s been left with only him and Tess to feed her curiosities.
She needs this; time with folks that ain’t them.
“You’re thinking hard enough to make my head hurt, Texas.” Bumping her shoulder into his, Tess knocks her elbow into his arm just to make her point.
Jerking his foot, he kicks hers under the wood table that groans softly with their antics.
“Not thinkin’ all the intensely, just lettin’ my mind wander.” With a laugh that sounds an awful lot like a scoff, Tess rests her head on the curve of his shoulder that has blessedly found some meat again.
It’s slow going, but he’s getting a few pieces of himself he’d lost to the cancer back now that he’s done with chemo for the time being.
Some hair, bits of muscle and fat, the normal flush of his skin, and even his appetite most days.
He’s hoping to keep them once he’s done with radiation, and wants to ring that goddamn bell that Ellie had damn near broke at her appointment yesterday.
His girl is in remission and fuck does that make him happy, but he’d like to join her in that achievement so that he can focus building that life he and Tess have been talking about.
There’s things he’s gotta do, people he needs to be healthy for.
“Your mind wanders into forest fires that it fucking fuels with kerosene and doom, maybe put it on a leash.” She might have a point, considering the cluster of what-ifs that still haunt him seem to lingering real close to the surface.
What if he doesn’t find remission? What if he fights until the cancer wins and this is all Ellie ever knows him as? What if he and Tess still lose out on that future he sees for them and he leaves Ellie before h gets the chance to do any raisin'.
He wants more time for them, more time with Ellie, and he’d like to figure out a way to have more time with Tommy. He'd like to Ellie out to those horses she never shuts up about, that promise of horse riding lessens at Bill and Franks ever-present in her mind.
Ain’t even actually met the folks but shit, she’s got them wrapped around her finger.
They call and chat with Tess once a week which means Frank and Ellie shoot the shit before bullying Bill. Not that he’s against witnessing that old fuck get read to fifth by his teenager.
“I love you.” Tilting her head up at him as her cheek rubs the sleeve of his shirt, she grins.
“Well I fucking hope so, we’ve been joint baby-trapped and I definitely did not let that happen for someone who just likes me likes me.” Huffing, he wiggles his shoulder to make head roll as she laughs at him and bats her lashes.
Fucking nuisance.
“Alright smart ass, an 'I love you too' would have sufficed. Christ.” A pain in his fucking ass, both the hellions in his life — big and small.
“Maybe, but where's the fun in that?” Popping a piece of fruit into her mouth, she throws him one last teasing look before standing to join Ellie down by the edge of the quiet pond where they both throw bits of fruit towards ducks that bob and splash like it’s a game.
Ellie’s got her color back too, more so than him, and her hair has really filled in. The dark, auburn-tinted waves curl around her ears and brush the tops of her eyebrows, the gleam of it in the sun exposing the red undertone.
Her bedhead is atrocious these days but it warms his damn insides to see her pad into the kitchen every morning with a sleep-creased face and hair that’s gone off in every direction because she sleeps like a little tornado.
He and Tess like to joke that she puts her bed on a spin cycle every night and that’s why she looks like she’s been electrocuted.
Maria saw the crime scene living on her head once and bought her a damn bonnet like Sarah used to sleep in.
She don’t use it.
“You told me you weren’t her dad once.” Tearing his eyes away from the sight of his family laughing by the water and striking up a competition with one another as haughty voices drift back up to the calm cemetery, he settles them on Henry as the kid takes a seat across from him.
He’d said that while in the thick of denial, but not too long before he’d realized it was fucking useless to keep telling himself that Ellie wasn’t his.
Something bigger than himself had dropped her into his life and she’d definitely been postmarked with his name.
No return to sender neither.
"I was wrong." He can admit it, swallow his pride and tell the boy that while his head had been a mess, he'd known then that he was Ellie's parent.
She'd been stuck in his head for weeks prior to finding her in that catwalk staring forlornly out at the city they couldn't be apart of during their stay, a ghost in the peripheral of his mind that he kept ignoring until he could no longer.
