"Singularity" Chapter 29: "There's No Place Like Home" [29/49]
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I don't know if anyone is currently reading this story here... I do intend to keep posting, but in case you're not aware, this site is now owned by a Russian company, so I'm concerned it might get shut down/disabled/blocked/what-have-you, possibly with no warning. I don't blog anymore but I do like to archive my fic here. You may want to make note that if this blog disappears, you can find me on AO3 and FFN under "Lumy12." Thanks!
Title: "Singularity" Chapter 29: "There's No Place Like Home" [29/49]
Fandom: The Last of Us (first game only)
Characters: Ellie, Joel, Tommy, Maria, OCs
Pairings: Joel/Ellie
Warnings: Underage
Word Count for this chapter: 9,183
Rating (for fic as a whole): R
~
Ellie and Clicker claimed a spot in a nooklike area of the library, far from the center of the main room. It was where people tended to go if they didn't want to be bothered. Scattered amongst the aisles of books, the tables with single chairs at them generally discouraged gatherings, as did the 'living' chairs (like the kind of chair only one person can sit in, not an actual couch). It was great for when you wanted to look at a book and not necessarily check it out officially. But sometimes, people would just grab a chair from another table and drag it over, or cram two people into one of the bigger living chairs. Ellie was about to do the former when Clicker made her stop and "wait right there" while he ran off and procured a couch instead, scooting it allllllllllllll the way over from the center of the room -- because she had made that comment about missing the couches? If people hadn't taken much notice of them coming in, they certainly looked when he did that! But it made Ellie smile. She tucked her legs underneath her and settled in for a good long talk: bad news first.
Twenty minutes later, after Clicker had apprised her of every single bad thing he could think of that had happened in the past seven months, her head was spinning... and her heart had sunk all the way into her shoes. Why do people have to die? Or disappear? Or... do fucking crazy things?! ...And Joel is a little closer to making the top ten now, age-wise...
"This is why no one wanted to tell you," Clicker said mournfully. "Now you're all bummed out and stuff."
"No I'm not," she lied. "I didn't know most of those people that well. Some of them I didn't even know at all." Like the dead baby girl, for example. That was so fucked up, though -- ugh -- Mostly, Ellie just hadn't processed it all yet. It felt like Clicker was just telling her stories. That none of it was real.
"But it's still making you sad." Apart from the time it took to relay all the news to her, Clicker was acting like his usual cheerful self... he wasn't sad... because it was all old news to him. He was over it. Ellie was grateful, because she didn't want things to be all heavy right now.
She gave him a look. "Should I be jumping for joy right now?"
He snickered. "Does anyone actually do that? Over the age of like... five, I mean."
I can think about all that shitty stuff later -- like when she and Joel inevitably compared notes on what they'd learned about Jackson today. "Pretty sure I've seen you do that, home slice," she teased.
"Bullshit! Name one time!"
"Oh... I dunno... like, every single fucking time we beat a boss on the Wii? Or... what was it... those fucking dementor things! That was the worst--"
"Dude, we high fived! I didn't jump!"
"You jumped after we high fived!" She couldn't remember him ever actually doing this -- but it was just too easy to rile him up!
He slugged her arm playfully. "I don't jump! I can't -- remember that movie?"
Ellie had seen a lot of movies last summer, and sometimes she mixed them up a little in her head, but she had no idea what he was getting at here. "Um... no?"
"Oh -- yeah I guess you didn't watch that one. Never mind. You prob'ly wouldn't like it anyways cuz it's about basketball."
Ellie knew very little about most sports. "Who does like it?"
"Lots of people! Now that we have a court that works! Like with a new net and everything! In the park. I'll show you some time -- maybe you would like it if you got to play!"
She wondered if Joel would like it, or if he would claim to be too old to play. He was strong, healthy, in good shape... he fucking killed people with his bare hands... but he was somehow "too old" to do certain things he just didn't feel like trying. "Maybe I would... but I'm more of a football girl," she said airily.
Clicker gave her the most comical puzzled look she'd ever seen. "...The fuck? Since when?"
"Since... um... January, I guess?" She proceeded to tell him all about the football games at the beach. People had always just tossed the ball to each other in the surf, but one day, she had gotten it into her head that they should play an actual game. She had organized it herself... even though she knew nothing about football, of course, other than the bare bones description Joel had given her previously. But they had an actual football, and plenty of space, so... Ellie had thought it was a brilliant idea! Joel... not so much.
Clicker found that part amusing. "How come I can totally picture him getting annoyed as fuck with you for doing this?"
She grinned. "He so was. I kept saying I would do all the work... but yeah, well... I mean, hardly anyone there even knew how to play -- including me! -- sooooo he kind of had to help me. A little." Once they'd actually started talking through how to play, though, more people had started to remember things -- the old people, that is.
"Let me guess -- he took over the whole thing?"
She laughed. He knows us so well! "Um... not exactly... okay, pretty much, yeah. At first I just asked questions -- like to the whole group -- and I told him he didn't have to answer since he wasn't interested, but he did anyways." As she had known he would, because he liked teaching her stuff. "He already told me how to play the game, a long time ago. I tried to remember everything but he had to correct me when I said things wrong, and people started asking him questions -- even the people who knew how to play were like brainstorming on how to do it with the players we had, and what rules to change, and I just wanted to fucking play, but then there was all this confusion and arguing... well, debate, like, about how to do things..."
Clicker seemed to find that amusing as well. "I can see that, too... you being all like CAN WE JUST FUCKING PLAY NOW, PEOPLE..."
"Yeah! Not cuz I wanted to play so bad I couldn't wait, but... it just made things more confusing! Everyone had a lot of fun in the end, though. Including Mr. Grumpypants Joel. It was so fun that we did it again! A few more times, even." She missed those games already. It wasn't so much that it was physically fun to do -- it was more about the bonding with her teammates. And even with the other team, in the form of teasing or trash-talking. It was all the smiles, the laughter... the stupid shit, like Lupe forgetting which direction to go... Alex catching the ball and running straight into the ocean to avoid all the defenders... the 'penalty flags' that allegedly didn't count if the wind whipped them off the field, and the good-natured arguments that ensued... Ellie couldn't even remember who won which game or what the scores were. Because it wasn't even about that. ...Maybe I don't have to miss it completely? I wonder...
Clicker read her mind: "Oh! Dude! What if we did it here? You're an expert now, you could--"
"Where, though?" That was where her idea had come to an abrupt halt. "With all these trees and stuff around here? You need a big open area -- I mean huge -- it's supposed to be a hundred yards. Which is like..." She sucked at trying to describe distances. "Trust me, it's long. Even if we make it a little shorter... it can't be in the street, if you're gonna play tackle, cuz you need a soft--"
"Tackle -- like, actually pushing the other team down on the ground? Is that what you guys did?"
Ellie had wanted to. Whenever she and Joel play-wrestled and stuff, getting tackled was so much fun! But she had been overruled, and they had used flags instead -- which, she had to admit, had made for some pretty funny plays. More than one person had lost their pants in addition to their flag, on occasion. Of course, real game-type flags would have worked better than some of the shit they had substituted -- like bandanas and bolo ties. "No, the old people thought it was too dangerous. Even with the sand and all! Or like... some of the guys liked the idea, but then said they didn't wanna play with girls cuz they'd have to go easy on them, and it became this whole thing. So, no."
Clicker snorted. "Yeah... unless they could just let the tough girls like you play. Most girls are wusses."
Ellie knew that Clicker appreciated her tomboyishness. Haven't I heard him say Alyssa is a wimp? Does he still think that? And if he does... does it bother him, or does he kinda like it? Back when Ellie had first become aware of how desperately in love she was with Joel, and thus, had to figure out how to make him fall in love with her -- and even after their relationship had turned romantic, actually -- she'd researched shit like that. Some of the 'facts' she'd uncovered had turned out to be total bullshit. Joel had reinforced plenty of the non-bullshit things with his behavior (she'd never actually confessed to him that she'd been doing research... because FUCK -- embarrassing much?! ...but if she really needed to ask him something, she would claim she overheard a conversation or remembered something from a movie). She wouldn't call herself a love expert or anything, but... well, as far as she could tell, Joel was pretty happy with her, so she thought she'd done a pretty good job of separating truth from bullshit and applying the knowledge accordingly.
"Wait -- that's not the real reason they didn't wanna do it, though, is it?" Clicker continued. "Really it was cuz everyone was scared shitless to even touch you. Right?"
She rolled her eyes. "You mean cuz of Joel?" Of course that's what he meant -- because no one's afraid of ~sweet little Ellie~ in her own right... right?! Pfffff! "Nah, people there weren't scared of him. He was all mellow and laid-back most of the time." Although, if her pants had ever come down, it might have been a different story. Good thing I was smart enough to wear jean shorts!
"Seriously? They weren't scared? Weird."
"Yeah." Kind of hard to be Mr. Tough Guy when you're all snuggly at campfire every night... not that they made out in front of other people or anything, but they were pretty affectionate in public. And I'll miss THAT more than the football games... She would miss out on tons of sweet little moments now...
And now there was another reason to hate hiding their relationship: fucking new people. Which meant new women. Which meant more women who might want to fuck Joel and thought they had every right to because he was single. And Tommy better not try to play matchmaker again... fuck! So far, so good on that front, if last night was any indication. Of course, with so much to talk about, it was possible he just hadn't gotten around to mentioning that he knew of the perfect woman for Joel. Joel needs to get better at shutting that shit down! I swear, he used to be annoyed by it, but now I think he LIKES making me jealous... She would just have to remind herself she had nothing to worry about, now that she and Joel were having sex. There was nothing another woman could give him that she couldn't provide for him herself. ...Except public acknowledgment, or approval, of our relationship, I guess... but Joel doesn't care about that... right?
"What was it like at the beach?" Clicker was asking now, effectively derailing that troubling train of thought.
Ellie couldn't seem to decide if she liked talking about Monterey, or if that only made her miss it more. She didn't really have much choice right now, because everyone wanted to hear about it. The ocean was hard to describe to people who had never seen it. The beach kind of was, too, but everyone in Jackson who had ever explored the park had at least seen a little bit of sand before. "It was very... sandy," she settled on. "And man, Joel fucking hated the sand. It is kinda hard to walk on. But it's fun to play in -- you can build stuff with it when it's wet, or bury people in it -- the ocean is the best thing, though, by far. The waves are fucking amazing. Like... I can't even describe them."
"Yeah? Did you do any surfing like they do in shark movies?"
Fucking sharks! "I did! But... not much. I kinda sucked. Boogie boarding, though -- that's more fun. You don't have to stand up. -Dude, I bet you would love it there. You should come with us next time."
His jaw dropped. "No shit?! You're going back?"
