Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Five miles outside of Jackson, there’s a field of Texas Bluebonnets. 

Blue’s never been her favorite color - but Ellie’s drawn to it all the same. Her patrol routes are usually the more robust ones west of town, flatland meadows at the bottom of the Rockies, followed by steeper, windier paths that she’s taken off Tommy’s hands over the last year or so. Normally, Jesse’s with her - and for official paperwork reasons he still is - but they’re notoriously known for breaking protocol, especially on their way back when there are no hoards of infected to be seen. So she often detours through the meadows, especially during spring.

This month has brought a lot of rain; there are blades of bright green grass caked to the sides of her boots and jeans, and dandelion seeds caught in her hair. Ellie has spent the last hour or so trucking through some of the muddier grasses in search of game - so far her backpack only consists of broken deer antlers found off mossy grounds and tiny rocks in smooth and funny shapes - only to come to a halt amongst the flora. 

Ellie’s one of the better hunters in town - Tommy and Joel have a more experienced eye - but Ellie is stealthier, faster. Her footsteps are light, blue brushing against her shins and hips, stalks tall like wheat, and petals bright like a warning.

She lifts her rifle - strong, steady, silent - and aims.

On the edge of the meadow, a moose. 

A bull has been on her list for some time. From what she’s heard, they aren’t nearly as large as the ones up in Canada and Alaska, but they’re a bit of a prize back in Jackson. No one disputes your hunting skills if you have to come back home to get someone to help you drag back a moose. 

It’s full grown, that much she can tell. She knows the antlers don’t work the same for the deer but she paid enough to Joel on the road when he explained how the antlers grow and then shrink again with age, if they make it to fifteen, or twenty.

She can see the large expanse of its antlers from her perch, velveteen points splayed out like butterfly wings. If she hadn’t taken on clickers and bloaters, looking death in the face as many times as she had, she might consider it daunting. 

Her tongue runs along the inside of her cheek, fingers twitching as they pet the trigger.

It lifts its head and looks right at her. 

She shoots it right between the eyes.

Jesse must be nearby because the radio at her hip crackles to life and his groan comes out in static spurts. “Tell me that was you shootin’ a rabbit or somethin’.”

The moose is already on the ground, lost at the edge of the meadow doused in weeds and sparse flowers. “Oh, it’s somethin,” she says, yanking a bluebonnet from the ground and twirling it in her fingers before she puts it behind her ear. “You’re gonna wanna radio Maria for backup. We got some haulin’ to do.”

“Uncle Joel.”

Joel bites the inside of his cheek hard to keep his smile at bay as he finishes buttoning up Sally’s peach-colored cardigan. His knees scream it as he stays crouched on the balls of his feet as he tops it all off with a pastel beanie, shimmying it down baby-fine hairs to sit over her ears.

Her nose, button slightly pink, wrinkles in distaste when he gives her cheek a playful poke. “S’not that cold,” she complains.

He supposes she’s right, but she’s a small thing and the spring air is still new, tinged in a lingering winter chill. “Humor an old geezer, would you?”

Sally giggles, dimples appearing on her cheeks as she smiles. “Fine. Can I go play now?” she asks, eyes shining with anticipation.

“Yes, chiquita,” and he reaches forward to gently tip her head forward, planting a kiss on the top of her head. “Have fun.”

She cheers as she scampers off the porch, making a show of skipping the last two steps and leaping onto the cracked sidewalk. She fumbles, which always makes his heart skip a terrifying beat, but she lands without much of a slip and runs out past his rickety gate to where the rest of the little kids are playing hopscotch in the middle of the street. 

With Sally in full view, Joel gives his knees a break and settles into the rocking bench he just put up a few weeks ago, just in time for spring and summer. His guitar - one of his latest projects - finds its way into his lap and he strums away at some echo of a song he knew from before. His foot taps on the deck, swinging him gently back and forth and his eyes close at the sounds of children squealing and finger pickings that are only a little too flat. 

The kids go for a good while - but at sunset, there’s still no sign of Tommy and Maria, and the temperature drops far too much for Joel’s liking. He sets the guitar inside before he goes down and whistles sharply; all the kids stop what they’re doing and pay him mind, groaning in unison when he simply juts his chin towards the town square, the universal signal for time’s up, go find your folks at the mess hall. The kids say their goodbyes and run off - except for Sally, who drops to the ground with her legs crossed and begins to messily draw with what’s left of a bright blue chalk stick.

“Sally,” he calls, walking down his steps and to his gate. He opens it and leans against the old wood. “Baby, it’s gettin’ cold, come on in. You want somethin’ to eat?”

She sighs, too big a thing for her little body, and looks up at him with a slight pout. “Where’s my mom? She said she’d be back by now.”

“I’m sure she just got caught up with some work,” he says gently. “She’ll be by to get you soon. But she’d want you fed.”

Sally looks at him carefully. “...Cobbler?”

“Potato soup.”

“...and then cobbler?”

He sighs, smiling. “We’ll see, kiddo. Now, c’mon. Inside. Or I’m wrapping you up in that big ‘ole coat you love so much.”

She squeaks, displeased, and scrambles to stand up, running underneath and past him through the gate and up to the house. He watches, with amusement, that she stops to carefully take off her boots outside before she resumes her speed inside. 

Joel lingers, eyes focusing as best they can in the twilight. He sees the remnants of the neighborhood kid’s playday - various pebbles strewn about, rope for double-dutch, uneven squares in green, blue, and pink drawn in a curvy snake shape in a creative hopscotch idea. He sees Sally’s drawing - a flower with a big golden center - with blue petals half filled in.

“Uncle Joel!” Sally shouts from the house. “You do have cobbler!”

He sighs when he hears the distinct sound of his kitchen chair being dragged across the hardwood floors so the kid can no doubt climb up and reach onto the top shelves of his refrigerator; he shuts the gate with a loud squeak and gives the half-drawn flower one last glance before he heads inside to catch her blueberry- handed.

Joel manages to keep the cobbler out of her hands and hair until he’s fed her some soup, but keeping her clean is a lost cause once he breaks out the dessert. She does her best to keep the blueberry mess off his table and chairs but her fingernails are stained blue and her peach cardigan now has a lovely violet spot on it. He helps her wash her hands in the sink and loans her one of his old shirts to wear as a dress which makes her giggle in delight. She twirls around his living room exclaiming that she’s a princess - he’s pretty sure the only reference she has is Sleeping Beauty as it’s the only Disney movie Jackson has on VHS - and his suspicions are confirmed when Sally spins and spins and spins while mumbling Blue! Pink! Blue! under her breath.

Eventually, when she gets dizzy and tired, she climbs up onto his window seat and looks out longingly at the dimly lit street with a frown. “She’s late,” she pouts. 

“I’m sorry, baby,” Joel apologizes, settling across from her on the bench. “I’m sure she’s on her way.” He nudges her elbow with his. “I got an idea - you wanna build a blanket fort with me? We can camp out until she gets here.”

Sally beams, stretching herself so she’s hanging off him, arms wrapped around his shoulders. “Can we use the fairy lights in the closet, too?”

“Whatever you want, babygirl . Go get ‘em, I’ll grab the blankets.” 

He moves his kitchen table and recliner around his couch to help support a feeble roof made of bedsheets and a cross-stitch quilt Ellie always hated due to its pink flowers. Hanging the fairy lights is a process - eventually, he just tucks them around the edges of the several blankets and pillows they’ve piled into the floor.

Joel crawls in first, grunting and groaning in a way that makes Sally giggle before she dives in, little foot digging into his ribs. She turns and settles underneath his arm, hand resting over his ribcage, petting softly at the soft material of his flannel. 

“They look like stars,” Sally breathes, tone full of wonderment, and it does something to make Joel’s chest feel tight. It’s been so long since he’s seen a kid grow up in a world where they can pretend Christmas lights make constellations, play hopscotch all day, and sleep soundly under a blanket fort in a warm house. “I like stars.”

Joel hums, hand curling around her back to pull her close; his knuckles are loose as they gently rub up and down the knobs of her spine. “Yeah? You gotta favorite?”

“Yeah. ‘Rion. He looks like a hunter. You can see his belt.”

“Yeah? I don’t know if I know that one,” Joel fibs for her sake. “Next time we’re out and it ain’t so cold, you show me, alright?”

Sally lets out a long breath, already getting sleepy. “‘Kay.”

He chuckles, his hand moving up to cup the back of her head. “You fallin’ asleep on me already?”

“No,” she whines around a yawn. “I’m awake.” She turns her head and half-lidded eyes try to find him in the feeble light. “Can you tell me a story?”

“Fresh out,” He laughs outright when her cold toes dig into his ribs and she squirms, not at all happy with his teasing. “Alright, alright, quit,” he laughs again, reaching down to tickle her foot. “Those things are gonna give me frostbite.”

She settles against him once more. “Please?” 

There’s a hundred stories that he wants to tell her - and a thousand he does not. The future feels easy now - but his past is something buried deep and hard to get, fossilized with time. 

But she’s bright-eyed with blueberry fingernails and chalk-stained wrists, unharmed from the violence she was born from and unapologetically open; she deserves a million stories, so a story she’ll get.

“Did I ever tell you about what happens when you give a moose a muffin?”

“No! What happens?”

“Well, he’ll want some jam to go with it.”

“...blueberry?”

“Yeah, babygirl. Blueberry.”

Ellie is standing in the Tipsy Bison , a proud smile on her face when Jesse comes to stand beside her with a heavy sigh. She flicks her gaze over and sees he’s got a handful of darts as an offering and she plucks one of the bright red ends from the bunch like a cigarette before she takes aim and throws it at the dartboard straight ahead.

Bullseye.

“See?” she gloats when his groan gets louder. “That’s how you get ‘er dun.”

She crosses her arms, smug, while Jesse’s hands find a place on his hips, thumbs tucked into his belt loops while he stares at his boots for a moment. When he lifts his head it’s just in time to catch Sam moving Jesse’s prized moose antler from last spring down to third place in order to make room for Ellie’s, right above. 

They had to wait a long while for them to get the crew to drag the moose back; Maria ended up bringing Tommy and her and Jesse’s relief group to help bring the right wagon and horsepower. And even though field dressing and quartering isn’t her favorite thing, she did so without complaint - helped skin and haul the meat back, even pitched in at the butcher’s shop since it was so late. Besides, she was curious to see if her antlers would beat out Jesse’s.

Turns out they do, claiming the spot above his. 

But it’s still only silver. Joel’s antlers from their first spring here are still number one.

They only hang one, and scribble the hunter’s name in chalk on the board beside it. The other one is taken home by the victor - in her case, all 25 pounds of it - but she’s not sure what she’s going to do with it. The last Ellie saw of Joel’s was when he had begun chipping away at the center of it to carve something; she never did remember to go snooping to see if he’d finished. 

She throws another dart, intent on getting another bullseye, but Tommy sneaks up on her and whispers boo! In her ear. It startles her enough that she hiccups and twitches, the dart landing far from the board and onto the ground, almost getting crushed beneath someone’s boot. “Jeez, Tommy,” she grumbles, but he just laughs, clapping her on the shoulder and giving her a friendly jostle.

“Good job on the haul, honey. Meat will do the town good.”

Ellie hums the affirmative even though her stomach flip-flops at the thought of actually eating it. She goes back to the real win at hand. “Did you see I kicked Jesse’s ass?”

Tommy sighs in a way she knows all too well, making her laugh. Because while Jesse’s still on the podium, Tommy’s been knocked off since last year - by Seth at that. “Spring’s just started. I still have time to wipe the floor with both of you.”

“Right,” Jesse teases, taking a dart and throwing it - not quite a bullseye, but it’s in the center. “I’ll try to pencil in shakin’ in my boots before next winter.” 