Him and Ellie, that's kismet.
"Oh, I figured that out pretty quick. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, ya' know?" A genuine smile pulls at Henry's face as he pokes fun at him, a chuckle escaping the young man who's still got sad eyes and a fatigue to his face.
Grief is tricky, mourning someone is hard, and trying to move on when you feel like you're leaving a limb behind feels impossible.
But he can tell he's doing better, finding a way to exist without Sam.
He breathes that much easier knowing it, the dread of discovering Henry how he'd forced Tommy to find him after Sarah had been buried becoming a lighter weight to carry.
"Yeah, okay. Leave the bullying to my kid, will you?" Swatting at him like a buzzing fly, Henry leans back with his hands raised but laughs at him as they're joined by his boyfriend.
It's another good day to add to their growing collection, memories they're making together. Them and all these people they've managed to pull together.
Almost feels normal — like how things ought to be.
—
Ellie runs.
She gets in trouble during her first week back at school during the fall semester and he comes home from his last radiation appointment to find that not only did she leave school grounds after bolting from the principles office, she'd walked her ass all the way home, packed her most important shit, and hit the road without leaving him so much as a goddamn note.
His kid is in the wind and his heart doesn't feel like it's in his chest anymore.
It's in that damn backpack of hers, shoved between a comic and that pointy little knife she finally showed not that long ago.
He's not sure what he expects when he throws himself into his truck and slings it into reverse to go driving through the local suburbs.
She could be anywhere.
She could be with anyone.
Boston is a city that's awfully easy to disappear into, she'd be far too fucking vulnerable in some of the darker corners of this place.
Tess joins the hunt when he collects himself well enough to call her and let her know that their very own Mike Tyson has gone on the lamb — that she took off with the intention of not coming back.
It feels a lot like the time Sarah had slipped from his line of sight when she'd been five and playing with some local kids at a playground, lured away by a damned puppy just like them commercials that encouraged stranger danger.
He'd screamed her name with a rising panic that'd bloomed strikingly hot in the cage of his ribs, the erratic beat of his heart making his hands tremble.
She'd been missing for less than five minutes but it'd felt like a lifetime and this is no different.
Ellie had been in his kitchen bitching about a math test bright and early this morning, she'd been giggling over her pun book as they'd waited in the drop-off line at her school, and she'd slammed the door to his truck with a grin on her face and a 'see you later motherfucker ' falling out of her mouth.
Today had been no different than any of the other twenty-seven school days she's had with him and he wants to know where the hell it'd gone so fucking wrong.
Just what had sent her packing and leaving their home in such a rush.
He's going to microchip her like a dog, he swears on all that is holy, he will. That phone with the fancy GPS tracking they'd gotten her don't do shit for him when she ain't got it her on her person.
A very intentional move on her part.
Microchip, surgically placed so she can't ditch it.
Fingers thrumming against the cracked leather of his steering wheel, he scans every sidewalk, every darkened alley, and dead-end street for any sign of his slip of a girl.
She blends is the problem.
Her backpack is deep green - her favorite color - and her jacket is only a few shades lighter. The hoodie she's taken to wearing beneath it is navy blue and if she's got that hood yanked up, then he'll never catch that thick head of brown hair she's got.
Five months out from her last round of chemo, it's now chin length and so goddamn wavy he's had to shake off some of the rust on his hair care knowledge.
Chemo-curls are apparently a very real thing, and he's experiencing his own version of them too.
They're a matching set Tess likes to say.
The sun sets as his gaslight flicks on, the yellow it glares at him from his dash. He keeps going until he risks breaking down, stopping only long enough to shove a nozzle into his tank while he knocks anxious knuckles into the top of the cabin.
Tess goes home.
She says that one of them needs to be there just in case she comes back, tries to tell him they need to report her as a runaway to both the state and the police.
If they do that, then they might take her.