"Well... someday, maybe?" She was already kicking herself for impulsively blurting out such an invitation. The beach was so far away, she doubted Clicker's parents would be cool with it anyway. Fuck his parents -- JOEL wouldn't be cool with it! He'd say the trip was too dangerous for a kid. And of course, she had no idea how the community may have changed after she fucked everything up. Time to redirect-- "Not any time soon -- forget I mentioned it. We just barely got back! Okay, so, you told me all the bad stuff. I wanna hear more about the good stuff that's been going on around here." Which was the perfect opportunity for him to tell her about Alyssa!
"But I wanna hear more about your trip!" he protested.
...and yet he STILL didn't tell me. Hmm... "Okay... like what? What do you want to know?"
"Did you kill lots of infected people? Like on your last trip?"
Ellie scoffed at that. "It was nothing like that one. We were on the road for... going on a year, last time. This time it was... a couple months."
"Oh. There and back, though. Right? So... four months total, which rounds up to half a year, which is close to 'going on' a year!" He seemed proud of drawing this illogical mathematical conclusion.
"Pfff." More like three months... She so wished she could tell him about the jeep! He would be so impressed! Clicker didn't have the hugest of mouths, but she agreed with Joel that they shouldn't tell anyone. Clicker might say something to Alyssa, who might say something to Jacob -- who might still hate her enough to try to stir up trouble. Telling just one person, even one person sworn to secrecy, could be all that was needed to spread shit through the whole town -- because maybe they swear another person to secrecy, who then does the same... and sooner or later, someone will prove to be untrustworthy to the point of practically announcing it at a town meeting or something. Right -- back to Infected -- "We did kill some. Some hunters, too. Bandits... whatever." Jacksonites didn't really use the term 'hunter,' except in reference to one of their own going out to hunt game. Both words had negative connotations, but Ellie equated bandits with robbers, whereas hunters were more like... well, assholes, really. (Naturally, she omitted the category of soldiers entirely.)
At any rate, Clicker seemed impressed even with that vague account of their exploits on the road. "Bad ass."
She looked at him sternly. "Dude, I told you, it's not like in video games!"
"I know that," he huffed. "Jeez. That doesn't mean it wasn't still bad ass."
"Okay, fine. Sure. Sometimes. But... you know. Shit happened. And we fucked up sometimes, too." She didn't really feel like telling him about Sacramento right now... although part of her kind of wanted to, just to see how long it would take for the story to circulate around town and come back to her all jacked up: "I heard you got trapped in an underground cave for WEEKS and Joel had to blow the whole thing up with dynamite to get you out!" She almost felt like maybe she shouldn't talk about it at all, somehow... out of respect to Joel. Because Joel always always made it sound like this huge personal failure. Never mind that he fucking rescued her. Nope, he had to beat himself up for not doing so within the hour it happened, searching for her in all the wrong places... even for them splitting up that day instead of sticking together. Never mind the fact that they had done that plenty of times before and nothing bad had happened. And he'd still get this weird look on his face... like last night, with Tommy and Maria. Maybe I just need to keep reminding him that it's all over and done with and I'm totally FINE now?!
"Like how did you fuck up?" Clicker prompted; she hadn't paused on purpose to amp up the drama, but she must have been taking too long to continue.
"Oh, like... ...I almost burned my fucking hand off in a fight?" That was a good story to tell him, because even Joel couldn't take the blame for her stupidity on that one (although not for lack of trying).
"Whaaaaaat?"
"Yeah. This one." She wiggled the fingers on her right hand. "You can't really tell anymore, though. It's all healed up."
Still, Clicker grabbed her hand to inspect it. He was just innocently turning it over, but Ellie tensed up, ready to yank it back if he so much as touched her sleeve; the bite was, of course, yet another secret she had to continue to keep. "I can tell," he said. "It's whiter, right there... and there..."
"Oh my God, dude, it was soooooo ugly the day after it happened! It was all like... charred and black and stuff..." Okay, so she was exaggerating that just a little. But this next part was true, if only for isolated moments of paranoia: "Not even joking -- I thought Joel was gonna have to amputate it."
He looked up from her palm, wide-eyed. "No fucking way."
"Way." He seemed to be done examining her hand now, so she reeled it back in. "Wanna know how it happened? It was so stupid-- no, wait, lemme back up a bit." She knew Clicker would appreciate hearing the details of the encounter, especially the creepy beginning part where they just heard eerie Infected sounds in the dark, getting louder and louder... man, he would LOVE Keith's ghost stories, too! The actual attack was a bit of a blur in her head now, as most intense fights tended to be, shortly after the adrenaline rush subsided... but she remembered enough to start piecing together a colorful narrative for him.
Ellie noticed the girl approaching them before Clicker did, even though he had the better line of sight on her. Alyssa! FINALLY he'll have to tell me what's up with her! Except... shit, she's not happy... Ellie turned and smiled brightly at the glowering girl. "Oh hi, Alyssa! I was just telling Clicker about how I burned my--"
"Come on, Cordy," she cut in without even acknowledging Ellie. "You're late for rehearsal!"
Ellie dropped the fake smile. She wasn't sure what she'd expected from Alyssa, but that level of rudeness certainly exceeded her expectations.
Clicker's what-the-fuck expression told Ellie that they were on the same page there. "Uh... yeah, like I always am on Mondays? ...D&D?"
"But you're not playing D&D," Alyssa pointed out coolly.
"Go ahead, dude, we can finish catching up later," Ellie offered, feeling awkward on Clicker's behalf.
The look he gave Alyssa bordered on a glare, Ellie noticed with interest. "I'll be there in five, alright?" he told her.
Alyssa didn't seem satisfied with that. She probably wanted Clicker to leave with her... but she had apparently resigned herself to the fact that he wasn't going to. "Whatever. I'll let them know." Tossing her long brown hair over her shoulder in an over-the-top drama queen sort of way, she flounced off.
Ellie didn't know what to say; apparently Clicker didn't, either, as he was uncharacteristically silent for a few moments. Maybe I should give him some advice? That's what BFFs were for! Especially if one was older and more experienced than the other. "Dude, like... you prob'ly shouldn't've done that. You're gonna be in trouble now."
"I won't be," he assured her. "I'm always late on Mondays and they know why. No one cares."
...Is he really that clueless?! "No, doofus, I mean with Alyssa!"
He still didn't seem to get it. "Why would I be in trouble? She's not my mom. I didn't even do anything wrong. And that was sort of rude, what she did. Just barging in on our conversation like that. She didn't even say hi when you said hi to her."
Ellie had to remind herself that he was only thirteen, and this was his first girlfriend. "Well, she saw you talking to another girl, so... you can't really blame her if--"
"I'm talking to you, not... another girl," he scoffed.
Ellie didn't know whether to feel insulted by that or not. Whatever... clearly, I'm gonna have to spell this out for him: "It doesn't matter. You're still-- ...Okay, yeah, she was rude, but think about it. Maybe she went to your club and they told her you left with me -- or someone else told her they saw you with me -- then she finds you hanging out with me way over here, away from everyone else... maybe she saw you touching my hand and stuff, and thought... like..." ...Come on, dude, help me out here!
"Not you, too," he groaned.
Ellie was taken aback by that response. "Not me too what?"
"Alyssa's not my girlfriend."
Uh... what the fuck? Ellie blinked. "She's not? Cuz... the way she just acted..."
"Girls act weird sometimes," he shrugged. "She's so bossy. I do what I want -- she doesn't own me."
Ellie furrowed her brow. "So... she was your girlfriend at some point, or..."
"I dunno. Dude, finish your hand story, it was just getting good! So Joel left you and Sophie by your campfire to check out the noises..."
Ellie didn't know what to think. Why won't he just tell me she's his girlfriend? Tommy and Maria wouldn't lie about that! ...Does he still have a thing for me? Or... like, if he DOES, shouldn't he want to use his relationship with Alyssa to make me jealous? ...But maybe Clicker didn't know that he was supposed to do that. Joel always said that male brains were much less complicated than female brains... and she couldn't imagine Clicker doing the sort of research in the library that she herself had done...
"Hello?" Clicker nudged her.
"Sorry -- I'll finish telling you later, okay? I really think you should go catch up with Alyssa. But hey -- why did she call you Cordy? And your club guy called you that, too, actually."
"Well... I mean it is my name..."
"I know, but you loved it when I called you Clicker. You made that your name. Your nickname." Cordy was a nickname, too, short for Cordyceps, because his biological parents had obviously been whack jobs. The 'Clicker' moniker had stuck, though, and it seemed like more people called him that instead of Cordy now. Alyssa included, or so she had thought! "Do you not like it anymore?"
"No, I do! I do! It's still my name."
Said earnestly enough that she believed him. "But... only if I call you that? No one else?" Like how my 'baby girl' nickname is only from Joel?
"No -- everyone calls me that. Mostly. Except the Idaho people, some of them call me Cordy. Alyssa thinks Clicker is a dumb name."
"...Huh. Because I gave it to you, then. Right? I swear I've heard her call you that before."
Clicker scrunched up his face the way he always did when something was churning in his brain. "She did used to... I thought maybe she thought it was kid stuff, like? Cuz now I'm thirteen? But-- omigod, you're right! It's because it's from you! That's so stupid. Like... who cares who made it up? Girls are so dumb!"
She couldn't just let him keep bashing her gender without even any mock offense being taken. "Hey, boys aren't always brilliant, either. How many months has it been, genius... and you still never figured out why she didn't like it without my help?"
He rolled his eyes at her. "Don't be mean, homes -- I wasn't saying you were dumb--"
She poked his arm. "That right there is mean! You keep saying I'm not a girl!" she laughed. Even the 'homes' nickname was more for a boy. She preferred homie, homegirl, or home slice. Really, plain old 'dude' was sufficient. -Except that's more for a boy, too -- especially when Joel says it! Joel used it differently, though. He never addressed people as 'dude' -- he would just refer to guys as dudes sometimes in conversation. "In case you haven't noticed, I am a girl." She anticipated a snarky comeback to that.
"Of course you're a girl," Clicker mumbled, totally un-snarkily... the blush creeping back into his cheeks.
How fucking cute is that?! Ellie would get annoyed with Joel for thinking it was cute when she herself blushed, but of course, she was allowed to think so when it was Clicker's face turning into a tomato. Not quite a fully-ripened tomato, but... shit...I think maybe he DOES still like me... "Homie. Go! Seriously. I'm back now, so we can talk any time. I promise I'll tell you everything that happened. Anything you wanna know."
He beamed at her, awkwardness forgotten. "It's so cool that you're back! Most of the time... when people go somewhere..."
"You never know if they're coming back," Ellie finished for him. She knew that all too well herself, and it sucked.
"I'm just really glad that... nothing happened to you, you know?" He leaned over and gave her a quick side hug before standing up. "Now don't ever leave town again!"
"Now who's the bossy one," Ellie snickered; she remained in her seat, since it seemed like that might help Clicker to actually leave, somehow. "Bye... see you later!"