Tommy pats her shoulder again, this time a little more gentle. “S’late, kid. Best be gettin’ home.”

Ellie glances at the appropriately quarry-themed clock on the wall: the big antler pointed at the five, the small the two. “Shit,” she grumbles. “Didn’t mean to keep you guys.”

Jesse shrugs. “Ain’t no sweat, babe.” he lifts the back of his muddy boot and gently taps the back of her knee with his heel. “Happy to help. I’ll see you next shift.” 

As he starts to walk out he does a little jog and spins around, trying to do some heroic move of throwing the dart last minute; it doesn’t come close to the dart board but it makes Ellie laugh. “I’ll knock you off the podium, mark my words!” he shouts before he slips out the door.

She chuffs out one more laugh as she leans over and picks up the darts, setting them on the bar where the other moose antler lays for her to take home. She runs her hand along the points, smoothing the pads of her finger against them like it’ll prick. Eventually, she picks up the antler, awkwardly hefting it up on one shoulder while her other arm ducks to pluck her heavy bag off the floor.

“Hey, Ellie. Wait.”

She spins and sees Maria. She thinks she’s gonna join in a goodbye with Tommy but she just shoots her husband one of her looks and he skedaddles, leaving her with a weight heavier than the cartilage on her shoulder and bone in her bag. She drops both, more gentle with the antler, and waits, trying not to make her expression too pinched, too gloom and doom.

Whatever she has to say, it doesn't sound too good.

“Eli and Cornelia patrol the northern routes,” Maria states and Ellie nods, because, yeah, she knows this. They always do longer stretches. “Well, last one they went on, they came across an old hospital.”

Ellie blinks, doing some quick math. There are some small abandoned clinics scattered about the state, including the neighboring Idaho, but the word hospital isn’t thrown around much because the big ones simply aren’t around. “How far north they go?”

“Butte, Montana.” 

“Shit,” she swears. “That’s not a patrol,” she says carefully. “That’s the whole mission. Why would they go so far?”

Maria shrugs, swiping a finger across the back of one of the bar chairs as if looking for dust. As if it’s ever covered in anything but. “I sent them there. The clinic’s getting low on basics. Syringes. Antiseptics. You know, whatever we can find.”

Ellie purses her lips and nods, but her mind starts to drift a little; flashes of itchy hospital gowns and oxygen masks, of heart monitors and intravenous lines, all make her go a little pale. Combined with the memory of antiseptic, of blood, of wailing, of pain -

She shakes her head as if it’ll make the thoughts fall out, just as Maria puts up a placating hand. “I’m not trying to stir any bad thoughts, it’s just.” She bites her lip and looks down with a snort, effectively cutting herself off.  “Lord, Joel’s gonna kill me,” she grumbles to the hardwood.

That punches the nausea straight out of her. She fixes her posture and makes herself stand as tall as she can. “What? What’s going on? What did they find.”

Maria stares at her and Ellie can see the internal fight in her eyes, shining in the pearly whites of them. If she didn’t know any better she’d think she was on the verge of tears, frustrated or not, but Maria’s steel, a feminine strength she can only hope to mimic without breaking. Finally, she sighs, reaching into her back pockets.

She slides over two things: a folded, water-stained packet of paper. 

And a tape.

Ellie stares at it like it’s not as familiar a gadget as the Walkman she still has stuffed under her pillow. “Just spit it out,” she says, trying to keep the venom from her voice. “What’d they find?”

“Maybe nothing,” she admits. “Maybe something.” She taps the recorder. “There’s talks on here. From a doctor. Of experiments. A second chance.”

The wooden walls of the bar warp. Ellie’s ears ring.

“That the girl from Boston that was bit and lived is, somehow, still out there.”

Joel gets through his own rendition of If You Give a Moose a Muffin for about fifteen minutes, creating a whirlwind of silly scenarios until Sally laughs herself into exhaustion and falls asleep underneath the constellations of her own creation.

He hears the gate before anything else. Years of hypervigilance has him rolling slightly to guard Sally with his body, but then he hears the familiar jog of boots on the porch steps followed by the soft rap of knuckles on his front door.

He starts to crawl out, but when he realizes his knees are not going to make this a quick process he calls a short “S’open,” and prays his voice doesn’t wake the kid.

It doesn’t; neither does the opening of the door and the slight fumbling of Ellie with her bag and half a pair of moose antlers slung over her shoulder. 

“Howdy,” Joel says from the floor, still mid-army-crawl trying to escape the fort. Ellie cocks an eyebrow at the scene before she sets her bag down with a heavy thud - he winces, they both do, and his head swivels to check on Sally.

Still out like a light.

“Long day,” Joel says, but he keeps his tone light, and conversational. He pauses in his attempt to get off the floor. “Got anything to do with that?” and he nods to the antlers.

Ellie hums, adjusting her bag by pulling out some of the small, spare deer antlers she had been collecting before she bagged her prize. She starts lining them up on the counter. “The other half is up on the wall at the tavern.” 

“Huh. Don’t look like it’s bigger than mine.”

She shoots him a long-suffering look over her shoulder and he laughs, most of it soft and sleepy, the sound caught in his chest. “Silver,” she admits with a grumble. 

“That’s what I thought.”

She rolls her eyes before she heads over to the living room, tracking mud in her wake. She bends, hands on her knees, and peeks into the fort. “The Contractor hard at work, I see.” When her eyes land on Sally the guarded expression she has around him these days softens, mouth quirking into a small smile. “I don’t want to wake her,” she admits.

“She can stay here,” Joel whispers, reaching behind him to trace the delicate skin at Sally’s hairline, pushing back fine blonde strands from her forehead. “I don’t mind.”

“I know you don’t because Uncle Joel and Uncle Tommy are total babyhogs.” She wipes her hands on her jeans before she crouches more, balancing on the balls of her feet. “But we both know if I don’t at least wake her up to say goodnight, I’m a dead man come morning. She’s gonna get Seth to tack my head up on the tavern wall.”

“Well, that’s one way to get first place. Ain’t no antlers in this country bigger than that head of yours -”

With lightning speed, Ellie reaches for a throw pillow and chucks it at his head. 

The half-assed pillow fight is what does it. Sally stirs with the feeling of Joel moving under Ellie’s threat and her blue eyes open slowly , taking in her surroundings. When she notices Ellie she gives a sleepy smile. “Mommy, you’re late.” she yawns, too tired to get revved up and excited for her return. 

Ellie’s nose scrunches as she crawls and squeezes into the fort with her and Joel. Her boots scuff at their sleeping bag. “I know, shortstack, I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’ll make it up to you.” She reaches out and traces Sally’s nose with her finger before she gives a gentle tap to the button. “You comfy?” When she nods, Ellie leans in more and presses a chaste kiss to her cheek. “Good. Go back to sleep. We’ll stay here tonight and go with Joel in the morning for breakfast, okay?”

“...Eggs?” Sally mumbles sleepily, eyes already sliding shut again.

“Yeah, yeah, you little egg goblin, I’ll getcha some.” She starts to crawl out, pinching Sally’s little toes on her way. “Sleep tight, Sal.”

Joel feels his heart hammer in his chest as Ellie crawls out past him, careful not to bump elbows or brush legs. In the last three years or so, Ellie has avoided him best she can, only interacting with him through Tommy or Sally, stating it’s all her anger with him could allow. She’s never taken up his offer for the two of them to live with him, to even stay one night; she rarely even lets Sally stay with him overnight.

But here she is. Staying.

And he can’t fathom why. 

“I need to talk to you,” she says quietly, but her voice is a little hard. He nods, already figuring as much, and is slow to follow her through the kitchen where she starts prepping enough chicory root coffee for two. And even though Joel has felt Ellie has been worlds apart from him the last few years she moves around his kitchen like someone who never left, plucking the two mugs he’s always saved for them - the hand-carved owl one and the Wyoming Natural History Museum mug he got her on her sixteenth birthday.

There’s something bothering her, which is always an unease for him, but he feels a shift - her emotions are bigger than him, bigger than them; she’s got a whole life and he’s just a footnote, waiting to be read. He watches as she gnaws on her lip, works her jaw, and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. It’s when she picks at her cuticle the same way she did when she was fourteen does he realize she’s gonna ask something of him.

When she passes him the hot coffee, she still hasn’t said a word. “What’s going on, kiddo?” he asks. “I’ll help as best I can. Promise.”

She winces, just a little, hunching over and pushing her weight into the counter with the palms of her hands. “I, uh. Talked to Maria today. She said that, uh.” She stops to clear her throat. Taps the counter incessantly with her index finger. “Cornelia and Eli came back with a good haul. Found two things of acetaminophen. Bandages.”

Joel sniffs, mustache twitching, and looks for answers in the black liquid of his mug. “That’s good.”

Ellie hums, pursing her lips. Her foot taps a few times before she finally looks up, green eyes piercing. “They found a tape. And letters. From another old firefly doctor.” 

His heart sinks a little at that. The last tape that Ellie found at a hospital didn’t end well for him. For them. “Ellie, I’m sorry -”

“I know,” she cuts him off, sniffing loudly, then finally picking up her mug to take a sip. “I - it’s. Complicated, I know.” There’s almost a roll of her eyes before she settles down again. “But this one is different.”

He hears hope in her voice. 

“There’s another hospital.”

The chipped walls of his kitchen warp. His ears ring.

He doesn’t remember why he takes his coffee with him as he rushes out onto the back porch, but spots of it jump off the rim and nearly burn his hand. Ellie’s just as hot on his heel, following him out and letting the storm door slam in their wake.

“Sally’s sleeping,” he grunts, but it sounds more panicked than having any ounce of command. He grips the mug and sighs, setting his elbows on the railing and leaning most of his weight into it. “Kid, I -”

He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t think Ellie ever expects him to. Instead, she joins him, and mimics his position; their elbows almost brush. “I want to be able,” she starts slowly. “To tell you. Just…tell you. What I’m gonna do and when I’m gonna do it. But I can’t do that. So I’m gonna do what you didn’t do for me.”

He turns his head and tries to find the green of her eyes in the dark of the night.

“I’m gonna give you a choice.” 

Joel’s ears are still ringing. There’s an angry speech on the tip of his tongue, burning his mouth, making his chest ache. But he’s lost so much of her, he can’t afford to lose any more pieces. So he runs his tongue along his teeth and wills the fire to flicker away.

“There’s a hospital,” she repeats, and hell, if it ain’t worse the second time around. “In Juneau.”

Joel stares at her, not quite believing what he’s hearing.

She takes his silence for ignorance. “It’s in Alaska -”

“I know where the hell Juneau is, Ellie.” 

She bristles a little at his tone, jaw working, but she seems to be hellbent on not letting anger get the best of her. “I know it’s far -”

“No shit it’s far, girl,” he spins to face her, leaving his mug on the top of the railing. “That’s more miles than it was to here from Boston. Ellie, that’ll take you months.” 

The girl has the audacity to curl into herself, to look small - like what she’s saying wouldn’t put anyone into a tailspin. “I know,” she mumbles, picking at her cuticles and lord seeing that he remembers she hasn’t even done the asking yet. “Like I said, I spoke to Maria. She’ll give me the resources. Says that Cornelia and Eli might take me half the way. Could go straight through Canada, Might be a way up through Seattle. Look, I haven’t even begun to really plan -

“Ain't that the truth.”

He’s ruining it. He can feel it, hear it. But the last pieces of her are slipping away. He can’t help it. 

“But,” she presses on, ignoring his outburst. “I can’t do anything until I know she’s safe here.”

She looks at him and he finally sees the green of her eyes.

