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"I need to know when Joel's birthday is," Ellie says. She's bouncing on her heels, full of energy despite a night spent sleeping on the ground in the woods.
Tommy looks up from the horse he's brushing. "Anyone ever teach you how to say please?" The corner of his mouth is tugging up like it always does when he sees her, but then his nose wrinkles. "You smell like shit, girl."
"We just got back from our trip." She hoists herself up onto a crate and kicks her feet back and forth and sniffs her shirt. She does smell pretty rank. "My birthday surprise." She's pretty sure Tommy knew all the details beforehand, considering Maria told Joel about the museum in the first place.
"And you decided not to shower before coming to stink up my stables?" Ellie blows a raspberry at him and the horse he's brushing, Shimmer, copies her. Ellie doesn't even laugh, and that's how Tommy knows she's serious.
"Told Joel I wanted to see my favorite horse," she says, a little absentmindedly. She tightens her ponytail and adjusts the bandage on her forearm. The sooner she gets this out of him the sooner she can get home and she and Joel can watch that movie he mentioned. "Will you tell me? Please?"
Tommy sighs and puts down the brush. He has no children of his own but he remembers being Sarah's uncle like it was yesterday. And now he's got this girl to contend with, and while it's been less than a year, he figures he's fallen back into the role pretty naturally, considering she feels comfortable coming to him about this.
"Now, you know how Joel is about that stuff, Ellie." She nods, twisting her fingers in her lap. He can see the calluses she's already starting to build from playing the guitar Joel found for her.
"I know," she grumbles. "I just--" she sighs, big and heavy and far too serious for a girl her age. "This was really good, Tommy. And I never get to do anything for him."
"You don't have to do anything for him," he chides her. "That's not how it works." Between a father and a daughter, he wants to say. Between family.
"That's how it works for us," she says firmly. "We take care of each other." It's Tommy's turn to sigh. These two are are going to run him ragged.
"Alright," he says. She pumps her fist in the air and pulls her notebook from her back pocket, primed and ready. "But you gotta know, Ellie, it's...there's a reason he don't celebrate it."
Ellie rolls her eyes. "What, did the world end on his birthday, or something?" Tommy says nothing. Her jaw drops. "No fucking way. Really?" She digests the information, brain running a million miles a minute, eyes blinking rapidly. "But Maria told me that that's when..." Everything comes together all at once and all the air goes out of her like a popped balloon. "Fuck." Her chest hurts.
"Yeah," he says, tucking his hands into his pockets and walking around Shimmer to stand in front of her. "Scootch." She slides to the side and he sits beside her on the crate.
Ellie sighs again. "There's no way I can do anything without making him sad," she says. "God, that fucking sucks."
"Sure does." Tommy chews on his lip. "But I think if anyone could make him happy on his birthday, it's you."
She scoffs. "Me? Tommy, he barely tells me anything. I didn't even know all of this happened." It doesn't hurt that he doesn't tell her things, not exactly. Ellie just feels a little helpless because this is something she can't fix with a joke book or a movie night.
"I don't think it's that he doesn't want you to know," he says carefully. "He just doesn't know how to talk about it." Shimmer gets tired of being ignored and clomps over to nose at Ellie's shoulder.
"Yeah," Ellie says softly. "Oh, well." She strokes the horse's cheek and taps her fingers on her knee.
"September 26th," Tommy says. Ellie almost gets whiplash from how fast she turns her head to look at him.
"Really?" she breathes. She grabs her notebook again and writes the date down before hopping off the crate.
"Ellie," Tommy says. "Just...don't go over the top, okay? Start small." Ellie nods, full of energy again. Tommy wonders how she carries all of her moods around in such a small frame.
"I won't, I swear," she says. "Thanks, Tommy!" She rocks on her heels for a second and Tommy wonders if she's going to hug him but then she darts out of the stables before he can finish the thought.
"You're welcome," he says to the summer night air. Shimmer whinnies. "Enough outta you," he chides, before picking up the brush again to finish his chore.
[Tommy tells Joel about the conversation early the next morning when they meet for wall patrol. Joel just sighs but Tommy can tell he's charmed. They're all charmed by that little girl. How could they not be?
"Did she at least as you nicely?" Joel asks him.
Tommy laughs. "Actually, yes," he says.
Joel snorts. "She must like you, then." Tommy isn't ashamed of how be beams at his brother.
"Hey, she didn't ask about my birthday." Joel shoves him.]
Days aren't really set in stone the same as they must have been before the outbreak, so Ellie has no way of knowing that it's actually September 26th. But she decides that the Jackson calendar is going to have to do, and when the day finally rolls around she does her best not to give everything away.
When she leaves her shed and comes into his house she finds a note on the kitchen counter that he's on out of town patrol and should be back by the time the sun sets. Ellie knows his patrol schedule, but Joel always leaves her a note telling her where he is just in case. She thinks it's nice.
"Happy Birthday, Joel," she says to the empty kitchen, trying it out. She won't say it to him, she decided. She's not going to even let on that she knows. But she hopes that the words seep into the floors, the walls, the air of this house so that he feels it.