"Yeah? Will you be in here later? Sometimes me and Wyatt play if we have time before the movies."
"Wyatt?"
"Yeah -- my DM. You're gonna love this new game we got -- it's called Grand Theft Auto -- you get to drive cars and stuff -- but way more than that -- it's like being in the real world before everyone got infected! Anyways he's really good at it. He's freaking amazing at any game he plays, really, which is crazy cuz before he came to Jackson, he'd never even seen a PS3. Now you can play with us!"
Huh... so now he likes the PS3 more than the Wii? And what the fuck is a DM... is that like a BFF for dudes? Clicker had never played much with the other kids once he and Ellie had become gaming buddies... but, she supposed it wasn't realistic to expect that he'd just keep playing by himself forever after she left. Especially with the limited number of consoles and TVs available. Ellie forced a smile. "Sounds good!"
Now it was her turn to feel jealous.
* * * * * *
The story reader that day was a teenage girl named Karen. She used to be Young Karen, officially, but now that Old Karen was gone, she was just Karen. Ellie liked her, for the most part. Things had been a little strained between them after The Rumors (it was silly to think of that as such a big deal... an event with a definitive before-and-after... although that's what it felt like sometimes). But Ellie was willing to let bygones be bygones, as they say... with pretty much everyone except Jacob and Christine. Karen was one of those people who was great one on one, but like... if a group of people started talking shit, she would go with the flow rather than stand up for Ellie. Karen suggested that they entertain the kids together, taking alternate pages or voicing different characters, and that turned out to be pretty fun. Ellie knew nearly all of the kids, and they all seemed to remember her (I guess I haven't been gone THAT long...). It didn't feel like a competition, for whatever reason; the kids liked her and they also liked Karen. It was all good.
Towards the end, the kids were more eager to hear about her trip, and Karen seemed content to let Ellie take over... but there were a couple of kids there who had never heard the story they were doing, so Ellie insisted they finish the book -- with the promise of a question-and-answer session afterwards. The session was... interesting. Ellie tried to answer every single question, no matter how silly or random... when she could get a word in edgewise! Trying to get them to be patient and take turns asking her stuff rather than talking over each other wasn't really working.
"Did you get chased by a shark?" "Did you see any dolphins?" "Did you ride a sea turtle like Captain Jack?" "Are there mermaids in the ocean?" "Did you at least get to SEE a shark?" "Weren't you on a island?" "What about an octopus?" "Does California have toilets?" "Did the boat have a pirate flag?" "Are all the infested people mean?" (INFESTED... Ellie would have to remember to share that gem with Joel) "Did you find Nemo in the water?" "No -- Ariel! Did you see Ariel?" "She couldn't see Ariel -- at the end she's NOT a mermaid! Remember?" "Michelangelo likes the beach -- was he there too?" "Did you eat Sebastian?" "Or any lobsters at all?" (a pause in the proceedings for a heated debate on whether Sebastian was a crab or a lobster, or if the two words basically meant the same thing.) "Did you see Ursula?" "No of course she didn't -- Ursula died! Don't you remember ANYTHING?"
Yeah... it was impossible to keep up with everything the kids fired at her, but Ellie did her best to satisfy all their curiosities!
Some of the older kids, teens, and more than a few adults who happened to be in the library had drifted over at some point... like they wanted to hear what she had to say, too. She was thankful for this when one little girl ran off crying about Sebastian -- even though Ellie promised she hadn't eaten him! -- and someone kindly broke away from the crowd to go comfort the girl. Ellie rolled her eyes at the resulting teasing about how mean it was of her to "make the kids cry."
Overall, it was a fun afternoon. Definitely better than generic "so how was your trip?" questions, which tended to elicit generic answers. "It was good." / "The travel part was hard." / "Nice, but it's good to be home." Etcetera. She felt a little pang here and there when she caught sight of Dee's mother, Deborah, behind the checkout counter... where Paige was supposed to be on weekdays. But Paige isn't dead -- she just LEFT. Most of those people who left over the winter... they could come back any time. They're FINE.
She didn't know this, of course. No one could possibly know. Some of them had a better chance of returning than others... like the ones who had gone to Idaho -- to the medical center. Whole families would move up there rather than just send off the person who needed care. Or sometimes not the whole family (not ones that had young kids, especially), but at least one other person. If Ellie were ever to need that kind of help, she would never go without Joel, of course... and she certainly wouldn't ever let Joel go by himself! So she understood why it was more than just the sick or injured people who made that journey. Jackson's little medical clinic was very limited, but at this place, they were doing surgeries to fix people's backs... hearts... knees... eyes... some of them were what Tommy called 'elective surgeries,' not just life-and-death stuff. Procedures that used to be considered necessary in the old days to improve quality of life, but just like a zillion other things, had fallen by the wayside when those days ended. Just that term -- quality of life -- sounded rather indulgent to Ellie. Because shouldn't people just be happy that they have a life, for however long it lasts? It was exciting to know that there were people committed to improving the lives of others by doing those kinds of surgeries. (She got the feeling it was sad that she felt that way, because all three of them -- Joel, Tommy, and Maria -- had gotten all you-should-'ve-been-around-in-MY-day about it afterward. But at least they were all in agreement that it was a great thing!)
Anyway, the medical center only accounted for a small part of the 'missing' population. Some had died after being caught Outside in a blizzard (Ellie could only imagine how horrible it must have been for the search party who eventually found their frozen -- or thawing -- bodies). And one group had just plain vanished. Then their loved ones who set out to find them vanished, too. No, maybe not -- they might just... not have made it home yet. ...Even several months after. -Except for the woman who went searching for her husband and was found dead two months later. Presumably another victim of a storm, as she'd had no obvious injuries inflicted by Infected or hunters. Poor Yulia... she never found Angel... I almost hope he DOESN'T come back now, cuz how shitty would he feel about that?!
Ellie had only heard Clicker's recollections. And while the kid wouldn't make this shit up, of course, she still intended to ask Tommy and Maria more about these incidents. Yulia was tough, but who was tough enough to survive out there on their own, truly? Clicker said that search parties had been sent. That they just couldn't find anything. Ellie could imagine how frustrating it must have been to wait and wait and hope and then just... nothing. Or if you're with the search party to begin with, and they want to give up... Yeah, I wouldn't be satisfied with a search party's word for it, either -- I'd have to go look for myself, if it was--
But no -- that would never happen to her, with Joel. Because Ellie was going to remind Joel that he promised never to go Outside without her. We stick together!
And then, the ones who didn't go Out and look for themselves... people talked about. Like Christine's roommate, Olivia, whose boyfriend never came back. Ellie didn't really have anything against the girl, other than her choice in housemates... but when Clicker didn't include her on the list of people who had left and never returned -- and then confirmed it when Ellie had flat-out asked -- Ellie couldn't help thinking "oh, I guess she didn't really care about him that much." So, which was worse: to accept the search party's verdict and not even try to find your loved one yourself, or to go ahead and try but then return empty-handed in a few days because it was 'too hard'? Because apparently, both of those scenarios had happened. She could imagine that people would get tired and hungry and just... lose hope, after a while.
Ellie had really only scratched the surface of her feelings about any of it during that conversation with Clicker... and when she was with the kids, she had to shove aside any thoughts that bubbled up; the great thing about kids, though, was that they made that pretty easy. She was looking forward to talking it all over with Joel later... if he was up for it.
Ellie was so busy entertaining the crowd that she didn't even notice when Annie had become part of it. She just happened to look up at one point and see her smiling face back there. Annie gave her an excited little wave, and Ellie decided she'd spent enough time with the masses... she'd given them enough 'goods' to spread bits and pieces of her adventures through the town. She may have exaggerated a little here and there, but since they were going to exaggerate it themselves in the retelling anyway, she was basically just giving them a head start! After declaring 'story hour' officially over -- and hugging the 'huggy' kids of the bunch -- she approached Annie, who was hanging back shyly. ...Maybe even sheepishly?
Ellie felt a bit awkward herself. "Hey," she said lamely.
"Hey," Annie parroted back. "You didn't have to cut that short. I was enjoying your... uh... show?"
Ellie snorted. "It was fun, but I was ready for it to end, so it's okay. I think all the questions broke my brain a little. So..."
"Can we go for a walk or something?" Annie suggested.
"Sure. Yeah."
The two girls strolled out of the library and started ambling down the street -- away from the busiest part of the 'town square,' as it was called (even though it was more like a rectangle). "We can play a little game... see how many changes Ellie can spot in the town," Ellie joked.
But Annie wasted no time -- she looked at Ellie earnestly, wringing her hands. "I'm really sorry about last night, Ellie. I feel awful about it."
"...You do? Why?" Ellie asked innocently. Like she hadn't been upset at all last night. Me? Upset? No....
"Because... after you left... my mom made me realize how you must have felt, when you--"
"Wait -- your mom? She doesn't know how I feel!" Ellie scoffed (although she suspected that perhaps Esther actually did).
"Well... she was guessing? She felt bad, too, because she didn't tell you about Meredith when she let you in."
"Big deal. Seriously -- so what? It's fine! You've always had other friends. I have, too. And especially-- I mean, I fucking left. What were you supposed to do -- sit around waiting for me? Do you think I wanted you to do that?" Oh, what a voice of reason I am today!
Annie gave her a look that sliced right through the bullshit. "Ellie... come on."
...Except it's NOT bullshit! Not... exactly? Everything she had just said was true! "Come on what? I don't care who you spend your-- er-- no, okay, that's not totally true. I don't want you wasting your time and energy on that asshole Jacob. Other than that, though, it's totally up to you." She grabbed Annie's arm to stop her midstride. "Please tell me you've told that dickweed to fuck off by now. Please!"
Annie giggled. "I've missed you. You always make me laugh."
"That's not an answer!" Ellie growled theatrically.
Annie shrugged off her hand and resumed walking, forcing Ellie to do the same. "We're not... together, if that's what you mean."
"Fuck yeah!" Ellie exclaimed. "That's a start. So... are you telling me you're still..." She dropped her voice to a whisper. "...friends?!"
Annie pursed her lips in thought. "Welllllllll... I wouldn't go that far."
"I'll take it!" Ellie declared triumphantly.
"I did forgive him, you know," Annie added casually.
"Nooooo! You were thinking about forgiving him--"
"And then I did, basically. He was truly sorry."
"He says he's sorry! Words are cheap! Not just cheap -- they're free, actually."
"Sheesh, Ellie, if I can forgive him, surely you can, too!" Annie laughed.
"You're too fucking nice. I will just have to hate him enough for both of us," Ellie declared, only half joking. And Joel thinks I'M sweet?! Annie was like... pure sugar, versus Ellie's strawberry-sweetness.
"You don't have to hate him. Hate Christine, if you just have to hate someone. She hasn't shown any remorse whatsoever."