“Ellie,” he chokes out. “Babygirl, please -”

Her eyes glisten and she swallows thickly. “You’ll keep her alive,” she whispers, a shaky smile appearing on her face. “You love her and you’ll take care of her and you’ll keep my girl alive.”

He itches to reach for her, to cup her cheek with his hand, to scream at her until she knows her worth. “And who the hell’s gonna keep you alive?”

She laughs, the sound faint and sour to his ears. “Well that there,” she starts with a flicker of his accent, “That’s the choice, Joel.”

Chapter Text

“Mom, you’re too slow.”

Ellie blinks, her steady pace coming completely to a halt. Sally nearly trips over herself when the arm she’s been trying to drag stops moving. She whirls around, bright blonde hair sticking up with static underneath her baseball cap and pouts. “Mommy, we’re gonna be late.”

“What? Nah,” she scoffs, but she fights a smile all the same. Sally leans all of her weight into her, wrapping her arms around her and cushioning her chin into Ellie’s stomach, bright blue eyes looking up at her with anticipation. She tries gently rocking them back and forth but when the weight proves to be too much Ellie helps her out, swaying them side to side in the middle of the street. “Tomfoolery and rule-breaking are on their own schedules. We can’t be late.”

Sally springs up against her. “But I wanna go before the sun goes down!” 

Ellie uses her hand as a visor and looks down the main street. “The sun…” she says to herself, playing the part of confused. “Hold on, it’s a little too bright-” and she gently swipes Sally’s cap off her head and puts it on hers, making her squeal loud enough to turn heads. “Oh, yeah. The sun is going down. Imagine that. Why are we sittin’ around? We’re gonna be late.”  

Her girl bounces on her toes, trying to reach for the hat; Ellie takes a knee and lets her daughter swipe it before she lurches forward and collects the still giggling Sally and props her on her hip. “Jeez you’re gettin’ heavy,” she complains. “What, you eat two stacks of pancakes this morning?”

Sally only laughs in response, burying her smile into Ellie’s shoulder. 

She walks them down the main street before she takes a left, heading towards the lookout on the northern wall. Once it’s in plain sight Sally squirms to get down and takes off like a bullet down the road, stopping to wait at the bottom watchtower’s ladder. “Mom! Mom!”

It seems she can do nothing but chant in her excitement, little hands gripping at the metal handle. Ellie keeps her pace and meets her there, adjusting Sally’s hat on her head before she cranes her head, looking up the expanse of the steps. “Alright, shorty. You first. I’m right behind you.”

Sally has her fears: grasshoppers, the dark, the possibility of her Uncle Joel’s woodcarvings coming to life when she isn’t looking. But she isn’t afraid of heights. She scales the ladder with ease, Ellie right behind her, hand ready to catch her if her little foot slips. When she makes it to the top of the tower she scrambles to the edge, soaking up the view. She points at the mountains and exclaims, “It looks just like the picture on our wall!”

Ellie drags one of the tiny chairs from the corner so she can sit and take in the scenery; she pats her thigh and Sally spins around to sit on her lap. “Yeah, babe, where do you think I sat for hours to paint it?” she laughs, blowing a loud raspberry into her cheek. 

Her daughter squirms, trying to find a good place to settle; in the end, she’s so excited about being high up and tall that she tries to stand on Ellie’s thigh, making her wince. Not exactly comfortable.“C’mon,” Ellie grunts, “Let’s make a giraffe of you,” and she stands up in a rush, swooping Sally back up against her hip.

“What’s a giraffe again?” she asks quietly as Ellie spins the baseball cap so the bill is behind her head and unable to poke at her face. 

“They’re kinda like weird-looking deer; super tall with long legs and loooooong necks,” she tickles at the skin underneath her chin, making her squeal. “And purple tongues!” She sticks her tongue out as far as she can, crossing her eyes for comedic effect, which Sally mimics. 

“Have you ever seen one?”

It’s one of her favorite memories, her favorite days - but she doesn’t elaborate. “I have. But, you have, too. Sorta. You remember Giraffe and a Half? ” and Sally shakes her head, which Ellie figures; if anyone would have a good memory of that book it’s her - Joel would read it to Sally night after night when she was plagued with colic. “Ah, well,” Ellie sighs, rubbing a hand up and down her daughter’s back. “Used to be the only story that would put you to bed. Joel, I can admit, did the voices best.”

A frown tugs at Sally’s face, though she’s still staring out into the base of the valley that frames the picturesque mountains of Grand Teton. Her tiny hand comes to grip the collar of Ellie’s flannel, which she knows by now means she’s growing a little nervous. “Hey, what’s wrong, girly?” she asks softly, tipping her head to gently nose at her girl’s temple. “You wanna climb back down?”

“Why do you and Uncle Joel fight all the time?”

Ellie sucks in a breath, feels it stiffen her muscles and pull her spine taut. “Well,” she runs her tongue along her teeth. “Joel and I don’t always see eye to eye anymore.” When she senses a question on her wording, she adds, “We don’t….agree.”

“Agree?”

Another sigh. When Ellie was younger - hell, even Ellie aged nineteen today - never liked being told that she was too young to understand something. But looking at her daughter - who thinks infected are as real as the imaginary monsters under her bed, or maybe as rare as a bear sighting in the woods - she has a hard time squashing that notion down. She wants to explain everything to her daughter - her bite, her immunity, her journey on foot just to get here and help facilitate a cure. She wants to explain that Joel took her purpose from her without asking and every time, no matter how rare the occasion, when a patrolman comes back explaining he had to put down his partner due to an infected bite, a part of Ellie breaks. 

Some nights she lies awake and stares at the burn on her arm tattooed in leaves and wings shaped like moose antlers and wonders if the guilt will feel so painful one day that she could will the stunted tendrils to crawl all the way up her brain and put her out of her misery. 

But she can’t tell Sally that. 

Finding something that doesn’t taste like a lie, however, is almost just as difficult. 

“Joel and I,” she starts slowly. “We came here together, remember?” and Sally nods fervently, because how could she forget? If it wasn’t Giraffe and a Half or If You Give a Moose a Muffin, it was some story Ellie had weaved from their travels, pinprick moments of normalcy amongst all the pain and death.  “We were supposed to go to a hospital, far away. I was gonna…” She sucks her teeth. “...work there. To make medicine. But Joel didn’t trust the hospital, so he made us leave. I’m mad that he made me leave. That’s why we fight.”

When put so plainly, it sounds so stupid. 

Sally says nothing, just keeps petting at the fabric of her flannel, quiet. Ellie gently snags the hat off her head and tosses it in the corner of the tower, trying to pet the static away. “Hey,” she says, leaning in to nose again at her cheek. “I know we don’t always get along, but Joel and I are okay. I promise.”

When she finally looks up, the frown is still there. “You guys had a loud fight. When I was in the fort. I could hear you when you went outside.” 

She grimaces, hiking her up higher on her hip; Sally just tips her head down and rubs her nose into Ellie’s shoulder. “Yeah, we did. I’m sorry you heard that. But guess what?” she sniffs and looks up, shiny eyes looking hopeful. “We called a truce.”

“Truce?”

Ellie tries for a smile. “Truce.” She smooths Sally’s blond hair back. “No more fighting.”

Sally lights up. “Really!?”

“Really, really.” She presses her face into Sally’s hair, a phantom kiss. “In fact, I talked to him and he agreed to help me so I can take this really cool trip.”

Something akin to anxiety prickles at the back of her neck and makes her stomach twist itself into knots as soon as she says it. Sally just turns, her face bright with excitement. But before she can beg to come along on whatever day excursion she’s imagining, Ellie pulls her a little closer into a tighter hug. “Sal?” she squeaks out. 

Sally pulls back and tilts her head to study Ellie’s expression. “Mommy?”

Ellie remembers, distantly, of holding her newborn daughter and having the sinking feeling that she would always be reminded - stuck in a horrid memory of a steakhouse on fire and hands all over her. She remembers being afraid that the blue eyes and blonde hair would haunt her. Would make her hate her. 

But as she moves to cup her daughter's face with her hands, studying it like she might never see her again, she thinks she hasn’t seen a blue as pretty as the color in her daughter’s eyes. That her hair, bright like a beacon and golden like the sun, is something she only dreams of being able to capture on a canvas.

She loves her. She could stay up in this tower with her for a thousand sunsets. She never wants to leave her.

And yet. 

Her arm prickles and burns, heavy with the weight of her potential.

“Mom? What is it?” 

Ellie sniffs, pretending her vision isn’t growing hazy from tears, and focuses on the scene before her: ombre skies, snow-capped mountains, an expanse of growing green that will only blossom more as spring makes her full arrival. She imagines the mountains beyond, and wonders if the snowcaps are as pretty as they are here.

“Just wanted to say I love you, kid,” she says. “That’s all.” 

Joel doesn’t remember the parties at the Tipsy Bison ever being so crowded.

For starters, the lighting doesn’t help. The walls and ceilings are decked in so many twinkly lights that it almost makes his eyes hurt. The town’s a little bigger, too. Not by much, but enough that the spinning couples on the dance floor occasionally knock elbows and the sounds of boots scuffing the floor are like nails on a chalkboard to him. But Joel knows he’s in the minority - the resident Party Scrooge as Ellie likes to call him.

But still, he tries. Because he knows she’ll be here.

Halfway through the night he spots her at the bar sans Sally, talking to Jesse. She’s nursing a drink in her hand and rolling her eyes at every other thing he has to say, but there’s a frequent smirk here and there. Dina comes over a little while and he sees how she clams up a little, cheeks tinged pink in a way that she can blame on the alcohol when it comes down to it.

When a particularly jivey song comes on, Dina tugs on Ellie’s hand, begging her to come out on the dance floor. She shakes her head adamantly, cheeks now flamed red, and steals Jesse’s drink out of his hand before she pushes him into Dina, letting the two of them out to enjoy the dance for themselves. 

“You know,” he tells her, coming up and taking Jesse’s drink from her hand. “If you want to ask Dina out, you should probably stop settin’ her up with Jesse.”

Ellie scowls, reaching to steal the glass back, but he downs it in one go before setting it back on the bar top. “I’m not gonna ask Dina out,” she mumbles, petulant, pouting into the bottom of her own glass. “S’no point. Especially now.” Her glass is set down with a heavy thud.

Joel’s mustache twitches, but he doesn’t comment further. Instead, he takes a few steps back and offers his hand. She cocks her brow, skeptical, but he doubles down, wiggling his fingers in enticement. “C’mon girl. Humor me. I ain’t gettin’ any younger.”

She stares at him a moment, even taking an extra second to scan the rest of the party to see if anyone is paying them any mind. Their fallout is pretty standard knowledge in Jackson and Ellie likes being gossip fodder just about as much as he does. But in the end, she gives in with a sigh and takes his hand, letting him lead her out to the dance floor. “Fine. But only because I haven’t earned my assisting the elderly badge.”

“Baby,” He chuffs out a laugh, “They’d kick you out the Girl Scouts before you could say Thin Mints.”

Her face pinches and she sticks her tongue out, a more childish habit she’s picked up since Sally’s been old enough to start causing a ruckus on her own two feet. Joel’s smile comes easy as he helps her position her hand on his shoulder, the other in his own. “You still remember the Texas Line Dance I taught you?”

She whines and he laughs, giving her a little spin as the music slows down to a much more manageable speed for his knees. “I still think you and Tommy were pulling my leg. You made all that shit up.”

“I most certainly did not. Did it at my prom and everything.”

Ellie swears, but he thinks it’s more from how she nearly steps on his toes in her efforts to keep up. Joel slows them down even more, twirling her one last time before he pulls her a little closer and out further on the edge of the floor, away from prying eyes. 