Ellie goes to the small Jackson school and spends most of the half-day of lessons trying to still her bouncing leg and not to zone out too blatantly. Joel tells her that she has to go until she's 16 at least, and then they can revisit the idea. When the day ends, she runs to the stables to get her chores done as if it'll make the day go faster. She's just finished replacing hay bales when Tommy knocks on the siding so not to spook her.
"Hey, kid," he says. "Got all your big plans in place?" Ellie blows a piece of hair from her face and doesn't look at him.
"I don't what you're talking about," she says. "I went to school, in case you were trying to see if I didn't." Sometimes she just doesn't want to sit in a classroom, okay? It's weird.
"Alright, I'll guess." Tommy whistles the first few bars of Happy Birthday. Ellie wonders if they're the only two people in the whole world who know it's Joel's birthday, along with Maria. "Are you...going to make him a cake?"
Ellie's brain screeches to a halt. "A...cake?" Holy shit. "Fuck, no. Should I? Oh my god, obviously people have cakes on their fucking birthday --"
"Woah, woah," Tommy says, putting his hands on her shoulders gently. "Slow down. You don't need to make him a cake, Ellie."
"I don't even know if he likes cake," she says morosely.
"Don't matter," he tells her. "Whatever you have planned will be great. Joel would be happy even if the only thing you did was talk about your day when he comes home."
"Lame," Ellie says, but she feels warm inside. Tommy lets her go and she eyes him. "We're doing more than that. I'm not going to say happy birthday or anything but we'll watch a movie and I have a small present for him." She narrows her eyes. "Maria didn't tell you what it is, right?"
Tommy puts his hand over his heart like she's wounded him. "No, she said I wasn't allowed to know in case I spoiled it for Joel." Ellie nods once, satisfied. Almost a month ago, Maria had taken Ellie on a rare supply outing that she strong-armed Joel into letting her go on. They'd been in a hotel break room and Ellie had opened a drawer and gasped so loud that Maria almost shot it. Inside were six perfect packets of something Joel had only ever told her about -- instant coffee. It was the perfect find and Maria had agreed to keep them at her house, since Ellie is convinced that Joel can smell coffee from a mile away.
"Whatever it is, I know he'll love it, kid," Tommy tells her. He checks his watch. "Almost time for him to be back. I'll finish cleaning, you go on now." Ellie looks at the sky and sees it start to turn pink. She runs off without another word and wonders when Tommy's birthday is. She'll have to ask Joel.
Her next stop is Maria's house to pick up the coffee. She knocks and keeps her hands shoved in her pockets so she doesn't mess with the bandage under her long sleeves. Maria opens the door almost immediately, plastic bag in hand.
"I'm surprised you weren't here at the crack of dawn to get this." Ellie scowls and Maria laughs at her. Are adults always this annoying? she wonders.
Maria holds out the bag and Ellie takes it gingerly. "Thank you," she says softly.
"You can count 'em if you want," Maria says, amused. Ellie was thinking of doing just that, so she opens the bag and sure enough, there they are: six red packets no wider than the blade of her knife. "You remember how I told you to make it?"
From anyone else, in any other circumstance, Ellie would be annoyed. But she so badly wants to get this right, so she just nods. And then she thinks about how none of this would be possible without Tommy and Maria -- the safety and security of her and Joel's lives -- and she reaches into the bag and pulls out one of the packets.
"Here," Ellie says. "If you want it. Thank you for keeping them for me."
Maria's eyes go wide. "Oh, Ellie," she says. "No, these are your gift to Joel. You found them." Ellie shakes her head and pushes her hand out more.
"Come on, before I change my mind," she says, tampering down a smile. Maria takes the packet and tucks it in her pocket.
"He's going to love it, Ellie," she says softly. Ellie grins at her and runs all the way back to Joel's house, the bag tight in her hand. Once she gets home, she grabs her guitar and brings it into the house, tucking the packets into her back pocket. She finds the final piece of her plan -- the Jurassic Park VHS tape they watched on her birthday. She figures that they can make it a birthday tradition.
And then she waits, strumming the song she's trying to learn and wincing when her fingers start to feel raw. She's so focused that she hardly hears Joel come in until he calls her name.
"Ellie!" His footsteps -- always heavy here, so he doesn't startle her -- echo through the house. "I'm home." He appears in the hallway and she sets her guitar aside.
I can see that, she might say, but she's so glad to see him that she doesn't snark back. "Hi," she says instead. "How was patrol?" The instant coffee is burning a hole in her back pocket.
"Nothin' new." He leans on the door frame. He's clean, she notes, which is nice, since she knows he hates washing blood out of their clothes. "Actually, not true," he says. He holds up a finger and digs in every one of his pockets before he pulls out a closed fist. She hops off the couch and stands in front of him, automatically curious. He opens his hand to show her three guitar picks.
"No way," she breathes. "Joel!"
"You were soundin' good but I know you're always losin' em. Thought I'd scoop these up for you." He drops them into her open hands and rubs his neck.
"I am not always losing them!" Ellie retorts, fingering the black plastic.
Joel scoffs. "Well, if you want to give your fingers a break, best to keep track of them."