"Oh, I have enough hate for both of them!" But just as she said it, Ellie realized she had no idea if it was true. Time did have a way of softening things like anger and pain. "Okay, let's be real... I haven't seen either one of them, so I don't know if I still hate them? I definitely don't like them or anything -- fuck no -- but... when I think back to some of the stuff that happened... it all seems kind of..."
"Like ancient history?" Annie supplied.
"That, and... I dunno. Like kid stuff, or something. Getting in fights with them... like, actual, physical fights... I'm sort of... over that, I guess?" Ellie sighed loudly before Annie could reply. "Or maybe I'm full of it and the second one of them says something to piss me off, I'll be all... right up in their faces again."
"Kid stuff," Annie said thoughtfully. "So you grew up out there in California, huh?"
Oh, how badly Ellie wanted to tell her exactly in what way she had grown up! But she couldn't just drop a bomb like "I'm not a virgin anymore" and expect Annie to be content to leave it at that. No, Ellie was going to have to continue to have an 'unrequited crush' on Joel. That would at least allow her to gush about him in some manner, even if it did produce a pity response sometimes. "I had a birthday, so I guess I did!" is how Ellie answered, feeling oh-so-clever.
"That's right!" Annie gasped. "I owe you a present."
"You do not. Fuck. No offense, but what could you even give me that I'd want? Something you don't already give me, I mean -- like, food doesn't count." Like PIE... Ellie was glad she'd caught herself before blurting out a word that would bring Annie straight back to last night.
"I'll make you a dress exactly like this one!" Annie did a little twirl to show it off from all angles.
Ellie just glared at her.
"Hey, you liked that other dress so much you decided to keep it," Annie reminded her with a grin.
"It has a shorter skirt and a cute... top part," Ellie pointed out. And it shows off so much skin that Joel can't keep his hands off me when I wear it... well, okay, he CAN if we're in public, because he's annoyingly GOOD about that, but still... maybe it was time to bust it out again, now that they were home! "And I've only worn it twice. It's not exactly getting a lot of action." (...Ellie just had to snicker to herself at that choice of words.)
"No worries, I'll think of a better gift. Like... a bonnet to match the-- eeeeep!" Annie squealed as Ellie shoved her...
...a little harder than I meant to, oops! She was too accustomed to mock-assaulting Joel (and having nearly-zero effect on him).
But Annie was giggling. "Okay, I get it -- nothing girly!" She fell back in step with Ellie and bumped her shoulder lightly.
Unless you wanna make me some slutty-looking thing to wear for Joel? Ha! "I told you -- you don't have to get me anything. I didn't get you a gift."
"What? Yes you did! Don't you remember? You and Joel both did! That morning off?"
Ellie remembered. She had conspired with Esther to make it happen. It was supposed to be a whole day, but she'd caught Annie 'cheating' that afternoon. Ellie had dragged Joel into it because it was shortly after their relationship had morphed into romance, and she couldn't stand the thought of not seeing him all day on one of his days off, but still wanted to do this for Annie. "That doesn't count -- that wasn't a gift!" she argued.
"Oh yes it was. That was the most indulgent... lazy..."
"Relaxing," Ellie corrected her. "We should do that for you more often. For your mom, too. Everyone else takes days off! Even on the other farms. It's not like we don't have enough extra hands around town. Especially now."
"You sound like Will," Annie replied with an eyeroll. "He always has some excuse to escape lately. Anyway -- you know the other farms don't have all the animals that we do. Although Four will probably catch up to us this summer... or maybe next."
"Oh wow... so things are going good up there."
"So far." Annie kicked a little stone in front of her, staring at it with a strange intensity. "Can I tell you something?"
"Nope, you better not," Ellie teased, kicking the rock away when it skittered into her path. "No, what's up?"
The look Annie gave her then... she almost seemed afraid. "If I tell you... you can't tell anyone, okay? Not even Joel."
Ellie gasped as if she found that shocking. "Not even Joel? Jeez, this must be serious." Not like Joel would even care, whatever it is...
"You promise, then?"
"I promise. So spill!"
Annie returned to looking down, even with no rock to pretend-focus on this time. "Well... I don't know if you remember... it was only a little while before you left, when they got here... there was this guy... Colton?... He--"
"Omigod omigod -- you and Colton?!" Ellie broke in excitedly, grabbing her friend's arm and yanking her to a stop again -- not that much yanking was needed since they were moving at a snail's pace. "Yessss! Fuck, did you have to let me ramble on about Jacob before? You could've just told me--"
"Shut up!" Annie hissed, glancing around furtively.
"There's no one around! But so what if there was -- you two are a thing?!" And it's not like one of you is sixteen and the other is fifty, so why hide it? Ellie couldn't think of any other good reason to be secretive!
"No! Calm down," Annie laughed. "We are not a thing. ... ...Unfortunately."
"Aha -- I knew I was onto something!" Ellie smirked. "Okay okay -- so, you want to be a thing. What's the problem? And if you say he's too old for you, I'm so gonna kick your ass!"
They started walking again, keeping to the middle of the street. "Um, no, his age... is pretty much perfect? He's a year and a half older than me."
It didn't sound perfect to Ellie, but then, she was partial to thirty-four-and-a-half-year age gaps herself. I can't even imagine Joel being that young... how would he know what to do all the time in every situation imaginable if he was so close to MY age? Or was he just BORN knowing everything? The way Tommy talked about their past kind of made it sound that way to Ellie... except, whenever he went way back in time, it was hard for her to connect the young person in the story to her Joel. Like the Joel that had accidentally gotten his girlfriend pregnant, even though there was all kinds of things you could do to prevent that in those days. It was just so... un-Joel-like. But-- back to Annie-- "And... the problem is... ? -Oh! Duh! Of course -- he moved, so now it's a long distance relationship! You never get to see him!" Farm 4 was the only one located outside the walls... like, very much Outside. Miles and miles.
"It's not a relationship at all, mind you, but yeah, that's part of it." She sighed wistfully. "It was so nice when he'd come down, before they left... we'd go riding in the afternoons sometimes... like me and you used to. Which... I hope you'll want to start doing again?"
"Of course! Unless you're gonna be wishing I was ~Colton~ the whole time," Ellie teased.
"Silly Ellie." Annie bumped her shoulder again. "No, I've missed that. With him, yeah, but before that, with you. That's actually the reason we started doing it: I told him I missed riding with you."
Ellie stared at her shoes, already hating herself for having to ask the question bubbling up: "What about Meredith?"
"Meredith? She's not a horse person. Not like you two."
Ellie had never thought of herself as a 'horse person.' Colton had come from a ranch in Nebraska -- he was a horse person. Anyway, she was glad she didn't have to hate herself for asking after all; it was nice to know she still shared one thing with Annie that the other girl didn't.
"Speaking of horses," Annie continued, a playful note in her voice. "Would you happen to know anything about the new horse we found in the stables this morning?"
Ellie clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh shit -- sorry! I tooooootally forgot to tell you!"
Annie waved off her apology. "He's a handsome boy. What's his name?"
"Fox. It's a... silver thing? I dunno." Ellie thought of foxes as more brown, or orange-y. Oh man... I don't wanna tell her about Spirit! But I have to. "Um, can we go sit... like on that swing, maybe? Or does someone live there now?"
Annie followed Ellie's gaze to the porch swing of the house in question. "No idea. Maybe they wouldn't mind if we borrowed their swing?"
Ellie tried to imagine if she would be annoyed to find random people hanging around her house... and decided she would be (although she might have been a little biased, because she and Joel valued their privacy more than most people!). "Let's just keep walking. I, um... have to tell you something. Something that sucks. But I guess it's not like you have to be sitting down to hear it. People always do that, right? 'You'd better sit down', they say... if it's bad news... like, what, they're going to faint or something if they don't? I don't think you're going to faint, but if you do, I'll totally catch you, I swear. -Don't look at me like that -- yes I'm using rambling as a stall tactic, okay? Ugh! Just... don't hate me when I tell you." Not that Ellie really thought she would...
"I could never hate you," Annie assured her -- and Ellie knew she meant it. "And I want to hear everything. The good, the bad... whatever's in between those... the neutral?"
Ellie snorted. "Neutral sounds boring as fuck. We'll be walking around all night and well into tomorrow if I tell you eeeeeverything." Besides, I can't! I wish I could but I CAN'T!
She did end up telling her a lot, though. Annie was really easy to talk to. Sympathetic and kind, a good listener... not someone who only half-listens while secretly they're just waiting -- preparing -- for their turn to talk. (Ellie did that herself on occasion.)
Not only was Annie not angry about Spirit, but she seemed to feel Ellie's pain over losing him. Like... it upset her more that Ellie was upset by it, not because they'd failed to return a horse they borrowed. Annie even tried to cheer her up by saying Spirit hated it on the farm anyway, hated the work... Ellie didn't quite buy it, but she knew there was some truth to it -- it was one reason they'd chosen to take him to California, after all -- and she appreciated the effort. She told Annie about the rest of that trip -- mostly good and bad, but some of it probably qualified as in between. She tried (and failed spectacularly) to explain what the ocean was like. The beach. Sailing. Shellfish. Campfires and solar lights and feeling warm outside even in January (well, sometimes!). The people, of course -- she knew Annie would be interested in them. Anything Ellie could think of that was different from Wyoming, as the novelty automatically made it more interesting. And Sophie! She was from Jackson, obviously, but Ellie had gotten to know her so much better, and Annie was surprised at the change in her attitude towards the woman. In fact, Annie confessed she'd been expecting to be regaled with tales of how awful Sophie was on the trip. (It actually made Ellie feel a bit guilty, to know that she'd voiced her unfounded dislike of Sophie enough that Annie was then shocked at how close they'd become.)
Despite having weeks to come up with a better answer to the inevitable "what made you decide it was time to leave?" question, Ellie generically cited homesickness and the baby. Legit reasons, and Annie had no reason to doubt her, but it was still a lame "we just sort of knew" type answer, at the heart of it. She was surprised to find that she wanted to tell Annie the real reason. But, she had agreed with Joel on that one, too: the less said, the better. She had assumed she'd be perfectly happy never talking about any of it again anyway. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why DO I want to tell her? Joel did encourage her to talk about things sometimes, rather than keep them bottled up ("yes I'm a goddamn hypocrite," he would add)... but she didn't feel like this shit was trapped in a bottle, begging to be let out. She could talk to Joel about it if she needed to.
...Even though I never want to bother him with it... was that it, then? Annie would be more receptive because she wasn't as... invested, or whatever?
Ellie felt like she was being disloyal to Joel, thinking like that. I CAN talk to him, if I need to... he's really great, most of the time... but there was something different about talking to a friend. A girl friend, especially. Sometimes a girl just needed female companionship.
And this was the connection she'd been hoping to feel with Annie last night. It's still there! Maybe both of them had changed some, over the winter... as had Jackson itself... but at their core, and at its core, they were the same in all the ways that mattered.