“I like your hair,” he tells her. It’s in a small braid, wound up in a bun - there’s a bright blue ribbon running through it. “You ain’t never worn it like that.” 

“Ah, well you see -” She cocks her head to the other side of the hall where there’s a small gaggle of children pulling out the town’s shared collective of bright green Super Soakers, prepared to have a battle on Main Street while parents and guardians get drunk in the party inside. “I got bullied into a matching hairdo.”

He spots Sally in her favorite plum overalls with the same blue ribbon in her hair, trading what seems to be a sparkly hair clip for what is obviously the biggest and best water gun. “Damn, girl,” Joel barks out a laugh. “She don’t play to lose, do she?”

Ellie nods to the other side of the bar, where the moose antlers are on full display. “Podium placements for the Williams Girls only, you know that. My baby doesn’t know the meaning of lose.”

“I distinctly remember her losing a stuffed dog - what was it called - Spunky? -”

She deliberately steps on his foot. “ Don’t,” she hisses out, “Say its name out loud. I just got her to stop crying about it. Do you know how many beanie babies I had to bring her before a suitable one was found for her majesty?”

“You’re actin’ like I wasn’t out on patrol haulin’ those things back as well. I really thought I had a winner with Dotty.”

Ellie rolls her eyes fondly. “But it was Tommy that took the cake with Nanook.” Ellie cranes her head and looks back at the kids, jackets zipped and ready for their supervised fight. When Joel looks he sees what she sees - a tiny leg of her favorite stuffy sticking out of her jacket pocket. “I should probably get that girl a real dog before I leave,” she mumbles under her breath. 

He blames the chill of early spring that blows in from the saloon doors for the way the hairs on his arms stick up and his blood turns to ice. He watches as the kids scramble outside, screeching under the friendly fire, voices getting lost as the door closes back shut.

“Joel,” Ellie says softly. Her eyes are on his chest, eyes a little blank and he just hums, moving the arm placed between her shoulder blades up to cup the back of her head; he guides her down, her cheek resting on the pilled fabric of his favorite flannel. “Joel, about - about what we talked about. I know you might need time, but -”

“I’ll go with you.”

She stiffens, head whipping back up to look at him; the ribbon in her hair loosens, fluttering down to tickle at her shoulder. “You will?”

He considered the idea of staying in Jackson, of raising Sally while Ellie was gone - it’s nothing he’s never done before. Joel knows how to raise girls like the back of his hand. And Ellie’s right - under his care Sally will be loved fiercely, protected, given everything he’s got,  just to keep her alive and well.

But Tommy can do that. Will, do that. Maria, too. Jesse, Dina….there’s a village of people who won’t let anything happen to Sally, not if they can help it.

But there’s only one person he trusts to get Ellie to Alaska in one piece. 

“You gotta give me some time,” he says quietly. He does a quick scan of the party - the band is still playing something they can sway to, though it’s got a bit of a kick to it, lending way to silly makeshift dance moves that cause laughter to bounce off the walls. “I want to do some lookin’, talk with some of the traders this summer. I wanna make sure we ain’t going so far for nothin’.”

A younger Ellie would immediately gloat about how she’s somehow gotten her way. But this Ellie is skeptical, looking him up and down in search of more of his lies. “You’re sure?” she asks, voice neutral. “Because I can’t wait too long -”

“I know, I know,” Joel says softly. God, does he know. “I’m not trying to stall you or make you change your mind. I….well, I know better than to do that,” and Ellie lets out a snort. “I just want to make sure you can even get there. Up north, that’s some gnarly winters. We gotta make sure we do the bulk of it when it’s warm. Timing’s important.”

Ellie nods, and judging by the look on her face he knows she’s done the same math in her head over and over until it's likely given her a migraine. “It’d be pretty,” she says softly, looking at the lights hung around the hall. “All those mountains. Think I’ll have room for paper and charcoal pencils?”

He’s brought back to Ellie asking if he can carry her extra books, decks of cards, a sticker book they found in an old abandoned car. At first, he had turned his nose up at it, told her to stick to the essentials, maybe keep lookout for a decent pair of socks. But he learned pretty quickly that allowing Ellie ways to be a kid, was also a key to keeping them sane and alive. He quickly became a pack mule for her decks of cards and paperback books. 

“Yeah, babygirl, I’ll make room. I’m sure you’ll draw somethin’ real pretty.”

Her expression softens - it’s the first time in so long he can remember her looking at him without looking so pained. “You’re such a pushover these days,” She presses her index finger into his chest. “You know that?”

Joel makes a noise of disagreement, but he can’t help the smile on his face when Ellie laughs. “Well, you’re my girl,” he says softly. “I’d do anything for you.” 

Ellie stops moving, but she stays close, her hand still on his upper arm while his is pressed against her back. She stares at the breast pocket of his flannel for a few moments before she looks him in the eye. “...Anything?”

For a moment, Joel is scared. Scared that she’s gonna tell him that she doesn’t actually plan on giving him a choice. Scared that she’s going to go without him on some hair-brained plan and he’ll have to deal with the crushing ordeal of whether or not to follow her. Or scared that she doesn’t trust him with Sally completely and he’ll be forced to let all the pieces go - to send her with her fairy lights and beanie babies to his brother and watch Ellie disappear beyond the mountains.

But the moment is gone enough when her lips curl into a smirk, a phantom of her teenage self. She sways side to side a little to the beat of a song he stopped listening to thirty seconds ago and tilts her head toward the exit. “Even help me fuck ‘em up?” she whispers.

Joel follows her line of sight to the window where he can see several children running around, dodging the line of fire. 

He lets out a breath he doesn’t realize he’s been holding and hopes his voice doesn’t shake too much when he says, “Now that ain’t a fair fight.” But Ellie knows that means it’s a yes.

“That’s life,” she taunts, pulling back just to take him with her, both her hands wrapped around one of his wrists. “C’mon. Let’s show them how real cowboys get it done.”

As he walks outside, the cool air is already a bit more of a comfort than the bright lights of the tavern. The children running about call an immediate ceasefire when they see the two of them. Ellie makes a dramatic slow walk over to pick up a pink water gun, feigning indifference. But the children start cheering loudly when they see her hand off the second one - blue - to Joel.

He’s immediately skeptical as Ellie’s not one for pink. So he asks, “Alright. What’s wrong with this one.”

She sniffs, missing with the gun as if she’s looking for a way to load it. Without so much as giving him a look she reaches out and pats his shoulder with sympathy, telling him, “Tends to get jammed. So better get me on the first go.” 

“I don’t want to know how you know that.”

“I might be second in the moose hunt, but I’m first in water gun warfare. Always.”

He fights hard not to roll his eyes. Joel’s had a competitive streak since he was a kid, and being back in Jackson with his brother and the added bonus of one Ellie Williams thrown in the mix, it’s gotten so bad that he’s had to actively remember to let Sally occasionally win when they play board games. “Listen, kid, ain’t no faulty water gun gonna stop me from kickin’ your -”

He doesn’t finish on account of being interrupted by the worst screech he’s ever heard. “Bu na na na na !” Ellie shouts, holding her gun barrel down against her hip as she does a slow walk across the street. “Wah wah wahhhhhhhh,”

It takes a moment for him to register the tune, thankful that at least his deafened right ear is spared. “When in hell’s name did you watch that movie?”

“Bu na na na, wah waHHHHH.” Ellie’s practical dragging her boots through the dirt as the kids form a circle for the spectacle. “There’s only so many DVDs in this town and every one of y’all is a Clint Eastwood wannabe .”  She does a high-pitched whistle to get Sally’s attention and nods for her to head up to the lamp up the street so the three of them form a triangle. “The Good,” she points to Sally, “The Bad,” She takes a free hand and lifts it up above her head, pointing to herself before she turns sharply on her heel to face him once more. “And The Ugly,” she points to him, nose wrinkling. “Obviously.”

Joel shifts his weight but matches her stance, gun pointed down toward the ground against his hip. “Angel Eyes bites the dust,” he reminds her, gesturing to Sally with the tilt of his head. “By Blondie, at that.”

“Yeah, but this is real life,” Ellie scoffs trying and failing to twirl the gun at her hip. “I ain’t gonna lose. Sally!” she calls. “You know how to play?”

“...Try and get Uncle Joel?

“Hey!” He barks with no heat, sending the girls into a fit of ugly laughter. “So what? We gonna stare at each other for nine minutes?”

Ellie shrugs. “I thought we could just like, countdown from five. Real slow and dramatic.” She gestures to Joel’s hip with her gun. “No cheating.”

He taps his water gun against his hip, exactly where it should be, though he has to reposition the barrel to face down a little more. “ You’re the one that ain’t got it where it’s supposed to be.” He rolls his eyes. “Per usual,” he grumbles under his breath.

But of course, Ellie hears it. Her eyes narrow. “What was that?”

He clears his throat, saying loudly, “I said Five -”

The kids around them work on finishing the countdown. “Four!” 

Ellie repositions her gun down at her hip, finger flexing over the bright blue trigger of her water gun. From inside, Joel hears the absence of banjo strings and bow hairs as the party catches wind of what’s going on. They crowd by the interest, some coming out into the streets. Others pile up by the window, drinks still in hand, glasses covering their whispering gossip.

Yes, Joel and Ellie’s fallout is pretty standard knowledge - so he’s not surprised to see that the whole town turns their heads to watch the band get back together again. Too bad it’s not gonna end that way.

Because Joel’s competitive. 

“Three!”

Joel clocks Tommy coming out from the shadows, a bright orange super soaker in his hands as he creeps up behind Ellie, right on schedule. It’s not like his brother to miss out on a Mexican Standoff like this, especially one where they can cheat. 

And with Ellie? He ain’t above cheatin'.

“Two - AHH. Mother fucker!”

Tommy nails Ellie right in the back of the head with a battle cry before he takes a dive behind a nearby pillar on the storefront across the street. She whirls around with all the intent to kick ass which gives Joel just enough time to sneak up on her and scoop her up, throwing her over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

It’s her bad luck that she drops her water gun; she reaches for his but he just holds it over his head and saunters at a slow pace in the middle of the street. “Well?” he calls to the giggling children.“What are you kiddos waitin’ for? Come and get ‘er!”

“No!” Ellie shrieks, a bit of a whine caught in her laughter. She pounds tirelessly into his back, squirms t get free; he tightens the hold he’s got on her legs. “Don’t you little gremlins dare -”

The kids charge forward like they’re storming Normandy, laughing as they circle Joel and take turns squirting Ellie in the face. The kids gang up on him too - his hair is quick to become a sopping mess - but he can’t help but laugh. Tommy ends up scooping up Sally and setting her on his shoulder so she can get a good angle on Joel and the top of Ellie’s head. 

“Had enough yet?” Joel asks when he hears Ellie make a noise that sounds like one of the kids definitely trying to squirt water directly up her nose.

“Are you kidding? This is nothing. I thought these were called Super Soakers. I’m barely soaked.”

He feels Ellie slipping out of his grip; she could easily wiggle around and get down but instead, she lets him hike her up his shoulder. “Hmm, well,” he says quietly, scanning the street for something he knows is here. The source of all the children’s ammunition. He spots it in front of the leather workshop. “I could fix that.”

Ellie stiffens under his arms like she can read his mind. Now she really tries to break free. “No. No, no, no.” 

He starts walking over to the shop. “What was that?”

“Joel, don’t you dare!”

“Sally, she sayin’ something?” He calls over his shoulder. “You know my right ear ain’t what it used to be.”

“Joel,” Ellie says with as much of a stern tone as she can manage. It sounds more like pleadin’ than anything else. “Joel. Joel. Do not. Put me down.”

He stops. Right next to the water trough. “Oh, put you down?” he says loudly. “Okay.”

