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Back in Jackson, Joel and Ellie were doing there best to live their lives. After going to the fireflies and the doctors doing more tests than Joel would have liked, they had enough to work on cure or something. Joel didn’t really care as long as he got to bring his baby girl home safe.
They went back to their original house in Jackson, however they spent the first two days sleeping in the living room. On the third day Joel offered to redecorate their rooms.
“Well what’d-a you say? We can find decorations you like and I can build you anything.” Joel says suggests with a shrug.
Ellie blinks up at him a huge grin taking over her face, “Seriously?”
Joel nods and he can’t help allowing himself a small smile at how excited she looked, “Yeah.”
Ellie beams brighter, “My own room. My own fucking room! With my decorations!”
Then it hit Joel, she never had a room to herself. The FEDRA school was more to train soldiers than raise kids he had to guess. Ellie also wasn’t thinking of the room she had slept in last time as hers, not until Joel said it.
~~~
That night once he had sent Ellie off to bed, and sat with her until she fell asleep, he thought about where and how he could match Ellies dream room. It shouldn’t be hard, she didn’t ask for anything crazy, besides a real spaceship. Joel knew he could enlist Tommy into painting a galaxy on her ceiling, dark blue for the ceiling with some white and light blue/purple swirls, he could find or make those colors. Joel could also build a reading bench for her window since it wasn’t a bay window. However decorating his room was going to be harder because Ellie was throwing out crazy suggestions for him.
Joel finishes cleaning the dishes from their dinner. He stretches with a groan before quietly walking upstairs. Joel walks past his room to peak into Ellie’s, after watching her sleep for a few minutes he decides he can sleep peacefully.
~~
“Hey Joel.” Ellie says and Joel knows she’s about to ask him something.
“Hm?” He hums in response continuing to sketch out a contracting design.
“In the world before…was it like this? Like the towns? Was it like this?” She asks.
Joel puts down his pencil and looks at her softly as he see’s just plain curiosity in her eyes, “Yes and no. No fences or patrols, but we had neighborhoods like this, and teenagers walking around like you do. School, working, that sort of stuff is similar.”
“So, not really?” Ellie pushes.
“Not really.”
Ellie hums and looks almost disappointed before it disappears completely, “Well this is better than FEDRA so.”
Joel nods and watches her shovel food into her mouth, “Better people too.”
Ellie just hums as she scoops up more stew.
~~~
“School’s weird.” Ellie says the second she sits at the dinner table.
Joel had been sitting on the porch totally not waiting for her to get home from her first day of school. Ellie lit up upon seeing him before throwing herself towards him for a hug. Joel felt so domestically fatherly he nearly went into a panic attack but Ellie started talking about the food before saying how hungry she was.
Now Joel stood in the kitchen as Ellie sat at the table. “Why’s it weird babygirl?” He asks cutting up the vegetables Tommy had given him earlier that day.
Ellie fiddles with the marker he had left on the table, “It’s just not like…like FEDRA Academy.”
Joel moves to prep the chicken and nods to Ellie who quickly jumps up and grabs plates. Setting them on the counter she begins to put vegetables on both of their plates, “It’s shorter. 10 to 2, Monday through Thursday.”
Joel nods, “Y’know it used to be 8 to 3 Monday through Friday.”
Ellie hums and nods, “FEDRA was…” Ellie’s face scrunches as she finds the words, “There was the school part but then there was the training part. So it was like 7 to 5 Monday through Friday.”
Joel can feel his chest constrict at the new information. The same way it always did every time he learned anything about Ellie’s experience with FEDRA or anything negative in her life. Her confirming that she lived like a solider until she was bitten hurt every fatherly bone in his body.
“Too many hours. This’ll be good for you.” Joel says trying to be nonchalant.
Ellie nods as she finishes the vegetables, “They have me in a art class.”
“Well that’s good. You can’t draw for shit.” Joel teases.
“Hey! We never learned about art or did all the painting shit in school.” She huffs smiling up at him.