She and Annie ended up talking for hours, and Ellie forgot all about Meredith... forgot all the stupid jealous feelings. She felt like she'd found the last missing piece of the puzzle, and she was really home now. A place where she belonged. I have my best friend back!
~Continue to Chapter 30~
Title: "Singularity" Chapter 29: "There's No Place Like Home" [29/49]
Fandom: The Last of Us (first game only)
Characters: Ellie, Joel, Tommy, Maria, OCs
Pairings: Joel/Ellie
Warnings: Underage
Word Count for this chapter: 9,183
Rating (for fic as a whole): R
~
Ellie and Clicker claimed a spot in a nooklike area of the library, far from the center of the main room. It was where people tended to go if they didn't want to be bothered. Scattered amongst the aisles of books, the tables with single chairs at them generally discouraged gatherings, as did the 'living' chairs (like the kind of chair only one person can sit in, not an actual couch). It was great for when you wanted to look at a book and not necessarily check it out officially. But sometimes, people would just grab a chair from another table and drag it over, or cram two people into one of the bigger living chairs. Ellie was about to do the former when Clicker made her stop and "wait right there" while he ran off and procured a couch instead, scooting it allllllllllllll the way over from the center of the room -- because she had made that comment about missing the couches? If people hadn't taken much notice of them coming in, they certainly looked when he did that! But it made Ellie smile. She tucked her legs underneath her and settled in for a good long talk: bad news first.
Twenty minutes later, after Clicker had apprised her of every single bad thing he could think of that had happened in the past seven months, her head was spinning... and her heart had sunk all the way into her shoes. Why do people have to die? Or disappear? Or... do fucking crazy things?! ...And Joel is a little closer to making the top ten now, age-wise...
"This is why no one wanted to tell you," Clicker said mournfully. "Now you're all bummed out and stuff."
"No I'm not," she lied. "I didn't know most of those people that well. Some of them I didn't even know at all." Like the dead baby girl, for example. That was so fucked up, though -- ugh -- Mostly, Ellie just hadn't processed it all yet. It felt like Clicker was just telling her stories. That none of it was real.
"But it's still making you sad." Apart from the time it took to relay all the news to her, Clicker was acting like his usual cheerful self... he wasn't sad... because it was all old news to him. He was over it. Ellie was grateful, because she didn't want things to be all heavy right now.
She gave him a look. "Should I be jumping for joy right now?"
He snickered. "Does anyone actually do that? Over the age of like... five, I mean."
I can think about all that shitty stuff later -- like when she and Joel inevitably compared notes on what they'd learned about Jackson today. "Pretty sure I've seen you do that, home slice," she teased.
"Bullshit! Name one time!"
"Oh... I dunno... like, every single fucking time we beat a boss on the Wii? Or... what was it... those fucking dementor things! That was the worst--"
"Dude, we high fived! I didn't jump!"
"You jumped after we high fived!" She couldn't remember him ever actually doing this -- but it was just too easy to rile him up!
He slugged her arm playfully. "I don't jump! I can't -- remember that movie?"
Ellie had seen a lot of movies last summer, and sometimes she mixed them up a little in her head, but she had no idea what he was getting at here. "Um... no?"
"Oh -- yeah I guess you didn't watch that one. Never mind. You prob'ly wouldn't like it anyways cuz it's about basketball."
Ellie knew very little about most sports. "Who does like it?"
"Lots of people! Now that we have a court that works! Like with a new net and everything! In the park. I'll show you some time -- maybe you would like it if you got to play!"
She wondered if Joel would like it, or if he would claim to be too old to play. He was strong, healthy, in good shape... he fucking killed people with his bare hands... but he was somehow "too old" to do certain things he just didn't feel like trying. "Maybe I would... but I'm more of a football girl," she said airily.
Clicker gave her the most comical puzzled look she'd ever seen. "...The fuck? Since when?"
"Since... um... January, I guess?" She proceeded to tell him all about the football games at the beach. People had always just tossed the ball to each other in the surf, but one day, she had gotten it into her head that they should play an actual game. She had organized it herself... even though she knew nothing about football, of course, other than the bare bones description Joel had given her previously. But they had an actual football, and plenty of space, so... Ellie had thought it was a brilliant idea! Joel... not so much.
Clicker found that part amusing. "How come I can totally picture him getting annoyed as fuck with you for doing this?"
She grinned. "He so was. I kept saying I would do all the work... but yeah, well... I mean, hardly anyone there even knew how to play -- including me! -- sooooo he kind of had to help me. A little." Once they'd actually started talking through how to play, though, more people had started to remember things -- the old people, that is.
"Let me guess -- he took over the whole thing?"
She laughed. He knows us so well! "Um... not exactly... okay, pretty much, yeah. At first I just asked questions -- like to the whole group -- and I told him he didn't have to answer since he wasn't interested, but he did anyways." As she had known he would, because he liked teaching her stuff. "He already told me how to play the game, a long time ago. I tried to remember everything but he had to correct me when I said things wrong, and people started asking him questions -- even the people who knew how to play were like brainstorming on how to do it with the players we had, and what rules to change, and I just wanted to fucking play, but then there was all this confusion and arguing... well, debate, like, about how to do things..."
Clicker seemed to find that amusing as well. "I can see that, too... you being all like CAN WE JUST FUCKING PLAY NOW, PEOPLE..."
"Yeah! Not cuz I wanted to play so bad I couldn't wait, but... it just made things more confusing! Everyone had a lot of fun in the end, though. Including Mr. Grumpypants Joel. It was so fun that we did it again! A few more times, even." She missed those games already. It wasn't so much that it was physically fun to do -- it was more about the bonding with her teammates. And even with the other team, in the form of teasing or trash-talking. It was all the smiles, the laughter... the stupid shit, like Lupe forgetting which direction to go... Alex catching the ball and running straight into the ocean to avoid all the defenders... the 'penalty flags' that allegedly didn't count if the wind whipped them off the field, and the good-natured arguments that ensued... Ellie couldn't even remember who won which game or what the scores were. Because it wasn't even about that. ...Maybe I don't have to miss it completely? I wonder...
Clicker read her mind: "Oh! Dude! What if we did it here? You're an expert now, you could--"
"Where, though?" That was where her idea had come to an abrupt halt. "With all these trees and stuff around here? You need a big open area -- I mean huge -- it's supposed to be a hundred yards. Which is like..." She sucked at trying to describe distances. "Trust me, it's long. Even if we make it a little shorter... it can't be in the street, if you're gonna play tackle, cuz you need a soft--"
"Tackle -- like, actually pushing the other team down on the ground? Is that what you guys did?"
Ellie had wanted to. Whenever she and Joel play-wrestled and stuff, getting tackled was so much fun! But she had been overruled, and they had used flags instead -- which, she had to admit, had made for some pretty funny plays. More than one person had lost their pants in addition to their flag, on occasion. Of course, real game-type flags would have worked better than some of the shit they had substituted -- like bandanas and bolo ties. "No, the old people thought it was too dangerous. Even with the sand and all! Or like... some of the guys liked the idea, but then said they didn't wanna play with girls cuz they'd have to go easy on them, and it became this whole thing. So, no."
Clicker snorted. "Yeah... unless they could just let the tough girls like you play. Most girls are wusses."
Ellie knew that Clicker appreciated her tomboyishness. Haven't I heard him say Alyssa is a wimp? Does he still think that? And if he does... does it bother him, or does he kinda like it? Back when Ellie had first become aware of how desperately in love she was with Joel, and thus, had to figure out how to make him fall in love with her -- and even after their relationship had turned romantic, actually -- she'd researched shit like that. Some of the 'facts' she'd uncovered had turned out to be total bullshit. Joel had reinforced plenty of the non-bullshit things with his behavior (she'd never actually confessed to him that she'd been doing research... because FUCK -- embarrassing much?! ...but if she really needed to ask him something, she would claim she overheard a conversation or remembered something from a movie). She wouldn't call herself a love expert or anything, but... well, as far as she could tell, Joel was pretty happy with her, so she thought she'd done a pretty good job of separating truth from bullshit and applying the knowledge accordingly.
"Wait -- that's not the real reason they didn't wanna do it, though, is it?" Clicker continued. "Really it was cuz everyone was scared shitless to even touch you. Right?"
She rolled her eyes. "You mean cuz of Joel?" Of course that's what he meant -- because no one's afraid of ~sweet little Ellie~ in her own right... right?! Pfffff! "Nah, people there weren't scared of him. He was all mellow and laid-back most of the time." Although, if her pants had ever come down, it might have been a different story. Good thing I was smart enough to wear jean shorts!
"Seriously? They weren't scared? Weird."
"Yeah." Kind of hard to be Mr. Tough Guy when you're all snuggly at campfire every night... not that they made out in front of other people or anything, but they were pretty affectionate in public. And I'll miss THAT more than the football games... She would miss out on tons of sweet little moments now...
And now there was another reason to hate hiding their relationship: fucking new people. Which meant new women. Which meant more women who might want to fuck Joel and thought they had every right to because he was single. And Tommy better not try to play matchmaker again... fuck! So far, so good on that front, if last night was any indication. Of course, with so much to talk about, it was possible he just hadn't gotten around to mentioning that he knew of the perfect woman for Joel. Joel needs to get better at shutting that shit down! I swear, he used to be annoyed by it, but now I think he LIKES making me jealous... She would just have to remind herself she had nothing to worry about, now that she and Joel were having sex. There was nothing another woman could give him that she couldn't provide for him herself. ...Except public acknowledgment, or approval, of our relationship, I guess... but Joel doesn't care about that... right?
"What was it like at the beach?" Clicker was asking now, effectively derailing that troubling train of thought.
Ellie couldn't seem to decide if she liked talking about Monterey, or if that only made her miss it more. She didn't really have much choice right now, because everyone wanted to hear about it. The ocean was hard to describe to people who had never seen it. The beach kind of was, too, but everyone in Jackson who had ever explored the park had at least seen a little bit of sand before. "It was very... sandy," she settled on. "And man, Joel fucking hated the sand. It is kinda hard to walk on. But it's fun to play in -- you can build stuff with it when it's wet, or bury people in it -- the ocean is the best thing, though, by far. The waves are fucking amazing. Like... I can't even describe them."
"Yeah? Did you do any surfing like they do in shark movies?"
Fucking sharks! "I did! But... not much. I kinda sucked. Boogie boarding, though -- that's more fun. You don't have to stand up. -Dude, I bet you would love it there. You should come with us next time."
His jaw dropped. "No shit?! You're going back?"
"Well... someday, maybe?" She was already kicking herself for impulsively blurting out such an invitation. The beach was so far away, she doubted Clicker's parents would be cool with it anyway. Fuck his parents -- JOEL wouldn't be cool with it! He'd say the trip was too dangerous for a kid. And of course, she had no idea how the community may have changed after she fucked everything up. Time to redirect-- "Not any time soon -- forget I mentioned it. We just barely got back! Okay, so, you told me all the bad stuff. I wanna hear more about the good stuff that's been going on around here." Which was the perfect opportunity for him to tell her about Alyssa!