Without ceremony, he slowly loosens his grip and Ellie has no choice but to fall straight into the water trough. 

Joel wishes he could have enjoyed his win a little longer but if anyone’s more competitive than him and Tommy it’s Ellie. Madder than a wet hen, she scrambles so her head’s out of the trough and she reaches forward to grab the back of his flannel and pulls.

Joel nearly squashes her as he falls back butt first into the trough with her. 

It takes him a moment to catch his breath. The water he’s sitting in is almost icy but he feels nothing but warmth in his chest. Beside him, Ellie is still sputtering, spitting out water and wet strands of her hair that’s now come completely undone from their battle. The blue ribbon floats in the water and he grabs it before he hefts himself out of the trough.

“C’mon, babygirl,” he says, offering a hand for her to grab. “Let’s get you home and dry.”

He’s got every reason to believe she’s gonna yank him back in the trough but she doesn’t. She just splashes a bit more of the water with her hand up at his face before she lets him haul her out, laughing and smiling the whole time. 

They end up at Joel’s house.

Joel, the softie that he is, ended up carrying a yawning Sally all the way back and up the stairs where he tickles her feet long enough to keep her awake and in the bath for Ellie. Whereas Ellie’s tub is typically no-nonsense, his is lined with five rubber ducks on a shelf made for Sally’s height, untouched and ready to play with all this time, just in case.

She spends an absurd amount of time staring at the ducks, all different colors, wondering if giving him a choice is a mistake. Wondering if maybe, just maybe, he should stay here with Sally and be the parent he’s always been made to be.

“Mommy,” Sally says, splashing in the much warmer, cleaner water. She’s in a pool of bubbles, something Ellie’s never thought of getting, either. Her daughter hands her a rubber duck - blue - the only one not yellow. “Wanna play?”

Ellie takes the duck and gives it a squeeze - it still squeaks. “This one got a name already?”

Sally answers by wrangling all her floating ducks in front of her, spreading the bubbles around to keep them uncovered as best as possible. “Duck,” she pats the top of the yellow one, “Duck, duck, duck,” she says to all the others, and then she points to the blue one. “And Goose!”

“Hah!” Ellie grins, reaching over to pinch playfully at Sally’s chin. “Funny girl. I like it. Goose the duck it is.” 

She plays with her for a few minutes before she gently instructs her to tip her head back to help rinse and wash her hair out. When she’s clean Ellie scoops up what’s left of the suds and makes bubble beards for them both before she scoops her up, gets her dressed, and puts her to bed - Ellie’s old bed.

She pokes her head in Joel’s room but he’s not there. Her nose twitches and she catches the scent of coffee and popcorn and she heads downstairs to the living room where she’s just in time to catch Joel trying and failing to toss a piece of popcorn in the air and catching it in his mouth.

“Glad you’ve got better aim out in the real world,” she quips, taking a bit of a running start to hop onto the couch and sit beside him. Her arm drapes over the back of the couch and she tucks her feet underneath her.

“You ain’t changed?” he asks, gesturing to where her flannel has been partially resoaked due to bathtime playtime.

Ellie shrugs before resting the side of her head in her hand. “I’ll call it a win if I can just get my hair in order before I conk out.”

Joel’s eyes flicker up, face neutral as he takes in the sight of her damp, tangled bob. Then, he sets the popcorn on the coffee table and scooches forward, patting the cushion between his legs. “I’ll do it. Come here.”

She stares a moment too long because she sees a flash of uncertainty start to drag his lips down into a frown. But then she clears her throat and chokes out an, “Okay,” before she slides off the couch and sits in front of him between his knees. 

“Now,” he says gently, fingers combing through her hair, detangling some of it. “You still got that ribbon?”

She reaches into the front pocket of her jeans and hands it to him, the edges frayed and the color darker as it’s still damp from its vacation in the trough. Joel sets it on the couch armrest before he leans over and opens the drawer of his side table. She can’t see what he grabs but she realizes it’s a comb when his fingers are replaced with fine plastic teeth.

It doesn’t take long for him to detangle her hair, but it does take him a hot minute to start braiding. Joel spends ages brushing her hair, making sure the teeth scrape gently over her scalp. He hums through Helplessly Hoping four or five times before he finally sets the comb down and starts messing with the braid.

“It’s been a while,” Ellie rasps out, voice sounding like she hasn’t used it in days. “Since you’ve done this.”

Joel hums, his hands twisting to strands up by her ears. “I remember. Think you were still pregnant.”

They don’t talk about that time much. No one does. For ages, it would anger her, and send her into a tailspin of emotions that she didn’t know how to handle. Screaming, crying, or worse - blank stares and plates of food untouched, nights spent staring at her ceiling without sleep.

Now, it doesn’t sting as much. It’ll always hurt, but time heals all wounds.

Or not. Wasn’t time that did it, Joel once said.

Either way.

She hopes that after they’ve left, Sally wakes up one day to find it doesn’t sting as much, either.

“...Joel?” she asks. She sounds young, her own voice almost foreign to her ears.

He finishes tying her tiny braid with the frayed blue ribbon. “Yeah?”

She cranes her head up at the fireplace where Joel has his pictures - him and Sarah, him and Sally. Him and her. Has them on the mantle like prizes, but unlike the tavern, they're on an even playing field. Every prize is gold to him. But it makes her wonder: “What’d you carve?”

“Hmm?” He tips her head back and tries to find her eyes. “What you mean?”

“With your first-place moose antler? What did you end up carving?”

His smile is slow to grow, slanting crookedly on his face. “You ain’t never seen it?”

“No.” She cranes her head further back, almost hurting her neck. She focuses on the ease of his smile and the crinkle of crows feet around his warm eyes. “Show me when we get back?”

It’ll be weeks, months before they’ll go. But she needs a promise. 

Because she thinks she wants to come back. Even if she doesn't.

“Yeah, baby,” he reaches down and kisses her forehead before he reaches over and plops a piece of popcorn in her mouth. “I’ll show you when we get back.”

Chapter Text

Sally Williams has a routine.

It’s not a simple routine, but it’s the way she likes it. Mondays and Tuesdays are with Dina and her older sister Talia - they live in a bright yellow house that has flower beds on every single window. She doesn’t have her own room, but they have a comfy little cot for her under the bay window which has the best view of Mrs. Piper’s wildflower garden; In the springtime it gets so many butterflies that Dina gave her all these crayons and notebooks so she could try and draw them from her window. She’s gotten really good - Sally has spotted ten different ones just this spring.

Wednesdays mean Jesse’s house. His house doesn’t have any fun colors or flowers, but he has so many cool books and video games. Uncle Tommy told him that he has to be stricter about bedtimes since her tattletale of a teacher told him she keeps nodding off in class - but it’s not her fault that multiplication is a snooze fest. Besides, it doesn’t matter - he tells him Tommy’s not the boss of them and lets her stay up late reading stories and playing games with her. He even lets her keep the retired barncat at his house since Uncle Tommy and Dina are allergic; so even though the mattress is kinda lumpy in the little room she has there, Banjo always sleeps next to her on her pillow, soft, bright white, and warm.

The rest of the week is with Uncle Tommy and Aunt Maria. Maria always spends time doing fun braids with her hair and letting her help make the Saturday breakfast they always have at the house. Tommy lets her tag along for fun stuff around town - she helps pick out apples for the house, helps do roll call checks after patrol routes, and even gets to go feed the horses at the stables their afternoon treats.

(Mom’s horse Shimmer always gets two carrots. Uncle Tommy says it’s not good for horses to have so many treats but it’s a carrot. And it’s not like Jesse passing her all his cookies at the mess hall has killed her yet, so she’s pretty sure it’s okay.)

Recently, he’s been letting her practice riding Shimmer, which is awesome. They have to wait until Sundays when Jesse is around to spot her, but after a few days of riding in front of Uncle Tommy on the saddle, Sally gets to ride solo. Like a real cowgirl.

“When do I get to go outside?” Sally asks one day after she’s helped brush Shimmer so she’s extra shimmery. She looks longingly at the saddle up on the wall, wishing they could have gone riding a little longer today. 

Uncle Tommy waits until he knows her sneakers are laced properly to answer. “What, like on a patrol? You’ve got a few more years before you’re doin’ any of that, my sweet.” 

Sally understands his thinking. All the other kids at school can’t wait to go on patrol. They want to learn how to shoot rifles and kill infected and feel like heroes; but Sally doesn’t care about any of that stuff. “No, just to ride. Do you know how many more butterflies are probably out there? And birds! Look!” She scurries away and grabs her bag that’s almost too big for her, stuffed to the brim with notebooks, pens, pencils, and interesting looking rocks she finds on the ground. She pulls out her newer book, stuffed with pressed flowers and various feathers and shows her one of the pretty yellow ones she found last week. “It’s yellow! I haven’t seen one this yellow, I want to find it!”

Uncle Tommy’s expression goes a little dopey, crinkles around his eyes prominent as he reaches over and ruffles her hair. “If you found the feather here, then that means the bird might come back.” His touch goes softer, moving to brush her blonde hair behind her ears. “We just have to be patient. No excursions just yet, okay?”

Sally tries not to pout - all the adults get onto her for that - but it’s really hard. She hates being told to be patient. Nothing good ever really comes of it; it’s not like patience ever brought Mom or Uncle Joel back.

She tips her head down to hide her frown, toes the dirt of the stable grounds with her sneakers, making as pretty and neat of circles as she can with her converse. “Okay,” she mumbles, already hoping they can talk about something else so the weight of her disappointment doesn’t become so heavy it’s all she thinks about for days. She carefully sticks the feather back in and closes her notebook, using her favorite blue hair ribbon to bookmark the page.

“C’mon, little lady,” Tommy says, extra cheer in his voice. “Let’s see if we can’t get the first cut of cobbler at the mess hall tonight.”

Sally doesn’t have to ask what kind. It’s Sunday. That means it’s Cherry. All part of the routine.

But she thinks of the yellow feather in her bag and wonders if a change in routine might not be such a bad thing. 

“Hear that?”

Ellie pauses, turns her ear to the thicker part of the forest. She hears the rapid fluttering squawk of what is yet another bird. “That can’t possibly be another kind of bird.”

“Red-winged blackbird,” Joel answers. “I said I’d get thirty, that’s what? Twenty-eight?”

“You’re so annoying,” she laughs.

The last time she marched through the Texas Bluebonnets, she had mud caked on her boots that left leaves sticking to her jeans. The sea of blue sparkled with dew drops that clung to indigo petals after early spring rain. It almost felt warm, even though the air was still wispy with winter’s last winds.

Now, four years later, she walks across them in the height of spring. The flowers are dry and at their most vibrant, a soft warm wind whipping the tall stalks against her hips. Her steps are slow and deliberate; listening for an unnerving change in Joel’s already unbalanced gait - there’s a particularly loud cry of a bird from the forest followed by a clumsy shuffle from behind; Ellie instinctively whips around, ready to dive and catch the old man if needed, but he’s got his head high, looking into the trees.

“Western Meadowlark,” and as if on cue, the bird chirps again. “Yep, that’s it for sure.”

Ellie’s mouth quirks to the side, fighting a smile. She sighs, continuing to play the front of annoyed, as she hoists her rifle higher up her shoulder. “Do I ever get to see one of these thousands of birds you’ve apparently identified on our trip across the continent?”

“Sure,” Joel answers before sliding his pack off, no doubt to give his back a rest. Ellie tries to reach down and take it but he gives her a light slap on the wrist before he gently tugs her by her sleeve closer to him. “Look,” he grunts, limping as he moves into her space a little, arm stretched out to point to the bright green forests. “He’s easy to spot. He’s got a bright yellow belly, see?”