So, they argue until she hangs up on him, twice, and he drives from one end of Boston to the other before turning his ass around and covering the same ground all over again.
In the end, he finds her less than ten miles from home, twenty-one minutes past midnight, and sitting curled up so tight on a bench outside the hospitals poorly lit oncology entrance that he almost misses her.
She's damn near camouflaged against the faded blue of the bench.
The truck lurches when he jams it into park and falls out of the driver's side, his hackles raised as he defaults to terrified anger.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Ellie. What in the hell do you think you are doing? I have looked everywhere for you, girl." Stopping in front of her, he braces a hand on his hip as his chest heaves.
"Ellie." The barking call of her name makes her flinch, a full body thing that sends her head deeper into the cavern of her knees.
It makes him feel like shit.
She'd scared the hell out of him, the nerve-wracking shakes of fear still making him quiver lightly head to goddamn toe, but that ain't no reason for him to scare her.
Raking both his hands over his face, he crouches in front of her with a low hiss of discomfort.
He don't think his hips will ever be normal again.
Tapping the knobby round of her knee gently with a knuckle, he calls out to her with a much kinder tone.
"Baby, can you look at me please?" Cautiously, he reaches out and tugs that damn hood of hers back as she shakes her head, smoothing down the relentless cowlick that makes her hair flick up right on the curve of her skull.
Tess spends no less than fifteen minutes trying to tame the damn thing every morning but he knows it's a lost cause.
It won't stay down until it's weighted down as her hair continues to grow out.
"Tess and I would really like it if you'd come home, kiddo. We've been beside ourselves trying to find you." The unsteady breath she pulls in tells him she's about to cry, so he twists to sit next to her and drags his kid into his side before she breaks.
Her face finds its home in his ribs, and the cotton of his undershirt soaks quickly.
"I'm sorry." Hand twisting into the bunching material at his abdomen, she untucks to curl into him instead, holding on like he's the one who'd tried to run away.
Pressing a kiss to her hair and squeezing her tighter, he doesn't give her the room to leave again.
"I know." He does. "I didn't want to." He knows that too, she would've gone elsewhere if she had. "It was my fault." That, he doubts.
Ellie doesn't strike out without a reason, hasn't since the day he'd met her, and biting someone is a little extreme for something that was her fault.
He's almost tempted to make one of those rabies jokes Tess had been tossing around.
"Will you take a drive with me? Not home, not yet, but I'd like for us to take a moment. After I tell Tess to call off the search dogs of course." He lets her wipe her nose along his side, but when she nods, he grabs the bag she has set to the side and helps her up.
Tilts her face to make her see him when he's got her on her feet.
"I ain't mad, I'm just really fuckin' scared, alright?" Chewing her lip, her chin wobbles and she wipes at her nose with the sleeve of her jacket.
Sighing, he helps her up into the truck and tosses her bag into the back carefully, keeping it on his side where it's out of reach for her.
Should she get the urge to bolt again.
Cloaked in a heavy silence after a clipped conversation with Tess, he takes them out to the pier, out to where they can see the stars and watch the reflection of the moon bounce off the water as they sit on the hood of his truck.
It lingers, that quiet.
She's still crying, still all wrapped up in herself despite sitting right next to him on the warm metal, but he ain't helping. There's words clogging his throat and tearing at that precious lump of muscle that belongs to Ellie and Tess.
It's September is the problem, and as of fifty-three minutes ago, he's fifty-seven.
His first daughter has been gone twenty-one years today.
"I fucked up and forgot to get a birthday cake once. They were something Sarah had loved — birthdays were always a big deal for her no matter who's ." He'd been working late pulling an extra job with Tommy.
Trying to dump as much money into her college fund as he could manage because Sarah had been the brightest fucking Miller to come out of their family in a real long time.
His girl was college material, she was bigger than the life he was capable of giving her.
"It was for mine. I've never been real fond of celibratin' but for her, we did. I was turnin' thirty-six the next day and I worked late and I forgot to bring home a cake. We went for ice cream with Tommy instead." It'd been a sort of bribery, an ask for forgiveness.