"But I wanna hear more about your trip!" he protested.
...and yet he STILL didn't tell me. Hmm... "Okay... like what? What do you want to know?"
"Did you kill lots of infected people? Like on your last trip?"
Ellie scoffed at that. "It was nothing like that one. We were on the road for... going on a year, last time. This time it was... a couple months."
"Oh. There and back, though. Right? So... four months total, which rounds up to half a year, which is close to 'going on' a year!" He seemed proud of drawing this illogical mathematical conclusion.
"Pfff." More like three months... She so wished she could tell him about the jeep! He would be so impressed! Clicker didn't have the hugest of mouths, but she agreed with Joel that they shouldn't tell anyone. Clicker might say something to Alyssa, who might say something to Jacob -- who might still hate her enough to try to stir up trouble. Telling just one person, even one person sworn to secrecy, could be all that was needed to spread shit through the whole town -- because maybe they swear another person to secrecy, who then does the same... and sooner or later, someone will prove to be untrustworthy to the point of practically announcing it at a town meeting or something. Right -- back to Infected -- "We did kill some. Some hunters, too. Bandits... whatever." Jacksonites didn't really use the term 'hunter,' except in reference to one of their own going out to hunt game. Both words had negative connotations, but Ellie equated bandits with robbers, whereas hunters were more like... well, assholes, really. (Naturally, she omitted the category of soldiers entirely.)
At any rate, Clicker seemed impressed even with that vague account of their exploits on the road. "Bad ass."
She looked at him sternly. "Dude, I told you, it's not like in video games!"
"I know that," he huffed. "Jeez. That doesn't mean it wasn't still bad ass."
"Okay, fine. Sure. Sometimes. But... you know. Shit happened. And we fucked up sometimes, too." She didn't really feel like telling him about Sacramento right now... although part of her kind of wanted to, just to see how long it would take for the story to circulate around town and come back to her all jacked up: "I heard you got trapped in an underground cave for WEEKS and Joel had to blow the whole thing up with dynamite to get you out!" She almost felt like maybe she shouldn't talk about it at all, somehow... out of respect to Joel. Because Joel always always made it sound like this huge personal failure. Never mind that he fucking rescued her. Nope, he had to beat himself up for not doing so within the hour it happened, searching for her in all the wrong places... even for them splitting up that day instead of sticking together. Never mind the fact that they had done that plenty of times before and nothing bad had happened. And he'd still get this weird look on his face... like last night, with Tommy and Maria. Maybe I just need to keep reminding him that it's all over and done with and I'm totally FINE now?!
"Like how did you fuck up?" Clicker prompted; she hadn't paused on purpose to amp up the drama, but she must have been taking too long to continue.
"Oh, like... ...I almost burned my fucking hand off in a fight?" That was a good story to tell him, because even Joel couldn't take the blame for her stupidity on that one (although not for lack of trying).
"Whaaaaaat?"
"Yeah. This one." She wiggled the fingers on her right hand. "You can't really tell anymore, though. It's all healed up."
Still, Clicker grabbed her hand to inspect it. He was just innocently turning it over, but Ellie tensed up, ready to yank it back if he so much as touched her sleeve; the bite was, of course, yet another secret she had to continue to keep. "I can tell," he said. "It's whiter, right there... and there..."
"Oh my God, dude, it was soooooo ugly the day after it happened! It was all like... charred and black and stuff..." Okay, so she was exaggerating that just a little. But this next part was true, if only for isolated moments of paranoia: "Not even joking -- I thought Joel was gonna have to amputate it."
He looked up from her palm, wide-eyed. "No fucking way."
"Way." He seemed to be done examining her hand now, so she reeled it back in. "Wanna know how it happened? It was so stupid-- no, wait, lemme back up a bit." She knew Clicker would appreciate hearing the details of the encounter, especially the creepy beginning part where they just heard eerie Infected sounds in the dark, getting louder and louder... man, he would LOVE Keith's ghost stories, too! The actual attack was a bit of a blur in her head now, as most intense fights tended to be, shortly after the adrenaline rush subsided... but she remembered enough to start piecing together a colorful narrative for him.
Ellie noticed the girl approaching them before Clicker did, even though he had the better line of sight on her. Alyssa! FINALLY he'll have to tell me what's up with her! Except... shit, she's not happy... Ellie turned and smiled brightly at the glowering girl. "Oh hi, Alyssa! I was just telling Clicker about how I burned my--"
"Come on, Cordy," she cut in without even acknowledging Ellie. "You're late for rehearsal!"
Ellie dropped the fake smile. She wasn't sure what she'd expected from Alyssa, but that level of rudeness certainly exceeded her expectations.
Clicker's what-the-fuck expression told Ellie that they were on the same page there. "Uh... yeah, like I always am on Mondays? ...D&D?"
"But you're not playing D&D," Alyssa pointed out coolly.
"Go ahead, dude, we can finish catching up later," Ellie offered, feeling awkward on Clicker's behalf.
The look he gave Alyssa bordered on a glare, Ellie noticed with interest. "I'll be there in five, alright?" he told her.
Alyssa didn't seem satisfied with that. She probably wanted Clicker to leave with her... but she had apparently resigned herself to the fact that he wasn't going to. "Whatever. I'll let them know." Tossing her long brown hair over her shoulder in an over-the-top drama queen sort of way, she flounced off.
Ellie didn't know what to say; apparently Clicker didn't, either, as he was uncharacteristically silent for a few moments. Maybe I should give him some advice? That's what BFFs were for! Especially if one was older and more experienced than the other. "Dude, like... you prob'ly shouldn't've done that. You're gonna be in trouble now."
"I won't be," he assured her. "I'm always late on Mondays and they know why. No one cares."
...Is he really that clueless?! "No, doofus, I mean with Alyssa!"
He still didn't seem to get it. "Why would I be in trouble? She's not my mom. I didn't even do anything wrong. And that was sort of rude, what she did. Just barging in on our conversation like that. She didn't even say hi when you said hi to her."
Ellie had to remind herself that he was only thirteen, and this was his first girlfriend. "Well, she saw you talking to another girl, so... you can't really blame her if--"
"I'm talking to you, not... another girl," he scoffed.
Ellie didn't know whether to feel insulted by that or not. Whatever... clearly, I'm gonna have to spell this out for him: "It doesn't matter. You're still-- ...Okay, yeah, she was rude, but think about it. Maybe she went to your club and they told her you left with me -- or someone else told her they saw you with me -- then she finds you hanging out with me way over here, away from everyone else... maybe she saw you touching my hand and stuff, and thought... like..." ...Come on, dude, help me out here!
"Not you, too," he groaned.
Ellie was taken aback by that response. "Not me too what?"
"Alyssa's not my girlfriend."
Uh... what the fuck? Ellie blinked. "She's not? Cuz... the way she just acted..."
"Girls act weird sometimes," he shrugged. "She's so bossy. I do what I want -- she doesn't own me."
Ellie furrowed her brow. "So... she was your girlfriend at some point, or..."
"I dunno. Dude, finish your hand story, it was just getting good! So Joel left you and Sophie by your campfire to check out the noises..."
Ellie didn't know what to think. Why won't he just tell me she's his girlfriend? Tommy and Maria wouldn't lie about that! ...Does he still have a thing for me? Or... like, if he DOES, shouldn't he want to use his relationship with Alyssa to make me jealous? ...But maybe Clicker didn't know that he was supposed to do that. Joel always said that male brains were much less complicated than female brains... and she couldn't imagine Clicker doing the sort of research in the library that she herself had done...
"Hello?" Clicker nudged her.
"Sorry -- I'll finish telling you later, okay? I really think you should go catch up with Alyssa. But hey -- why did she call you Cordy? And your club guy called you that, too, actually."
"Well... I mean it is my name..."
"I know, but you loved it when I called you Clicker. You made that your name. Your nickname." Cordy was a nickname, too, short for Cordyceps, because his biological parents had obviously been whack jobs. The 'Clicker' moniker had stuck, though, and it seemed like more people called him that instead of Cordy now. Alyssa included, or so she had thought! "Do you not like it anymore?"
"No, I do! I do! It's still my name."
Said earnestly enough that she believed him. "But... only if I call you that? No one else?" Like how my 'baby girl' nickname is only from Joel?
"No -- everyone calls me that. Mostly. Except the Idaho people, some of them call me Cordy. Alyssa thinks Clicker is a dumb name."
"...Huh. Because I gave it to you, then. Right? I swear I've heard her call you that before."
Clicker scrunched up his face the way he always did when something was churning in his brain. "She did used to... I thought maybe she thought it was kid stuff, like? Cuz now I'm thirteen? But-- omigod, you're right! It's because it's from you! That's so stupid. Like... who cares who made it up? Girls are so dumb!"
She couldn't just let him keep bashing her gender without even any mock offense being taken. "Hey, boys aren't always brilliant, either. How many months has it been, genius... and you still never figured out why she didn't like it without my help?"
He rolled his eyes at her. "Don't be mean, homes -- I wasn't saying you were dumb--"
She poked his arm. "That right there is mean! You keep saying I'm not a girl!" she laughed. Even the 'homes' nickname was more for a boy. She preferred homie, homegirl, or home slice. Really, plain old 'dude' was sufficient. -Except that's more for a boy, too -- especially when Joel says it! Joel used it differently, though. He never addressed people as 'dude' -- he would just refer to guys as dudes sometimes in conversation. "In case you haven't noticed, I am a girl." She anticipated a snarky comeback to that.
"Of course you're a girl," Clicker mumbled, totally un-snarkily... the blush creeping back into his cheeks.
How fucking cute is that?! Ellie would get annoyed with Joel for thinking it was cute when she herself blushed, but of course, she was allowed to think so when it was Clicker's face turning into a tomato. Not quite a fully-ripened tomato, but... shit...I think maybe he DOES still like me... "Homie. Go! Seriously. I'm back now, so we can talk any time. I promise I'll tell you everything that happened. Anything you wanna know."
He beamed at her, awkwardness forgotten. "It's so cool that you're back! Most of the time... when people go somewhere..."
"You never know if they're coming back," Ellie finished for him. She knew that all too well herself, and it sucked.
"I'm just really glad that... nothing happened to you, you know?" He leaned over and gave her a quick side hug before standing up. "Now don't ever leave town again!"
"Now who's the bossy one," Ellie snickered; she remained in her seat, since it seemed like that might help Clicker to actually leave, somehow. "Bye... see you later!"
"Yeah? Will you be in here later? Sometimes me and Wyatt play if we have time before the movies."
"Wyatt?"