It takes a moment, but she does actually see what he’s talking about. Even sees its little beak open to give one last song before it flaps its wings and flies away, a flash of familiar yellow flying across the meadow.

“It’s the Wyoming State bird,” Joel says and it takes a moment for Ellie to clock that this might mean she loses.

“Ugh, that’s not fair!” she groans, moving her pack off her shoulder to whip out her notebook and check her score. “Okay, wait, I got Idaho, the-the uh,” she flips a page, index finger pressing enthusiastically into the paper, “Mountain bluebird!”

“I remember,” Joel grunts, shifting his weight. “You spent about an hour drawing the damn thing.”

She licks her middle finger and flicks it at him before she thumbs through another page. “Wait, okay, I also got the flowers, from, uh, Washington and Montana!”

“I’ll have to take your word on the Montana one. I was a bit out of it.”

“Yeah, yeah, blame it on the bullet - they shot you in the leg, not the eye -”

“-But I got the birds from Montana and Washington. And Alaska. Not to mention its flower.”

Ellie frowns, staring at her notebook. “What was the Alaska flower again?”

Joel scoffs and grabs for his pack once more before Ellie can start to scheme and steal it from him. “Forget-me-nots,” he stage whispers before he decides to take the lead and walk ahead in the home-stretch. 

She snaps the book shut with one hand, her fingers on her bad hand fiddling with one of the stalks from the flowers before she plucks it. She stays still, mesmerized by the shapes it makes when she spins it, while Joel limps ahead, his laugh echoing like a bird song across the meadow. “Thought you’d remember, since it’s blue,” he calls back. “You love them blue flowers.”

She grips the stem a little tighter to stop its spin, staring at the colors. She glances at her book of notes - Wyoming, Indian Paintbrush - when she realizes this meadow should all be red, not blue. “How the hell did this flower even get here?” she shouts, mostly to herself, not really expecting an answer. 

But Joel stops, spins around. 

He’s got a look on his face, like he’s somewhere else, like he’s suddenly forgotten where he is and what they’re doing. The bullet to his leg was a long recovery, already putting them back nine months, but the swings to his head were the worst of it - it jumbled up who he was, left him frustrated and upset. Ellie knows he’s embarrassed when he can’t remember - but luckily he seems to at least remember who she is, and that she’s always there to help.

“Hey,” she says evenly, careful not to coddle nor shout, “I was just wondering how the Texas state flower ended up all the way up here.” She walks over to him before she puts a little kick in her step, skipping the last few feet to reach up and shove the stem awkwardly behind his ear. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say you and your Texan pride put it here.”

“I did put it here.”

Her face drops, eyes searching for a twitch in his face, a twinkle in his eye to let her know he’s about to let her in on his weird joke. But there’s nothing there. He’s serious - she just doesn’t know how. “ What?”

He sniffs, adjusting his weight. “Traders came up and had some seeds and well.” He shrugs. “Might not have been the smartest trade, but.” He gestures to the field, expression a little helpless. “ - Didn’t even know if the flowers would take all the way up north, but I’m sure glad they did.” He reaches behind and plucks the stem from behind his ear and holds it out to her in an offering. “Because blue, it’s your favorite. Ain’t it?”

Slowly, Ellie reaches for the flower, much more careful when she takes it between her fingers; the petals brush against the angry red scars where her ring and pinky finger used to be and they contrast like a cooling salve. Her other hand pets the soft petals, fingers itching to pluck them and make wishes like Dina told her people used to do - wondering if people loved them, or if they loved them not. 

When she looks up she has no need to collect petals and breathe wishes into them. She knows the answer. 

“I suppose it is,” Ellie says, voice a little wobbly even though she tries to hold on to some semblance of cool. She opens her notebook again and tucks the flowers in the back with the others she’s collected - also mostly blue - and thinks about who she’s saved them for. “I hope it’s still her favorite, too.”

Joel’s been a parent longer than she’s been alive; he hears what she’s really saying. “It’s gonna be okay, kiddo. Sally ain’t got it in her to give you the cold shoulder.”

Ellie huffs, dragging her feet a bit as she moves back to collect and put away her things. “I had it in me to give you the cold shoulder. And four years is a long time.”

Joel shrugs. “So she’ll come around. Like mother, like daughter.”

She gives a long, suffering groan as she hefts her pack back on, increasing her stride to keep up with him even though everything in her wants to make the last of their hike last just a little bit longer. The past four years, Ellie’s done everything to give her daughter a better future. She fought to stay alive for her. To bring back a cure. But now, the idea of facing her anger, her indifference - it’s scarier than any clicker she’s taken down.

She’s coming back alive, but empty handed. She wonders if Sally can forgive her for that.

“You think she still hates squash?” Ellie huffs as she skips ahead to climb a rather large fallen trunk in order to help Joel over it. She tosses her pack on the other side before she leans over, arm outstretched.

”Don’t matter if she do,” Joel grunts, grabbing Ellie’s forearm and letting her pull him up on the log. “Tommy don’t know how to cook nothin but fried squash. Bet that girl had to eat it every day.”

Ellie chuckles. “I’m sure Jesse was right behind her, sneaking her berries and sweets.” She fights a grimace when Joel accidentally grips her bad hand too hard on his way off the ground; she does a poor job of hiding it judging by his mumbled sorry. She adjusts her footing on the log. “It’s just -“

Behind her, a rustling. 

Her pack is abandoned and her rifle is raised and ready in seconds. Joel has a poor view from the other side of the log but he takes cover, pistol ready. 

She looks, still hearing the rustle, but she doesn’t see anything. Joel lets out a soft whistle - code - and Ellie’s about to reply when she sees it move into her line of sight.

A moose. 

It’s in the meadow, grazing on grasses caught between the bluebonnets. Its antlers ruffle up the stems and there’s two or three stray petals caught in the fuzz of its points - points, which if she had to guess, were far bigger than anything tacked on the tavern wall. 

First place for sure.

Behind her, Joel grunts. “El.”

Her finger flexes over the trigger; it’d be so easy. An easy kill. They’d go back to Jackson, get people to help her quarter, and they’d have food for weeks. 

But when it lifts its head it looks right at her. Unafraid. Strong. Bothering no one. Just living, enjoying the bluebonnets.

She lowers her gun. 

“Sorry,” she croaks. “False alarm.”

As the moose bows its head, a bird nearby explodes in song.

“Northern Flicker. That’s thirty. I win.”

“Shut the hell up , Joel. ”

It’s a Tuesday afternoon when Dina gives Sally permission to ask Mrs. Piper if she can sit in her butterfly garden and draw. 

The permission asking at this point is just a formality. Mrs. Piper already told Sally she could come and sit in the garden whenever she wanted, but Dina says she still has to be polite and ask every time. It’d be annoying if Mrs. Piper didn’t make it worth it by giving her a snack every time she came by.

Today’s snack is blackberries, so Sally is extra careful not to get their juices all over her pages. She’s been working on Monarchs versus Viceroys for like a week straight, trying to keep all her black lines just the right shapes and her wings as easy as possible. She knows the difference between the two - it’s just a matter of seeing if the butterfly sticks around long enough for her to tell. 

Though Sometimes, she doesn’t draw, or pick, or press petals into her books. Sometimes, she just sits as still as she can to see if a butterfly will land on the tip of her sneaker, or the edge of her finger which is carefully placed amongst the budding wildflower grasses. 

It quickly starts to turn into one of the still days, but she doesn’t really get the chance. Sally hears a commotion from up the road, which isn’t uncommon - people shout all the time in town, but it doesn’t mean anything is wrong or that anyone’s in trouble. They’re just trying to get someone’s attention. She assumes as such until she hears a more distinct sound of “Dina!” being called by her Uncle Tommy.

Sally watches from her grassy perch across the street as Dina jogs out of her house, the storm door slamming in her wake. “Tommy? What the -” and Sally doesn’t catch whatever she says next. Tommy’s too busy tugging her arm and dragging her down the porch and onto the street.

And well if that isn’t a tad unusual. 

Carefully, Sally gets up and tiptoes through the garden, coming to rest against the chipped white picket fence. She crouches so her head doesn’t poke over the top of the fence, peeking through the space between the posts. 

For a minute Dina just stares until she lets out a swear of, Jesus Fucking Christ, and jogging forward to collect a woman in her arms.

Sally remembers her mother, though the edges of her have blurred more and more over the years. She remembers the ruddy color of her hair and the freckles all over her face, though the color of her eyes, she isn’t sure anymore. She remembers that she was deceivingly strong and always smelled like grass. There was a tattoo on her arm - a moth, she thinks - but she doesn’t know what kind. 

So yes, Sally remembers her mother. Enough to know that she’s right there.

Her hair is still ruddy, though shaggier and darker than she ever remembers. Her skin looks peachy, like hers does when she’s in the sun too long. The tattoo is still there - but some of her fingers on her other hand are not.

It’s her mom. And yet - it’s not.

And Sally doesn’t really know how to feel about that.

She backs away from the fence slowly, tripping on her own feet to fall next to her still-open notebook. She cranes her neck to see if her tumble outed her, but it seems her mom and Dina are still caught up in a long hug. Satisfied she still has some cover, Sally scrambles to collect her notebooks and stuff them into her bag before she rushes out the back gate of the garden and hides behind the side of Mrs. Piper’s house for just a moment.

She waits to hear Dina’s voice. “Sally!” she calls, and she ducks further, as if the giant house isn’t already shielding her. “She was just here…” she says. “Sally!?”

“Ain’t no way she’s far, Ellie, I promise.” That’s Tommy’s voice. “Your girl likes to explore.”

If there’s anything said after that, she doesn’t hear it. With a tight grip on her bag, Sally scurries off and bounds down the street, moving as fast as she can without garnering any attention. 

The old northern watchtower is nothing but a relic now since they expanded the northern wall and built a new one with a better view. It’s one of Sally’s favorite spots; the ladder is a little rickety and the metal bars get super duper hot in the summer, which means that a lot of the other kids are either scared or can’t be bothered. No one really goes up there but her, which means it’s the perfect hiding spot.

For now.

With her bag as heavy as it is, she’s slower than usual scaling the ladder - but she’s still fast. She knows eventually Uncle Tommy, Dina or Jesse will figure out where she is, but for now she has a good bit of time for herself.

Or so she thinks.

“Permission to come aboard, captain?”

Sally’s been curled up in the far corner of the tower for what she thinks is maybe thirty minutes (telling time is still kinda hard) when she hears the voice. Slowly, Sally crawls to the edge of the tower to peek down to see no other than her mother at the foot of the ladder.

Mom’s got her hand at her brow to shield the late afternoon sun, which makes Sally think that she might have been up here longer than she initially thought. Sally bites the inside of her cheek, careful of her answer. She doesn't want to upset her by saying no. She also doesn’t want to overwhelm herself by saying yes.

But in the end she gives a curt nod before she crawls back to shove herself in the tower’s corner.

Mom’s slow to climb the ladder. Sally counts the grunts and groans as she makes her way up - there’s even a hush ouch, what the hell - before she gives a grand sigh on arrival, crawling to settle against the wall opposite of her. 

“Damn,” Mom groans, moving her legs so they’re criss-crossed. “I don’t remember that ladder bein’ such a hike.”

She sounds different. Maybe it’s the same, but it’s not what Sally remembers. But memories and dreams have bled into one another these past several months. 

Mom gives a deep, settling sigh, eyes sliding shut. Sally stares, feeling a lot like a deer caught in the woods, watching as her mother tips her head back, letting the back of her skull hit the plywood.

For a moment, just a brief moment, Sally wonders if she should dart; scamper down the ladder and find another hiding spot. It’s not that she’s afraid - she’s just a little lost.