Her favorite parlor was expensive and not always in the budget, but he'd let her order him the birthday cake flavor he detested and smiled when she n' her uncle stuck a candle in it.
They'd made him blow it out and everything, the sticky drip of the melting cream leaving his fingers tacky.
"Sarah, she'd fixed this watch f'me. It was my fathers, one of the few things of his I held onto even though the man was a piece of shit." That gets Ellie to look at him, and he's there waiting when her gaze searches out his own.
Wiping away the slow crawl of a tear that's trying to dry on the side of her face, she snatches up his wrist to examine the cracked facade of his broken watch.
Been like that for a real long time.
"She gave it to me that day, had been real excited about it, but she'd left her birthday card in Tommy's truck so she went to run back for it." She'd turned around so fucking quickly he hadn't had the time to react — not really.
It'd felt like he'd blinked and she'd been ten feet away, stepping into the crosswalk to get back over to where they'd parked on the other side of the street.
Everything else happened in slow motion.
The squeal of tires, the way he'd run like a damn track star, and the grip he'd managed to snag on her wrist as he'd stepped into the street after her.
"The driver hadn't been lookin' for a girl too excited to properly look both ways, and they hit her." Technically, the older gentleman had hit them, his knee is still all messed up to this day from the impact.
That's on him for not attending physical therapy, too inundated in his grief to give a damn.
"Point is, I lost one of my kids twenty-one years ago today now that we've crossed the threshold of midnight, and baby, I can't stand to lose another. Talk to me, please." She's up on bony knees and crossing the small space between, throwing herself into his chest.
The tight vice of her arms should hinder his breathing but it eases it instead.
"It's your birthday?" The words are muffled against his upper chest, the puff of them warming the skin beneath his shirt, but he hears them.
Of course that's what she's taking away from all of this.
So much like her sister.
"Yeah, I'm getting awful close to sixty these days." He's got a few years, but he knows he getting old — older than he'd like to be when Ellie's still got so much life to live.
He wants to see as much of it as he can.
"You know what I'd like as a present?" Watching her pull back, he smiles down at her, the adrenaline of coming home to find her shit gone and her little behind missing, starting to crash.
He's going to have a heart attack one of these days if his people don't start having mercy on him.
"I'd really like it if my kid would tell me why she thought running away from home was a good idea, and if you'd like to throw in an explanation for the teeth prints you left on one of your peers, I wouldn't mind that so much neither." A whine hums out of Ellie that's half defeat and half emotion, the reminder that she's his not so subtle as he asks her what gives.
He's sure that Bethany girl had it coming, he just needs to know how he's supposed to spin this for her.
How to make it better.
"I thought you wouldn't want me anymore, that you'd finally realize that I'm just — too fucking much." Lord help him, he's had this conversation with her so many times.
From the incident with David in the hospital to the way she called him out in her statement, she's always assuming she's expendable and she really ain't.
He's not going to return her or kick her out, there is no other model he's looking to upgrade to.
All he wants is her because she's his.
"And I bit Bethany because she said that Riley died just to get away from me. She put her hand over my mouth when I started yelling at her, so I bit it." Until she'd drawn blood. The school had made sure to inform Tess that the girl's hand required three stitches.
He can't find the good will to care.
"While I ain't a fan of you putting someone nasty hand in your mouth, I get why you did it." Tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, he cups one side of her face as she rests against his chest once more.
"I need you to hear me when I tell you that you are non-refundable. I won't ever be looking to get rid of you, no matter how much of a fuss you kick up at school or with your words, or hell, when you won't clean your damn room." It's a fucking pigsty in there more often than not, clothes literally hanging from her ceiling fan a regular occurance.
Shifting her so that she sits in the cradle of his legs, he holds her almost like a baby as tips her into the bend of his arm.