"Yeah -- my DM. You're gonna love this new game we got -- it's called Grand Theft Auto -- you get to drive cars and stuff -- but way more than that -- it's like being in the real world before everyone got infected! Anyways he's really good at it. He's freaking amazing at any game he plays, really, which is crazy cuz before he came to Jackson, he'd never even seen a PS3. Now you can play with us!"
Huh... so now he likes the PS3 more than the Wii? And what the fuck is a DM... is that like a BFF for dudes? Clicker had never played much with the other kids once he and Ellie had become gaming buddies... but, she supposed it wasn't realistic to expect that he'd just keep playing by himself forever after she left. Especially with the limited number of consoles and TVs available. Ellie forced a smile. "Sounds good!"
Now it was her turn to feel jealous.
* * * * * *
The story reader that day was a teenage girl named Karen. She used to be Young Karen, officially, but now that Old Karen was gone, she was just Karen. Ellie liked her, for the most part. Things had been a little strained between them after The Rumors (it was silly to think of that as such a big deal... an event with a definitive before-and-after... although that's what it felt like sometimes). But Ellie was willing to let bygones be bygones, as they say... with pretty much everyone except Jacob and Christine. Karen was one of those people who was great one on one, but like... if a group of people started talking shit, she would go with the flow rather than stand up for Ellie. Karen suggested that they entertain the kids together, taking alternate pages or voicing different characters, and that turned out to be pretty fun. Ellie knew nearly all of the kids, and they all seemed to remember her (I guess I haven't been gone THAT long...). It didn't feel like a competition, for whatever reason; the kids liked her and they also liked Karen. It was all good.
Towards the end, the kids were more eager to hear about her trip, and Karen seemed content to let Ellie take over... but there were a couple of kids there who had never heard the story they were doing, so Ellie insisted they finish the book -- with the promise of a question-and-answer session afterwards. The session was... interesting. Ellie tried to answer every single question, no matter how silly or random... when she could get a word in edgewise! Trying to get them to be patient and take turns asking her stuff rather than talking over each other wasn't really working.
"Did you get chased by a shark?" "Did you see any dolphins?" "Did you ride a sea turtle like Captain Jack?" "Are there mermaids in the ocean?" "Did you at least get to SEE a shark?" "Weren't you on a island?" "What about an octopus?" "Does California have toilets?" "Did the boat have a pirate flag?" "Are all the infested people mean?" (INFESTED... Ellie would have to remember to share that gem with Joel) "Did you find Nemo in the water?" "No -- Ariel! Did you see Ariel?" "She couldn't see Ariel -- at the end she's NOT a mermaid! Remember?" "Michelangelo likes the beach -- was he there too?" "Did you eat Sebastian?" "Or any lobsters at all?" (a pause in the proceedings for a heated debate on whether Sebastian was a crab or a lobster, or if the two words basically meant the same thing.) "Did you see Ursula?" "No of course she didn't -- Ursula died! Don't you remember ANYTHING?"
Yeah... it was impossible to keep up with everything the kids fired at her, but Ellie did her best to satisfy all their curiosities!
Some of the older kids, teens, and more than a few adults who happened to be in the library had drifted over at some point... like they wanted to hear what she had to say, too. She was thankful for this when one little girl ran off crying about Sebastian -- even though Ellie promised she hadn't eaten him! -- and someone kindly broke away from the crowd to go comfort the girl. Ellie rolled her eyes at the resulting teasing about how mean it was of her to "make the kids cry."
Overall, it was a fun afternoon. Definitely better than generic "so how was your trip?" questions, which tended to elicit generic answers. "It was good." / "The travel part was hard." / "Nice, but it's good to be home." Etcetera. She felt a little pang here and there when she caught sight of Dee's mother, Deborah, behind the checkout counter... where Paige was supposed to be on weekdays. But Paige isn't dead -- she just LEFT. Most of those people who left over the winter... they could come back any time. They're FINE.
She didn't know this, of course. No one could possibly know. Some of them had a better chance of returning than others... like the ones who had gone to Idaho -- to the medical center. Whole families would move up there rather than just send off the person who needed care. Or sometimes not the whole family (not ones that had young kids, especially), but at least one other person. If Ellie were ever to need that kind of help, she would never go without Joel, of course... and she certainly wouldn't ever let Joel go by himself! So she understood why it was more than just the sick or injured people who made that journey. Jackson's little medical clinic was very limited, but at this place, they were doing surgeries to fix people's backs... hearts... knees... eyes... some of them were what Tommy called 'elective surgeries,' not just life-and-death stuff. Procedures that used to be considered necessary in the old days to improve quality of life, but just like a zillion other things, had fallen by the wayside when those days ended. Just that term -- quality of life -- sounded rather indulgent to Ellie. Because shouldn't people just be happy that they have a life, for however long it lasts? It was exciting to know that there were people committed to improving the lives of others by doing those kinds of surgeries. (She got the feeling it was sad that she felt that way, because all three of them -- Joel, Tommy, and Maria -- had gotten all you-should-'ve-been-around-in-MY-day about it afterward. But at least they were all in agreement that it was a great thing!)
Anyway, the medical center only accounted for a small part of the 'missing' population. Some had died after being caught Outside in a blizzard (Ellie could only imagine how horrible it must have been for the search party who eventually found their frozen -- or thawing -- bodies). And one group had just plain vanished. Then their loved ones who set out to find them vanished, too. No, maybe not -- they might just... not have made it home yet. ...Even several months after. -Except for the woman who went searching for her husband and was found dead two months later. Presumably another victim of a storm, as she'd had no obvious injuries inflicted by Infected or hunters. Poor Yulia... she never found Angel... I almost hope he DOESN'T come back now, cuz how shitty would he feel about that?!
Ellie had only heard Clicker's recollections. And while the kid wouldn't make this shit up, of course, she still intended to ask Tommy and Maria more about these incidents. Yulia was tough, but who was tough enough to survive out there on their own, truly? Clicker said that search parties had been sent. That they just couldn't find anything. Ellie could imagine how frustrating it must have been to wait and wait and hope and then just... nothing. Or if you're with the search party to begin with, and they want to give up... Yeah, I wouldn't be satisfied with a search party's word for it, either -- I'd have to go look for myself, if it was--
But no -- that would never happen to her, with Joel. Because Ellie was going to remind Joel that he promised never to go Outside without her. We stick together!
And then, the ones who didn't go Out and look for themselves... people talked about. Like Christine's roommate, Olivia, whose boyfriend never came back. Ellie didn't really have anything against the girl, other than her choice in housemates... but when Clicker didn't include her on the list of people who had left and never returned -- and then confirmed it when Ellie had flat-out asked -- Ellie couldn't help thinking "oh, I guess she didn't really care about him that much." So, which was worse: to accept the search party's verdict and not even try to find your loved one yourself, or to go ahead and try but then return empty-handed in a few days because it was 'too hard'? Because apparently, both of those scenarios had happened. She could imagine that people would get tired and hungry and just... lose hope, after a while.
Ellie had really only scratched the surface of her feelings about any of it during that conversation with Clicker... and when she was with the kids, she had to shove aside any thoughts that bubbled up; the great thing about kids, though, was that they made that pretty easy. She was looking forward to talking it all over with Joel later... if he was up for it.
Ellie was so busy entertaining the crowd that she didn't even notice when Annie had become part of it. She just happened to look up at one point and see her smiling face back there. Annie gave her an excited little wave, and Ellie decided she'd spent enough time with the masses... she'd given them enough 'goods' to spread bits and pieces of her adventures through the town. She may have exaggerated a little here and there, but since they were going to exaggerate it themselves in the retelling anyway, she was basically just giving them a head start! After declaring 'story hour' officially over -- and hugging the 'huggy' kids of the bunch -- she approached Annie, who was hanging back shyly. ...Maybe even sheepishly?
Ellie felt a bit awkward herself. "Hey," she said lamely.
"Hey," Annie parroted back. "You didn't have to cut that short. I was enjoying your... uh... show?"
Ellie snorted. "It was fun, but I was ready for it to end, so it's okay. I think all the questions broke my brain a little. So..."
"Can we go for a walk or something?" Annie suggested.
"Sure. Yeah."
The two girls strolled out of the library and started ambling down the street -- away from the busiest part of the 'town square,' as it was called (even though it was more like a rectangle). "We can play a little game... see how many changes Ellie can spot in the town," Ellie joked.
But Annie wasted no time -- she looked at Ellie earnestly, wringing her hands. "I'm really sorry about last night, Ellie. I feel awful about it."
"...You do? Why?" Ellie asked innocently. Like she hadn't been upset at all last night. Me? Upset? No....
"Because... after you left... my mom made me realize how you must have felt, when you--"
"Wait -- your mom? She doesn't know how I feel!" Ellie scoffed (although she suspected that perhaps Esther actually did).
"Well... she was guessing? She felt bad, too, because she didn't tell you about Meredith when she let you in."
"Big deal. Seriously -- so what? It's fine! You've always had other friends. I have, too. And especially-- I mean, I fucking left. What were you supposed to do -- sit around waiting for me? Do you think I wanted you to do that?" Oh, what a voice of reason I am today!
Annie gave her a look that sliced right through the bullshit. "Ellie... come on."
...Except it's NOT bullshit! Not... exactly? Everything she had just said was true! "Come on what? I don't care who you spend your-- er-- no, okay, that's not totally true. I don't want you wasting your time and energy on that asshole Jacob. Other than that, though, it's totally up to you." She grabbed Annie's arm to stop her midstride. "Please tell me you've told that dickweed to fuck off by now. Please!"
Annie giggled. "I've missed you. You always make me laugh."
"That's not an answer!" Ellie growled theatrically.
Annie shrugged off her hand and resumed walking, forcing Ellie to do the same. "We're not... together, if that's what you mean."
"Fuck yeah!" Ellie exclaimed. "That's a start. So... are you telling me you're still..." She dropped her voice to a whisper. "...friends?!"
Annie pursed her lips in thought. "Welllllllll... I wouldn't go that far."
"I'll take it!" Ellie declared triumphantly.
"I did forgive him, you know," Annie added casually.
"Nooooo! You were thinking about forgiving him--"
"And then I did, basically. He was truly sorry."
"He says he's sorry! Words are cheap! Not just cheap -- they're free, actually."
"Sheesh, Ellie, if I can forgive him, surely you can, too!" Annie laughed.
"You're too fucking nice. I will just have to hate him enough for both of us," Ellie declared, only half joking. And Joel thinks I'M sweet?! Annie was like... pure sugar, versus Ellie's strawberry-sweetness.
"You don't have to hate him. Hate Christine, if you just have to hate someone. She hasn't shown any remorse whatsoever."
"Oh, I have enough hate for both of them!" But just as she said it, Ellie realized she had no idea if it was true. Time did have a way of softening things like anger and pain. "Okay, let's be real... I haven't seen either one of them, so I don't know if I still hate them? I definitely don't like them or anything -- fuck no -- but... when I think back to some of the stuff that happened... it all seems kind of..."