"Thanks, Joel," Ellie says. Here he is, giving her something on his birthday. Ellie feels that familiar swell in her chest. She feels it when her teacher calls Joel her dad, when she tells her friends that she's going home at the end of the night. This is what it's like to be loved.
"Sure thing, kiddo," he says. He swallows and walks back to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. She knows this Joel -- he's being overly casual, the closest to nervous that he gets. He's this way when they run into that pretty lady in town, sometimes. "You got any plans tonight?" he asks her.
"I--" she starts, about to ask him to watch a movie. But she wants to see what he's going to ask her, first. "No," she says.
"You wanna watch a movie?" Ellie grins so wide she thinks her face might split open. Joel wants to watch a movie with her on his birthday. She can't wait to tell Tommy about this. Joel turns back from the sink so she tampers down her smile.
"Sure," she says. "I was gonna ask you the same thing, anyway." He gives her what she likes to call the Joel Smile, the one he gets after she tells him a particularly bad joke or when she asks him to listen to her play guitar. The one he gave her in the space shuttle at the museum.
"You pick," he says. "I'm gonna shower." He heads for the upstairs before calling back to her. "But Ellie, please not Alien again."
She laughs. "You just don't appreciate science fiction!"
"What I don't appreciate is you breaking the bones in my hand during every jump scare."
"I do not," she calls, but he's already clomping up the stairs. "Asshole," she mutters to herself.
She gets some popcorn going on the stove and puts the kettle on the burner next to it. Joel showers quick, she knows, hardly ever bothering to boil water on the hot plate for a warm one. He doesn't seem to be phased by cold water, which she finds revolting, but that's Joel. She can hear it turn on and off in a matter of minutes. He comes down the stairs in his boots just as the popcorn is finishing -- neither of them are very good at taking their shoes off for anything but sleeping, still -- and shuffles around the living room.
"Jurassic Park?" he calls, clearly having found the tape she laid out. She pours the popcorn in a bowl and then carefully pulls out the instant coffee packets, spreading them on the counter before opening one with slightly shaking hands. She empties it into Joel's owl mug just like Maria told her to and pours the hot water over it. "I really gotta get eyes out for the second one," Joel keeps talking. "Not as good, but there's a girl in it who I think you'll like--" He cuts himself off.
She stirs the cup of coffee a few times before grabbing it in one hand, and the popcorn in the other. "There's a second one?" she says. He doesn't take the bait.
"Ellie," Joel says, sounding serious. "Ellie, either I'm having a stroke or I smell coffee." She walks carefully into the living room to see him on the couch, turned so he's facing her.
"Tommy says you smell burnt toast when you have a stroke," she says primly. He's got the TV set up already, the screen paused at the start of the tape. His eyes go wide at the mug in her hands. She puts the popcorn on the table and stands in front of him for a second before she hands over the mug. Joel takes it from her gently, eyes wide and blinking like he's forgotten how to talk.
"It's instant," Ellie says, words pouring out of her before she can stop them. She keeps her eyes on her hands, wringing them and tugging at her knuckles. "Which I know isn't great, like you've said, but I found it totally untouched in a drawer in that hotel Maria and I cleared last patrol and I've got four more packets--"
"Ellie," Joel says, softly. She stops talking right away and looks at him. "You're telling me you made me a cup of coffee and there are four more in my future?" She nods. "Well, shit." Joel inhales the steaming mug deeply, eyes fluttering shut. "I'll be damned." He takes a sip, the smallest sip she's ever seen, and smiles.
"Is it...good?" she asks. He hums and opens his eyes. The lines at the corners of them are deep when he smiles.
"Wanna try?"
Ellie shakes her head. "It's your pres--uh, it's your coffee, Joel." He just raises his eyebrows at her and she knows that he knows what this is for. So she folds and sits next to him, a little closer than she normally would. She tucks her legs underneath her and her knees dig into his thigh. She knows she'll end up falling asleep on him before the end of the movie.
"It's hot, so be careful," he tells her. She takes the mug from him and smells it.
"Smells like dirt," she mumbles. He snickers. She tries it and tries not to sputter. "Tastes like dirt, too. Fuck, Joel, this shit is awful." Joel laughs, a full belly laugh that she's heard more often these days but still feels like she's won a prize.
"More for me," he says, delighted. He takes the mug back from her and she reaches forward to grab the remote and press play. "There are three of these movies, by the way," he says. "Third one sucked. But I do think you'd like the second one."
The opening sequence of the movie plays and as the park men realize that the dinosaur is really going to fuck up their night, Ellie can't help herself.
"I do okay?" she asks very softly, echoing Joel's words to her on her birthday in the space shuttle. Ellie cannot do so many things for Joel -- she can't bring back his old life, she can't undo the horrors that he's seen and done, she can't make the world safe for them beyond the walls of Jackson. But she can make him a cup of coffee and she can love him, and she hopes that can be enough.
He's quiet and she wonders if she's ruined the whole thing by hinting that she knows it's his birthday. But then he pats her knee once, twice, before stretching his arm over the couch cushion behind her.
"Yeah, kiddo," he says. "You did great."