"You get to stumble and fuck up, mija. That's part of growing up and I don't love you any less when you do, because I do — ya' know? I love you, babygirl." It's only taken him nearly a fucking year to find a way to put some sound to those words, but now seems like a real good moment to do so.
If there's anything he can say to make her understand that he's hers until the day he dies, then those three would be the best ones he can think of.
He'll say them as often as she needs to hear them too.
Another deeply painful round of crying starts up, her sobs filling the cavity of his chest until he feels like he's choking on them with her.
Sometimes he wonders if anyone has ever said those words to her, and if they meant them with the same gravity as he does.
"I love you on your good days and on your bad days, and anything in between." Rocking her, he watches the gentle roll of the sea outstretched before them and lets a few of his own tears get lost in her hair.
This birthday is already so vastly different than his last.
—
"Let's go, Ellie! We're going to be late, let's hustle!" He swears that time is just a suggestion to that girl.
Getting her ass anywhere in a timely manner is a goddamn feat.
She comes out of her room hopping on one foot as Tess steps out into the living room sliding one last Bobby pin into her hair, a knowing smile on her face as she rolls her eyes at their kid.
Coming to a stop in front of him, Ellie holds her hand up to her forehead in a mock salute as she waits for him to approve her outfit of choice.
Her button down is mostly wrinkle free, the fitted trousers properly belted and somewhat lint rolled, and to be honest, her deep red high tops ain't all that surprising.
It's incredibly Ellie.
"Your shirt ain't buttoned right and we're getting food after, you sure wearing white is the best choice?" Cocking a brow, he runs a hand through his thick waves to clear the curl that always falls forward away from his face.
Glaring, she spins on her heel and marches back to her room because she knows he's right.
She'll stain that shirt in seconds once there's grub in front of her.
"You know she's going to take another eternity in there, right? We could've stopped and picked up a Tide pen faster than she moves." Fixing the tuck of his charcoal gray dress shirt and smoothing back his hair that flicks out by one of his ears, Tess smiles at him wryly.
They've both seen the way that girl eats, there would have been no hope for that shirt — not even with a damn stain removing pen.
She'd absolutely slaughtered a white t-shirt when they'd gotten wings last November to celebrate him entering remission. He'd tried and tried to get the bright orange hot sauce out to no avail.
It went into the trash and Ellie held a damn funeral for it in their kitchen.
She'd picked fucking flowers for it.
"I am not that slow." Ellie huffs, stumbling back out as she yanks a black sweater over head, one of her nicer crew necks that Maria had gotten her.
It'll do.
"Alright, let's head 'em up and move 'em out." Clapping his hands, he ushers them all out to the truck he's already got running and gets them to the courthouse with two minutes to spare.
It's honestly better time than he had expected them to make.
Tommy and Maria meet them in the wide, marble lined corridor with a wound up Benny running amuck, his high squeals at seeing his cousin ricocheting around the open space with an ear piercing decibel.
"Y'all ready for this?" Shooting his brother a look, he steers Ellie toward the court room door by her shoulders when she tries to scoop up Benny.
If they start playing now, they'll never get through this.
"You tryna' talk my kid out of this Tomás? You gon' swoop in and try to steal mine when you've got your own to worry about." His tone is teasing and Tommy rolls his eyes, sticking his tongue out when Ellie flips him the bird.
So very fucking mature, the both of them.
"Just making sure there isn't any cold feet like the last time." That earns Tommy a very adult middle finger. He didn't have cold feet back in December, he'd had the goddamn flu.
There's a difference, and he'd still been present and accounted for when their scheduled appointment with the justice of peace had rolled around — if a little peaked.
He'd still managed to say I do and snag himself one helluva wife of he says so himself.
"I think you get to wait outside in time out. Go find a bench, jackass." That gets his brother to slink off towards his wife as Ellie giggles at them, whispering jackass under her breath in a horrific imitation of his accent.
This kid.
It's all forgotten when they're sat in front of a judge that disregards him and Tess to stare down her nose at Ellie over the upper of her glasses as she stands between them, both hands gripped tight in theirs.