~~~
Joel finally found a working DVD player that he could hook up to their one tv. It was a flat screen and big enough the two could watch comfortably from the couch. Now all he had to do was find DVDs. There was 10 community discs which they used to play movies in the center for the kids and teenagers. So on Joel’s last run he spent half the time looking for DVDs and anything space related that he could find. Surprisingly enough he found a few things and was ready to surprise Ellie with it.
Ellie runs in as she always does and immediately seeks him out. Joel happened to be reading a book in the living room when she rushes in. “Hi Joel!” She greets throwing herself at him to hug him squishing the book between them.
Joel squeezes her ignoring his book until she pulls away. Ellie shrugs off her bag and coat as she talks, “School still sucks but today was the first warm day in forever so they brought us outside-“
“Did you have your coat? I know it’s sunny and warmer but there is still a windchill-“Joel interrupts parental worry overcoming him.
Ellie rolls her eyes and cuts him off sarcastically, “Yes Dad, I had my coat, see? Just took it off.”
The heat in his chest grows and his heart begins to pound at her use of the word ‘dad’, even if she was being sarcastic and didn’t mean it…it had been 20 years since anyone had called him that. Joel looks at Ellie softly who is pointing to her jacket and looking at him with a ‘duh’ expression. Yeah he would take her calling him Dad in any scenario or way she wanted. She also probably has never called anyone that-in any context.
“Alright what’d you do today? And you hungry?” Joel questions putting in a bookmark and putting his book on the table.
“Starving!” Ellie all but yells.
Joel nods getting up with a groan and he ignores Ellie’s laughter as he walks into the kitchen. Joel begins to grab some canned food in order to make the two of them dinner. Hearing Ellie’s footsteps, now much softer, she must’ve took off her boots, so he just waited for her to speak.”
Ellie hops up on the counter next to him which he immediately swats at her for, “Not with your dirty clothes.”
She groaned as she jumped down choosing to lean against the counter, “Anywayyyy, we got to play this weird game, it was kinda cool. It’s called capture the flag, have you heard of it?”
Joel glances over at her and there she is looking up at him, so innocent and curiously he has to hold the counter for a moment to keep his balance, she looked so young. She was so young, she was just a kid, a kid who didn’t even know what kickball was. “Yeah, I played back when I was your age.”
Ellie grins, “Cool! Were you any good?”
Joel shrugs, “I was better at baseball.”
Joel looks over at her when he is met with silence. Ellie’s head was tilted her face scrunched up confused, “What’s baseball?”
This kid was going to kill him.
~
When dinner was over the two sat on the porch watching the sunset. So maybe they had two dinners sometimes because they had access to food and Ellie was a growing girl. Joel installed a two seater bench that was both comfortable and waterproof, although Ellie spent most of her time curled into his side.
Joel gives her a light nudge causing her to lean away and look up at him, “Stay right here baby I got you a gift.”
Ellie blinked at him confused before he goes inside. Joel is quick to go to his room and grab a glittery blue gift bag that he found intact, ripped up receipt paper being used as tissue paper. Joel returns to the porch Ellie right where he left her.
“Here’s your gift.” Joel says holding out the bag for her to grab.
“Whoaaaa.” Ellie says her eyes filled with amazement, she reaches for the bag which he hands off, “What’s this for?”
Joel shrugs trying to seem nonchalant as he shoos her over into his original seat, him taking hers, “Just some fun stuff I found on a supply run, figured you’d like it, and it’s in a gift bag so it’s a gift.”
Ellie giggles as she peaks in and tosses out some receipt paper. Joel rolls his eyes fondly crumpling the paper to shove into his pocket. Ellie pulls out a movie her eyes scanning the case, “The Breakfast Club? Cool! What’s a breakfast club?”
Joel laughs softly at her excitement, “Just the title, that wasn’t really a thing.”
Ellie nods smiling down at the DVD case, “Oh…this is so cool!”
Joel just watches her with a fond smile, “Well go on check out the rest.”
“There’s more?” Ellie questions loudly with such a childlike excitement he can’t even be bothered by the women walking by giving them a look.