But time, thick like molasses in her brain, ticks on, and it’s another moment before her mom lifts her head once more and gives her a slow-growing smile.

“Hey, kiddo.”

Sally sniffs, drawing her legs closer to her, curling her arms around them so she can rest her chin on one knee. She says the only thing she can think of.

“You’re late.”

The smile grows; she shows her teeth. “ Soooo fuckin’ late,” Mom agrees, voice trailing off into a light laugh. 

But Sally can’t find it in herself to laugh; her mouth twists off to the side, fighting a frown. She leans her head back down, this time turning to rest a cheek on the top of her knee. It makes the words out of her mouth sound squishy. “I thought you died. That’s what everyone said.”

Mom swallows thickly before she bows her head, messing with her hands; Sally’s eyes follow to see where she goes to nervously pull on her ring finger on her left hand - but it isn’t there anymore. Instead, her mom is left to awkwardly flex the finger she has left, giving her hands a little shake before she ends up sort of tucking themselves to her side. She takes a deep breath before she nods to the scatter of her notebooks that spilled out of her bag in her rush to high ground. “You still draw?”

Sally’s brow furrows, reaching beside her to pull her most recent notebook more protectively to her side. “I drew when you were here?”

“Sure,” Mom says. “Chalk, but still. You’d draw the whole day away.” She laughs a little, biting her lip to muffle the sound. “You went around asking everyone if you could doodle on their porch.”

“I don’t remember that,” Sally lies, because she does, if only a little. She vaguely remembers scratching up her fingers trying to use every centimeter of the prized indigo chalk stick.

She expects hurt to flash across her mother’s face - selfishly, it’s what she wants. It’s not nice. She’s not supposed to lie. Or try to hurt people’s feelings.

But Mom wasn’t supposed to be gone for so long, either.

However, Mom just smiles, wrinkling her nose in a way that makes a new scar across her nose appear more prominent. “It was pretty good. You saved all the pink chalk for Jesse’s porch. Dina spent the whole day helping you finish before he got back from patrol.” She nods to the notebook again. “I kept one just like that. Wanna see?”

Sally nods, and Mom reaches around to a small pack slung behind her back, pulling out a much more water-logged and worn leather-bound notebook. “Here,” she says softly, reaching out, notebook in hand.

Carefully, she uncurls from herself and reaches for it, trying her best not to brush fingers. The cover is rough in her hands as she settles it on her lap and flips open to the page bookmarked with a worn blue ribbon.

“Hey!” Sally squeals, any previous apprehensions and feelings melting away when she sees what’s on the page. “It’s the yellow bird!”

Mom laughs a little and moves closer, but not too close, trying to see what she’s looking at. “You’ll have to be specific. I think there’s about four in there.”

Sally gasps, dropping the notebook and pushing it towards her mom before she goes through her own notebook to show her the bird feather she showed Uncle Tommy earlier. “Is it this one? Look! I found this yellow feather the other day!”

She holds it out and Mom takes it, gently holding it by its quill between two fingers. “Hmm,” she hums, staring down at the drawing she’s done. “I don’t…think so. Let’s see…” She licks her finger and starts thumbing through the pages; curiosity piqued, Sally crawls all the way over to tuck herself to her mother’s side. 

Mom stiffens slightly, but she still thumbs through the pages wordlessly - Sally gets snapshot glimpses at other birds her mom has drawn, at flowers pressed between pages, notes she’s scribbled to herself. “Aha!” She finally says, landing on a much brighter, yellow bird. “It might be this one. He’s yellow all over, see?”

Sally nearly crawls into her lap; she's got her face so close to the notebook. “Where’d you see this? Alaska?”

“No,” Mom says. “Wasn’t that far from here. Saw it on the way up.” She gently elbows her at the top of her arm. “We can ask your Uncle Joel, bet he remembers. He became quite the bird connoisseur on our little trip.”

She’s got no idea what con a sore means. Sounds like a dinosaur. When she tells her mother as much she laughs, the loudest sound she’s made since she asked to come up in the tower with her. It eases something inside her, soothes an ache like a balm - in tandem with the mention of Joel, she feels more like herself. “Uncle Joel came back with you?”

“Yeah.” Mom says. “Yeah, he’s here. Clinic. He -” She stops short, swallows thickly. “He’s hurt. Or, well. He did get hurt. His leg isn’t what it used to be. Took some time for him to get better. He wasn’t supposed to be walkin’ on it. We had a horse, but ... .last hundred miles or so hasn’t been real smooth.”

Sally thinks on that. “Is that why you’re late?”

Mom is quiet for a long time. “Yeah,” she finally answers. “Part of it. Wasn’t just him, though.”

Sally tries not to stare at her mother’s hand. But her mother’s expression isn’t all too easy to look at,either. She sees her mouth twist in pain and her eyes glisten like she wants to cry, which is strange, because Sally isn’t sure she ever really saw her mother cry. Not that she can remember.

In the end she looks away and grabs her own notebook, using it to tap at her mother’s thigh. “I keep track of the butterflies.”

The smile comes back, easy and a little crooked. “Bet you counted every single one Wyoming’s got.”

“I’ve been drawing the monarchs and the viceroys. They look almost the same, kinda like twins. But one’s got a stripe at the bottom.” She opens her notebook and shows her. “See?”

Ellie hums, picking up the notebook with care and gently tracing the edges of the butterflies with the pad of one finger. “I never knew there were two kinds like this. Bet I’ve seen both and didn’t even notice, huh?”

Sally beams, excited to share something. “Monarchs are poisonous to other animals. It’s why they’re so bright, to warn other animals they shouldn’t eat them. Viceorys copied them, so other animals won’t eat them, either. It’s called mimicry.”

“Mimicry,” Mom says slowly, like she hasn’t heard the word before. She reckons she has, though. Grown ups do weird stuff like that sometimes. “Does this mean I should grow out a big hairy caterpillar on my face to warn other people that I’m a big smelly oaf not to be trifled with, just like Uncle Tommy?”

Her voice pitched up insanely loud on the big smelly oaf part, that Sally hears a huff of a laugh followed by an indignant “Oi!” at the bottom of the tower. Mom’s grin turns devious and she waggles her brow before she tips her head out the opening. “What!?” Mom screams again, acting the part of innocent. “Am I wrong?”

Sally giggles, following the line of sight and peeking over the edge; she recognizes her mom moving her leg in a way that traps her just enough so she can catch her if she starts to tip too far forward. When she looks down she sees Uncle Tommy definitely not upset, standing next to his gray-haired counterpart.

“Uncle Joel!” Sally calls. She waves. “Hi!”

Uncle Joel laughs, leaning against his cane. “Hi, babygirl. I sure did miss you.” He elbows his brother. “Definitely more than I missed this guy here.”

Sally snickers as Tommy pretends to swipe for Joel’s cane and Joel playfully retaliates by using it to smack at the back of his brother’s knees.

“You girls comin’ down anytime soon?” Uncle Tommy asks. “They’ve got pie today.”

Mom’s eyes go wide. “Blueberry?”

“It’s Tuesday,” Sally says. “So it’s apple.”

“Ugh,” Mom whines, extra flair to make Sally laugh, which is successful. “I mean, fine. I guess.” She nods to the ladder. “Down you go. You can spot me.” She lifts her left hand. “Bum hand and all.”

“Ellie!” Tommy barks, looking nervous before Sally collects her things and starts climbing down. 

“Aim for that dumb caterpillar if you fall, got it?” Mom gripes. 

It doesn’t matter. It’s all just talk. Sally’s a super good climber. Up or down the ladder. She gets to the bottom with ease. 

But still; Uncle Joel is there with an outstretched hand right before she’s about to jump the little distance from the last rung to the ground. She stares at it for a moment, then up at this face - wrinkly with tan skin and a smile so big it makes a weird shape of his big, gray beard. His eyes are watery.

He looks happy. And sad. It’s funny how someone can so clearly be both.

She takes his hand and she jumps, dirt kicked up in her wake.

He gives her fingers a squeeze before he lets go and gives her a wink.

“Alright, let's go eat,” Uncle Joel says. “I got dibs on Ellie’s slice.”

“I hate you,” she laughs, and the sound is so sweet that Sally instantly knows that she doesn’t.

It takes a good while to actually get them seated for dinner at the mess hall. Mom runs into Jesse by the clean trays and they get in some weird playfight where she ends up smacking him a tray and Jesse puts her in a headlock that she squirms out of with such force that Ellie ends up shattering a line of glasses hot off the dishwasher. Dina sighs so loudly that Ellie shouts back that her sigh is so loud it’s gonna break more glasses if she doesn’t lighten up.

“I should tell her there aren’t any vacant houses,” Aunt Maria tells her conspiringly as they set up their spot at one of the picnic tables. “Make her sleep out in the stables with Shimmer.”

“Way that girl smells, I reckon that’s what she and Joel have been doin’ these past few years.” He turns to his brother and grimaces. “Ain’t you ever heard of packin’ soap?”

“Thought I’d save it for you, you old goat,” Uncle Joel gruffs back, sitting beside him. He turns to Aunt Maria and asks, “Speaking of houses…”

“Ellie’s I had to give to someone,” she admits. “I’ve managed to hold on to yours. It’s bigger. Plus the garage and whatnot. We put all her things there. I thought…” Aunt Maria’s face twists up. “Well. If you came back. Three of you could make that work.” 

“Thank you,” Uncle Joel says softly. “That’ll definitely…yes. That’ll work. Reckon Ellie wouldn’t let me live alone anymore even if I begged with my head being the way it is.”

“Damn straight,” Mom says as she comes over with a tray and sits beside her. Jesse’s got two - he always makes her dinner tray when they eat since he always remembers not to let the food touch - and he sets the tray in front of her before he drops a kiss on the top of her head and sits on her other side, across from Dina. “What am I not letting Joel do again?”

“Live alone. I only managed to save Joel’s house,” Aunt Maria explains again. “I had to pack up your things and put them away in his garage and spare bedrooms.”

“Oh,” Mom bites into a carrot stick, uses it as a wand as if it can physically ward off any sort of guilt. “No worries. Thanks a million, Maria. Really. It’s more than enough room for the three of us.”

It hits her then and there that Mom coming back means that everything changes. Her days with Dina and Talia, her video game nights with Jesse, all those breakfasts and cookouts with Uncle Tommy and Aunt Maria. She tips her head down and hopes her hair hides the hurt in her face as she starts to lazily push her mixed veggies around on her plate. 

“Careful,” Mom says after a moment, reaching over with her fork to stop one of her carrots from touching the pile of mashed potatoes and gravy. “The gravy almost got your carrot.”

She looks back up and frowns, noticing that everyone is kinda looking at her. She chooses to focus on Dina. “It’s Tuesday. I’m supposed to sleep at your house.

Dina’s mouth opens and closes, clearly a loss for words.

“You can still sleep at Dina’s,” Mom says easily, mouth still kinda shoved full of food. “If that’s okay with her,” she looks up and some of the stupor falls out of her expression and she nods firmly. 

“Yeah, Sal,” Dina says. “You can always stay with me. That’s okay.”

“Cool,” Mom nods her head before she picks up a roll and harshly rips a huge piece off with bared teeth. “S’little stale,” she says as she chews with her mouth full.

“I hate you,” Jesse and Tommy deadpan at the same time and Mom laughs so hard that Jesse has to reach over her to give her a big pat on the back so she doesn’t choke. 

When she’s recovered, Mom takes a napkin and wipes at her face. “There’s no rush. It’s gonna take awhile to clean up the house. And even when it’s clean, I know that…” she sighs. “I know that you had to do things a certain way since I haven’t been here. It’s not fair to just change everything all at once. I won’t ask you to do that.”