"Like ancient history?" Annie supplied.
"That, and... I dunno. Like kid stuff, or something. Getting in fights with them... like, actual, physical fights... I'm sort of... over that, I guess?" Ellie sighed loudly before Annie could reply. "Or maybe I'm full of it and the second one of them says something to piss me off, I'll be all... right up in their faces again."
"Kid stuff," Annie said thoughtfully. "So you grew up out there in California, huh?"
Oh, how badly Ellie wanted to tell her exactly in what way she had grown up! But she couldn't just drop a bomb like "I'm not a virgin anymore" and expect Annie to be content to leave it at that. No, Ellie was going to have to continue to have an 'unrequited crush' on Joel. That would at least allow her to gush about him in some manner, even if it did produce a pity response sometimes. "I had a birthday, so I guess I did!" is how Ellie answered, feeling oh-so-clever.
"That's right!" Annie gasped. "I owe you a present."
"You do not. Fuck. No offense, but what could you even give me that I'd want? Something you don't already give me, I mean -- like, food doesn't count." Like PIE... Ellie was glad she'd caught herself before blurting out a word that would bring Annie straight back to last night.
"I'll make you a dress exactly like this one!" Annie did a little twirl to show it off from all angles.
Ellie just glared at her.
"Hey, you liked that other dress so much you decided to keep it," Annie reminded her with a grin.
"It has a shorter skirt and a cute... top part," Ellie pointed out. And it shows off so much skin that Joel can't keep his hands off me when I wear it... well, okay, he CAN if we're in public, because he's annoyingly GOOD about that, but still... maybe it was time to bust it out again, now that they were home! "And I've only worn it twice. It's not exactly getting a lot of action." (...Ellie just had to snicker to herself at that choice of words.)
"No worries, I'll think of a better gift. Like... a bonnet to match the-- eeeeep!" Annie squealed as Ellie shoved her...
...a little harder than I meant to, oops! She was too accustomed to mock-assaulting Joel (and having nearly-zero effect on him).
But Annie was giggling. "Okay, I get it -- nothing girly!" She fell back in step with Ellie and bumped her shoulder lightly.
Unless you wanna make me some slutty-looking thing to wear for Joel? Ha! "I told you -- you don't have to get me anything. I didn't get you a gift."
"What? Yes you did! Don't you remember? You and Joel both did! That morning off?"
Ellie remembered. She had conspired with Esther to make it happen. It was supposed to be a whole day, but she'd caught Annie 'cheating' that afternoon. Ellie had dragged Joel into it because it was shortly after their relationship had morphed into romance, and she couldn't stand the thought of not seeing him all day on one of his days off, but still wanted to do this for Annie. "That doesn't count -- that wasn't a gift!" she argued.
"Oh yes it was. That was the most indulgent... lazy..."
"Relaxing," Ellie corrected her. "We should do that for you more often. For your mom, too. Everyone else takes days off! Even on the other farms. It's not like we don't have enough extra hands around town. Especially now."
"You sound like Will," Annie replied with an eyeroll. "He always has some excuse to escape lately. Anyway -- you know the other farms don't have all the animals that we do. Although Four will probably catch up to us this summer... or maybe next."
"Oh wow... so things are going good up there."
"So far." Annie kicked a little stone in front of her, staring at it with a strange intensity. "Can I tell you something?"
"Nope, you better not," Ellie teased, kicking the rock away when it skittered into her path. "No, what's up?"
The look Annie gave her then... she almost seemed afraid. "If I tell you... you can't tell anyone, okay? Not even Joel."
Ellie gasped as if she found that shocking. "Not even Joel? Jeez, this must be serious." Not like Joel would even care, whatever it is...
"You promise, then?"
"I promise. So spill!"
Annie returned to looking down, even with no rock to pretend-focus on this time. "Well... I don't know if you remember... it was only a little while before you left, when they got here... there was this guy... Colton?... He--"
"Omigod omigod -- you and Colton?!" Ellie broke in excitedly, grabbing her friend's arm and yanking her to a stop again -- not that much yanking was needed since they were moving at a snail's pace. "Yessss! Fuck, did you have to let me ramble on about Jacob before? You could've just told me--"
"Shut up!" Annie hissed, glancing around furtively.
"There's no one around! But so what if there was -- you two are a thing?!" And it's not like one of you is sixteen and the other is fifty, so why hide it? Ellie couldn't think of any other good reason to be secretive!
"No! Calm down," Annie laughed. "We are not a thing. ... ...Unfortunately."
"Aha -- I knew I was onto something!" Ellie smirked. "Okay okay -- so, you want to be a thing. What's the problem? And if you say he's too old for you, I'm so gonna kick your ass!"
They started walking again, keeping to the middle of the street. "Um, no, his age... is pretty much perfect? He's a year and a half older than me."
It didn't sound perfect to Ellie, but then, she was partial to thirty-four-and-a-half-year age gaps herself. I can't even imagine Joel being that young... how would he know what to do all the time in every situation imaginable if he was so close to MY age? Or was he just BORN knowing everything? The way Tommy talked about their past kind of made it sound that way to Ellie... except, whenever he went way back in time, it was hard for her to connect the young person in the story to her Joel. Like the Joel that had accidentally gotten his girlfriend pregnant, even though there was all kinds of things you could do to prevent that in those days. It was just so... un-Joel-like. But-- back to Annie-- "And... the problem is... ? -Oh! Duh! Of course -- he moved, so now it's a long distance relationship! You never get to see him!" Farm 4 was the only one located outside the walls... like, very much Outside. Miles and miles.
"It's not a relationship at all, mind you, but yeah, that's part of it." She sighed wistfully. "It was so nice when he'd come down, before they left... we'd go riding in the afternoons sometimes... like me and you used to. Which... I hope you'll want to start doing again?"
"Of course! Unless you're gonna be wishing I was ~Colton~ the whole time," Ellie teased.
"Silly Ellie." Annie bumped her shoulder again. "No, I've missed that. With him, yeah, but before that, with you. That's actually the reason we started doing it: I told him I missed riding with you."
Ellie stared at her shoes, already hating herself for having to ask the question bubbling up: "What about Meredith?"
"Meredith? She's not a horse person. Not like you two."
Ellie had never thought of herself as a 'horse person.' Colton had come from a ranch in Nebraska -- he was a horse person. Anyway, she was glad she didn't have to hate herself for asking after all; it was nice to know she still shared one thing with Annie that the other girl didn't.
"Speaking of horses," Annie continued, a playful note in her voice. "Would you happen to know anything about the new horse we found in the stables this morning?"
Ellie clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh shit -- sorry! I tooooootally forgot to tell you!"
Annie waved off her apology. "He's a handsome boy. What's his name?"
"Fox. It's a... silver thing? I dunno." Ellie thought of foxes as more brown, or orange-y. Oh man... I don't wanna tell her about Spirit! But I have to. "Um, can we go sit... like on that swing, maybe? Or does someone live there now?"
Annie followed Ellie's gaze to the porch swing of the house in question. "No idea. Maybe they wouldn't mind if we borrowed their swing?"
Ellie tried to imagine if she would be annoyed to find random people hanging around her house... and decided she would be (although she might have been a little biased, because she and Joel valued their privacy more than most people!). "Let's just keep walking. I, um... have to tell you something. Something that sucks. But I guess it's not like you have to be sitting down to hear it. People always do that, right? 'You'd better sit down', they say... if it's bad news... like, what, they're going to faint or something if they don't? I don't think you're going to faint, but if you do, I'll totally catch you, I swear. -Don't look at me like that -- yes I'm using rambling as a stall tactic, okay? Ugh! Just... don't hate me when I tell you." Not that Ellie really thought she would...
"I could never hate you," Annie assured her -- and Ellie knew she meant it. "And I want to hear everything. The good, the bad... whatever's in between those... the neutral?"
Ellie snorted. "Neutral sounds boring as fuck. We'll be walking around all night and well into tomorrow if I tell you eeeeeverything." Besides, I can't! I wish I could but I CAN'T!
She did end up telling her a lot, though. Annie was really easy to talk to. Sympathetic and kind, a good listener... not someone who only half-listens while secretly they're just waiting -- preparing -- for their turn to talk. (Ellie did that herself on occasion.)
Not only was Annie not angry about Spirit, but she seemed to feel Ellie's pain over losing him. Like... it upset her more that Ellie was upset by it, not because they'd failed to return a horse they borrowed. Annie even tried to cheer her up by saying Spirit hated it on the farm anyway, hated the work... Ellie didn't quite buy it, but she knew there was some truth to it -- it was one reason they'd chosen to take him to California, after all -- and she appreciated the effort. She told Annie about the rest of that trip -- mostly good and bad, but some of it probably qualified as in between. She tried (and failed spectacularly) to explain what the ocean was like. The beach. Sailing. Shellfish. Campfires and solar lights and feeling warm outside even in January (well, sometimes!). The people, of course -- she knew Annie would be interested in them. Anything Ellie could think of that was different from Wyoming, as the novelty automatically made it more interesting. And Sophie! She was from Jackson, obviously, but Ellie had gotten to know her so much better, and Annie was surprised at the change in her attitude towards the woman. In fact, Annie confessed she'd been expecting to be regaled with tales of how awful Sophie was on the trip. (It actually made Ellie feel a bit guilty, to know that she'd voiced her unfounded dislike of Sophie enough that Annie was then shocked at how close they'd become.)
Despite having weeks to come up with a better answer to the inevitable "what made you decide it was time to leave?" question, Ellie generically cited homesickness and the baby. Legit reasons, and Annie had no reason to doubt her, but it was still a lame "we just sort of knew" type answer, at the heart of it. She was surprised to find that she wanted to tell Annie the real reason. But, she had agreed with Joel on that one, too: the less said, the better. She had assumed she'd be perfectly happy never talking about any of it again anyway. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why DO I want to tell her? Joel did encourage her to talk about things sometimes, rather than keep them bottled up ("yes I'm a goddamn hypocrite," he would add)... but she didn't feel like this shit was trapped in a bottle, begging to be let out. She could talk to Joel about it if she needed to.
...Even though I never want to bother him with it... was that it, then? Annie would be more receptive because she wasn't as... invested, or whatever?
Ellie felt like she was being disloyal to Joel, thinking like that. I CAN talk to him, if I need to... he's really great, most of the time... but there was something different about talking to a friend. A girl friend, especially. Sometimes a girl just needed female companionship.
And this was the connection she'd been hoping to feel with Annie last night. It's still there! Maybe both of them had changed some, over the winter... as had Jackson itself... but at their core, and at its core, they were the same in all the ways that mattered.
She and Annie ended up talking for hours, and Ellie forgot all about Meredith... forgot all the stupid jealous feelings. She felt like she'd found the last missing piece of the puzzle, and she was really home now. A place where she belonged. I have my best friend back!
~Continue to Chapter 30~