She digs back into the bag tossing out the blank receipt papers onto the bench but really Joel’s lap. Ellie pulls out a little green army man with plastic folded up and attached to his back, her brows scrunch as she looks over. Joel watches in amusement as she flips it again, “You know what that is?”
“A green man.”
Joel rolls his eyes, “Yeah smartass, what’s it do then?”
Ellie shrugs and Joel reaches a hand out having her drop it in his hand. He unravels the plastic and points to where the string connects between the plastic and the army mans shoulders, “So these are little army men, kids loved them, and the plastic is like a parachute. You can drop this off something and let it glide down.”
Joel shifts realizing she might not like the toy, it was fun for kids after all and sounds a lot dumber out loud. Before Joel can brush it off Ellie is speaking, “Whoaa, can we test it out?”
“Uh-sure.”
Ellie had already jumped up before he could speak and she waves him over to the stairs. Joel follows her and she jumps down the few steps, even after he told her not to. “Can I get on your shoulders?”
“You trying to break me?”
Ellie laughs at that and rapidly shakes her head, “I want to see it parachute!”
Joel sighs and he knew he couldn’t argue with his baby girl when she was looking at him like that. He sits on the stairs and just motions to his shoulders causing Ellie to scramble over and stand behind him. Carefully she puts her right leg over his shoulder and on instinct he grabs it to balance her, she then hops up with her other leg. Joel groans as she adjusts on his shoulder using his head to balance herself, he hadn’t done this since Sarah was about 12 and that was over 20 years ago. “Ready?” He asks once she stops moving around.
“Ready!”
Joel can hear the grin in her voice so ignores any ache in joints as he stands up holding her legs to keep her up. Ellie has one hand on his the side/top of his head almost balancing herself with it, the other hand holding the little army man. “Okay so just drop it?” Ellie questions.
Joel tries to look up at her and she leans forward to meet his gaze, “Mhm.”
Ellie grins and leans back taking her balancing hand off of his head and he holds her legs tighter. She makes sure the parachute is open and then holds him out and….let’s go. The army man slowly begins floating to the ground. A light breeze passes making it drift a little and go down diagonally. Joel watches it slowly go down and realized this wasn’t the most entertaining thing and maybe Ellie didn’t like it-but then, Ellie’s hands are in his hair and she’s giggling, “That’s fucking cool!”
Joel can’t help his own smile, “Yeah?”
“Yeah! I want a parachute!” Ellie says excitedly.
“Oh no.” Joel starts shaking his head, “No way, I don’t know even know where you would get one but no. You’ll break something.”
Ellie huffs and Joel walks back to the stairs so Ellie can get down. Once she does she is quick to scramble to pick up the little army man before running back to him and straight into his side. Joel stumbles only slightly as she gets under his arm for a side huge. Joel rubs her arm as he uses his one arm to hug her back. He tries moving them back to bench with Ellie still glued to his side. “C’mon one more present.”
Ellie yanks her head back to stare at him with wide shocked eyes, “Another one?”
Joel nods and she runs back to the bench grabbing the bag before watching him walk over. She waits until he is sitting before digging into the gift bag, then Ellie pulls out a little astronaut holding a tray. Ellie looks between Joel and the astronaut with a smile, “You found an astronaut?”
Joel hums as Ellie looks down at the gift mumbling, “Awesome.”
Ellie carefully puts all her gifts back into the gift bag before throwing herself into Joel lap hugging him, “Thank you.”
“Of course baby and I figure the tray the astronaut is holding is perfect for your hair ties.” Joel says, back then Sarah was always loosing her hair ties or where she put them.
“Ohh shit smart!” Ellie says but its half muffled as her head is buried in his jacket collar.
Joe rubs her back allowing his head to rest on her’s until she pulls away, “Thank you Joel…I-I never really gotten a present before and never with a fucking gift bag!” She finishes the sentence giggling as she grabs the bag.
There was almost never a time that Ellie spoke about her time before him that didn’t break his heart. Every-time he was reminded about what type of school FEDRA was and how Boston was no place for young kids his chest hurt, his babygirl deserved better. “What about your birthday?” He forces out his voice gruff.
Ellie just shrugs.