Sally thinks back to the viceroys and monarchs - she got the info from a book with a sun-faded cover that they have at the tiny little unofficial library at her school. The book said mimicry was an evolutionary guard to protect themselves from predators - and it takes time. Years and years that Sally can’t even fathom. Until you get milk snakes and flower mantises and viceroys.

This feels a lot like that. She’s being given a chance to earn her stripe. To learn how to be what they used to be - even if it’s not the same - but close enough, that maybe, just maybe…

Neither of them can tell the difference. 

“Okay,” Sally finally says. She sees her mother’s hand hover out of the corner of her eye, thinking maybe her finger will brush her cheek or pull her head close for a kiss; instead her hand reaches to slide her slice of apple pie right in front of Sally for the taking.

“Only one who gets my slice is you,” Mom says conspiringly, and well - it sounds like what a kiss to her head feels.

It only takes Ellie three days to get Joel’s house ready enough to sleep in.

It wasn’t so hard, considering she put every ounce of energy into getting them into that house. Joel’s leg makes her nervous these days. And his back. And his head. She wants to get him situated and stable as soon as possible so she isn’t on the verge of a panic attack.

It takes about three days to fill in Tommy and Maria with the footnotes of what’s happened, too. She tells them that yes, the horses took them all the way to Juneau. That she sat in the hospital as their guinea pig for damn near a year before they exhausted every single option short of cutting her brain out to get that cure.

Much to Joel’s chagrin, she considered letting them cut her brain out. Encouraged it, if they really thought it would do some good. But in the end, the doctor didn’t think the data would be enough to create something to reverse the damaged state of the world. That there wasn’t enough of Ellie’s anomaly to replicate easily to facilitate a cure. So, no. He decided not to cut her brain out.

So Ellie, accepting defeat, packed her and Joel’s shit up and headed home.

That’s where the trouble was. 

Washington Liberation Front, that’s what they called themselves. Met them in a snowstorm when they ended up using the same cabin on the Montana Canadian border as refuge. Abby was her name. Ellie wishes she hadn’t asked for it. Because as soon as she introduced herself and Joel, all hell broke loose.

She’s fuzzy on the details; partly because she doesn’t want to remember, but partly because the pain of that concussion wouldn’t let her remember if she tried. They knocked her head good. Shot Joel on the leg. Started to swing at his head with a golf club.

Tommy gets real pale when she gets into the nitty gritty. Maria’s stomachs it better, but she can tell it still bothers her, too. Ellie tells them she managed to get the upper hand by feigning greater injury and shot two of her companions. Abby and her got in a tussle - the girl bit two of her fingers off before she managed to shoot her in the head. 

Fixing up Joel - well, she spares the details. Ellie had to resort to digging out a bullet from her left shoulder on top of cauterizing her and Joel’s wounds, but who wants the play by play of that. She had to do a lot to get him what he needed, get him someplace safe. It took a long time to recuperate and find his right mind. But Ellie was determined to get back to Jackson, even if the faces that greeted them all thought she had died.

“Honestly,” Tommy admits when it’s all said and done. “I thought you’d never come back. Thought that was the point. To die for that cause. I knew you’d let them kill you for it.”

From his porch, he can see Joel and Sally playing in the street, drawing with chalk. “What about Joel?”

“Girl,” Tommy scoffs. “Ain’t no universe where he would have come back without you.”

Sally’s laugh rings through the air - as sweet as a bird’s song. She swears she hears Joel claim thirty-one. “Not even for her?”

“He would have tried,” Tommy admits after a long, long silence. “But he and I both know his shredded heart wouldn't be strong enough to make it alone.”

Sally giggles, planting chalk-dusted handprints on the sides of both of Joel’s cheeks, painting his nearly white beard blue.

“Well,” Ellie sighs dramatically. “Sure is a good thing I’m strong enough to drag us both back home, huh?”

“Mom!” Sally calls suddenly. When she looks over, the kid’s got a pebble in her hands. “I found another one.”

Ellie gives a thumbs up, leaning into Tommy to talk through her toothy smile, “Can you tell the difference?”

“I’m convinced she’s making them up just to fuck with us.”

Sally scampers up on the porch and waits for Ellie to hold out her palm, to which she drops the pebble right in the meat of it. She holds it up in inspection before she gently puts the red stone in her mouth and pretends to bite it, hard. “Yep, definitely a rock. Think you’ve struck gold there. Alert the miners. Get to digging.

“It’s jasper, not gold.”

“Oh, well, nevermind then.”

She drops the pebble back in Sally’s hand, who immediately pockets it for safe-keeping. “I’m gonna add it to my collection.” She looks past Ellie towards the other side of the street, where Joel’s house is. “Can I put it in my room? At Joel’s?”

“Dig up Tommy’s front yard and take it home for all I care,” Ellie laughs. “It’s your room, bud.”

“I’m not gonna do that,” Sally scoffs but it does give her the idea to pinch off a few of the hydrangeas from the bush on the side of the house and stuff in her little botany book. 

It goes like that for a week or two. Sally keeps with her routine of being cared for by her friends and family that stayed behind, coming by every evening before dinner to add something else to her room. When it’s Dina’s house, she brings a box of paper lanterns they made at the last Jackson Spring Festival. Another time she brings books she’s claimed are cleanly swiped from Tommy’s house, no fingerprints left behind to tie her to the crime. Another day she brings home a whole ass cat, white and fluffy with bright green eyes. 

Joel doesn’t like cats, Ellie doesn’t either. They both accept their fates when it takes turns sleeping on their pillows. 

Eventually, on a Friday, Sally asks if she can sleep at her house.

Ellie feels more nervous than she has in a real long time. She’s careful not to mess with how Sally’s set up her room but she still makes sure the bed has the softest sheets in Jackson, complete with extra blankets and pillowcases doused in that good lavender soap of Dina’s. Joel teases her, says she’s like him the day he brought Sarah home from the hospital but the similarities are lost on her. Honestly, at this point, Ellie feels a lot like her thirteen year old self hoping that her new roommate Riley would think she’s cool and want to keep hanging out with her. 

Sally comes home from school and immediately clocks the fridge in search of a snack. When she tries to turn on the stove it’s Joel who gently pries the pot from her hands and sends her off to play, leaving him to pop the corn on the stove and cut up apple slices for her to eat. 

Ellie hovers, not knowing what to do, annoying Joel to the point where he nearly takes her out with his cane when she tells him he’s gonna burn the kernels if he doesn’t add more oil. “ Go,” he urges. “Go play with her.”

There’s a million things on her mind. “But -”

“She ain’t mad. And if she is, then let her yell so y’all can get it out the way.”

He’s right, she knows he is, so she slips into Sally’s room to see what the kid’s up to. 

Her daughter trying to pick up the largest moose antler she’s ever seen was not on the list of expectations.

“Mom! Help me hang this up.”

It's propped up on the floor against the wall, and with the weight of and size of it, it’s not exactly kid friendly.  “Damn, kiddo. You've been shootin’ these past few winters? Where’d you get this?”

“Uncle Joel gave it to me! Look!” She bounces on her toes and points out the carved butterflies etched within the antler. “There’s three. One for you, one for me, and one for Sarah. That’s what he said.”

She’d been thinking about this, ever since she let that moose go on her way into town. Wondered what he might have carved into it. Mountains, she had thought. Maybe stars. Maybe he painted it, that was another scenario. He always did like the Tetons. Or shoot, maybe he would have just carved another damn moose in it for the irony.

But instead, butterflies.

Ellie glances at her arm - a moth, not a butterfly, not even like the viceroys and the monarchs Sally told her about, but similar all the same. She thinks of the notebooks her daughter has made. Remembers the stories of the butterfly shirts and stickers Sarah was obsessed with.

They’re similar, his carvings, though not the same. Ellie swears one looks like a moth but Sally says she’s just seeing things. There’s an oddity to them that simply comes from being handmade that Ellie loves, and she could spend all day staring at the uneven lines because that’s what his love is shaped like.

Sally wants it over her window. Ellie fetches a hammer and nails and tries to make a carpenter of herself, but Joel hears one hit of a hammer and practically comes running - as much running as his leg will allow. 

“Joel, I got it.”

“Gimme the hammer. Before you break off your other fingers.”

Sally’s eyes nearly pop out of her head. “ That’s how your fingers went missing?”

“No,” Ellie says easily. She glances at Joel before she makes her unwise decision. “Some woman bit them off.”

“What!?”

“Goddamit, Ellie, I told you not to tell that girl -"

Sally can’t sleep. 

Her room at her mom and Uncle Joel’s is nice. It’s bigger than the one she has at Jesse’s. Has a window just like the one she looks out at when she stays with Dina and Talia. Her Mom helped her put up all these decorations and find a spot for all her notebooks - she even has a shelf just for her rocks. She’s got a night light and a single faded glow-in-the-dark star sticker on the ceiling next to the fan. She’s got Uncle Joel’s antlers.

But Sally still can’t sleep.

It’s probably well into the middle of the night when Sally makes her decision; she wraps herself up like a burrito with one of her blankets before she hobbles across the hall and quietly opens the door to her mom’s bedroom.

Mom’s got her back to the wall, all curled up like a rollie-pollie under the comforter. She’s drawn the curtain open so the full moon spills through the window, illuminating just enough that Sally can see the edges of her form rise and fall with her steady breathing. 

“Hey, Sal,” her mom says, not sounding the least bit sleepy. “You okay?”

Sally sniffs, moving just enough to free one of her arms to scrub at her nose. “I can’t sleep.”

Mom rolls over, tucks both her hands underneath the side of her head. It’s hard to see her eyes in the dark, but she knows she’s looking at her. “You wanna sleep with me?”

“Can I?”

“Hell yeah, you can.”

As she makes her way up to the bed, Mom moves again, rearranging pillows so she can sit up and pulling back the comforter so Sally can squeeze in. She minds her own blanket burrito and fits like a log beside her and despite her earlier notion that she doesn’t need to be tucked in, squishes the blanket snuggly around her. “There.” She squeezes what would be Sally’s hip if there wasn’t so much fabric. “Just try and make a run for it now.” 

Sally tilts her head a little, trying to see if there’s a lamp in the room, but it seems Mom hasn’t put one in. She’ll have to settle by using the light of the moon and stars. “Can I ask you a question?”

Mom pats her again. “Ask away.”

It’s a big question. One that comes out in pieces. “Did you help?” Her voice is meek. “In Alaska. Did you help them like you said you would?”

There’s shuffling of the sheets; Mom sinks a little further down the bed. “I did,” she admits. “I did everything I could. But it wasn’t enough to do what I wanted.”

Sally considers that. "You didn't make the medicine? For the infected."

"No. I didn't. I tried, but - I'm sorry."

She wiggles some more, feeling a lot like a butterfly from a chrysalis fighting its way out. “Does this mean you’ll have to leave again?”

“No.” The word is soft and easy. “No, I’m not leaving. Missed you too damn much.”

Her arms break free and she does a slow barrel roll towards her mother, pulling out a laugh when she finally bumps into her and leaving them face to face. “I missed you, too.” She bops the top of Sally’s nose with her finger. “Hey,” she says, voice like it holds a secret. “Wanna see if we can play hooky and go ride Shimmer tomorrow? Your Uncle Tommy told me how you’re a regular cowgirl these days.”

It sounds fun. But. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. I need to wait until Sunday. So Jesse’s there. He’s the spotter.”

“We can do that,” Mom says. “But we can also go tomorrow, if you want.”

“...We can? You’ll spot me?”

Mom leans forward and presses a kiss to the top of her head before she wraps her arms around her in a big hug.

“Every day of the week.”

Sally Williams had a solid routine.

But she thinks if she tries, the new one might be even better.