She's the only one who's addressed, the only who's questioned, and the only one that matters.
"— and these people, they are who you want? Family can be a tricky thing Miss Williams, are you sure they're yours?" It's not said to be mean or insulting, but damn of his ego doesn't smart just a little.
He's sure she's theirs, but fuck if he ain't worried that she'll change her mind and decide that she don't feel the same.
"They're mine — they've always been mine." Her voice waivers but her chin juts out in a defiant manner, challenging the judge to say other wise.
That's his girl, a headstrong little shit no matter the situation.
"Then the state of Massachusetts grants the petition to adopt one, Ellie Anne Williams, and so long as you are sure about the requested name change, you are now legally Williams-Miller." A surprisingly tender smile settles on the severe face of the judge as they all start celebrating before she's officially released them.
Even Maria hoots and hollers with them.
Scooping his kid up, he and Tess sandwich her between them as the judge tries and fails to wrap up the legal proceedings, taking to signing the required paperwork with an amused shake of her head.
She's his, fuck, she's theirs.
His and Tess's, but also Tommy's and Maria's and Benny's.
There's no caseworker or pain in the ass family friend to tell them otherwise, they've got the goddamn papers to shove in their faces.
It makes him cry a little but so does Ellie and when he catches his brother watching them, his eyes are glassy too.
They laugh and crowd around once they've got their copy of the adoption, Ellie's new name inked in permanence.
"Shit, there's not a person here who isn't legally a fucking Miller now, even Tess has been inducted into our cowboy cult." He guffaws as Tess damn near pushes his brother over, Maria watching the two of them bicker and catching his eye with a commiserating look.
"I hyphenated just like Ellie, jackass — I'm not a complete lost cause." She is, and he knows it. Tess ain't going anywhere, they never would have gotten married if either of them had that doubt.
They've both done the failed marriage thing and neither of them are looking to do it again.
And they won't, because looking around the table at dinner that evening, he sees how complete his family is now that every one of them is together and whole — healthy.
This thing right here doesn't work unless it's all of them and that's both beautiful and terrifying.
Looking down at his kid sitting next to him pulling funny faces across the table at her uncle and cousin, he has to clench his eyes shut against the rush of fucking panic that brings to the surface.
He's got so much to lose these days, but he won't wallow in it.
Instead, he's going to focus on them.
"Happy birthday, kiddo." He whispers down to Ellie, just loud enough to cut through the low murmur of the restaurant as she leans into him.
She's growing up and she's doing it too goddamn fast for his likin'.
"Between your fifteenth and now your sixteenth birthday, I don't know how we're gonna top it for your seventeenth." Throwing his arm around her shoulder to pull her closer within the booth, he rubs a warm hand up and down her arm as her attention shifts to him.
A shit-eating grin splits across her face when she looks up, a suspicious bat to her lashes making his gaze narrow at her as the ball of worry untangles a bit.
"Disney?" He blanches at her, face going dry as she waggles her brows and throws in a please and an innocent smile for good measure.
Of fucking course.
"I guess we'll see what we can do." He says flatly, but she knows him well enough to know that he'll get her ass to Disney if it's what she really wants.
He'll drive, fly, or hike to whichever version of the park her heart desires.
"Fuck yeah!" The cheer snags the attention of Tommy who looks at them questioningly before a matching grin carves into his face.
"Disney!" The fucker cheers back, already in on his nieces little plan. They're always in cahoots with each other, them assholes.
Sighing, he locks eyes with Tess who's tapping his leg under the table with her foot, the mirth and happiness dancing in them making him feel oddly light.
"We're crossing state lines for birthdays now?" It would appear so. He's been usurped by a fucking mouse.
Groaning, he tosses his head back as Tess laughs, knowing there ain't no way in hell he digs his way out of this one.
Last year, they'd got to bring her home. This year they've gotten to make her theirs and start planning to move her out to what he's hoping will be their forever home in Wyoming.
Next year, they're going to fucking Disney.