Chapter Text
It was freezing outside.
Ellie squinted ahead through the snowfall dusting over the sidewalks. She swiped at the cherry texture of her nose and then pushed on, her sneakers fighting against the pedals of her rusted-over, stolen bike.
Getting to school was always a hassle, though especially in December, and especially in Colorado. The tires of Ellie’s bike would fight against the iced-over sidewalks, always just barely skidding to a stop in time to avoid a car or a bus. Not to mention the cold. By the time that she got to school, she’d be late and freezing, and her legs would feel so numb that she had to struggle not to slump down onto the linoleum tiled, hallway floors.
It’d been this way with each of the ten or so schools that Ellie had tossed around.
Ellie was ping-ponged across a collection of districts and schools with each new foster home she was dumped in. Eventually, a few days ago, she’d won the orphan lottery and found a pair of foster parents that seemed to be too high and wasted all of the time to remember that they had a kid; she’d spent every night so far camped out in the old treehouse in their backyard. When she was hungry, or had to use the bathroom, she’d come inside, and they’d always be stuck on the same couch, but with a different drink in their hands, or a different powder on their laps. It would never be long before she ran back to the treehouse.
Anyway, back to school.
It was Ellie’s first day at this school. It was some weird, public, churchy bible school. It was just as exciting as it sounded, which was not at all. She’d gotten up at six in the fucking morning just to be on time, but the path had been more uphill than she’d expected, and so now she was five minutes late.
Pedal fucking faster, feet.
After what felt like forever, Ellie caught a glimpse of a smog-gray, concrete building in the distance. That must be it, she thought as soon as she saw how fucking depressing it looked. She trashed her bike down by the entrance, not bothering with a lock, because it was too shitty for anyone to bother stealing. Next, she lowered her gaze to the marker on her palm and read her room number for her first class off of her smeared skin.
104.
Ellie counted down the list of classrooms in the history hallway until finally the numbers 104 were staring back at her. She stole a glimpse through the pane glass. Great. From the looks of it, she had a whole fucking welcoming party. A businessy looking lady was standing at the front of the room, presumably the principal, and a much less enthusiastic, older man was sitting beside her at a desk.
Great, Ellie repeated. For a second, she considered making a run for it, but then the older man caught her eyes through the door, and she knew it was no longer an option. Fuck, she cursed before shoving the door open. Immediately, all the other kids, who’d seemingly been waiting, looked at her. Fuck, she repeated, pouting.
“Ellie,” The principal asked, making Ellie’s head turn back ahead. “You’re a few minutes late,” She lectured. “We were waiting to introduce you.”
Ellie forced an apology out of her mouth. “Sorry,” She gritted out, unsure of how convincing it was.
The principal just sighed. Ellie was long used to those big sighs that grownups did when they were disappointed. She’d heard too many to be phased by them anymore. “This is Mr. Miller.” Her eyes leveled down to the older man, sitting by his desk. He looked about as uninterested in this as she probably did. “He’ll be your homeroom teacher. Do you know what that is?”
Ellie couldn’t stop the back-talk this time. “Yup,” The ‘p’ sound popped in her mouth. “I’m from Boston, ma’am, not Jupiter.”
A few laughs sounded from the other kids, which only furthered the pissed look on the principal’s face. Ellie returned her stare, her expression flat with boredom. “Funny.” Her tone betrayed her. “Mr. Miller, it looks like you’ve got another smart mouth to fill your after school detentions.” Still, Ellie’s face didn’t change, and it seemed to annoy the principal even further.
Ellie reveled in shit like that. Grownups liked to punish kids just to feel more powerful, and nothing more. After enough detentions from teachers, or beatings from foster-parents, she’d learned not to give a reaction; even if it just made them angrier, she liked watching that powerless expression on their stupid faces.
“Marlene,” Mr. Miller requested from his desk. “Is that really-”
“Looking forward to it,” Ellie finished for him, still caught in a glaring contest with the principal. Ellie won, and eventually the older woman looked away. “May I go to my seat now?”
Ellie’s teacher sighed from his desk. “Yeah, go on.” He seemed nicer than the principal, who turned and slammed the door shut behind her. “Ladies and gentlemen, our lovely principal,” The teacher muttered behind her once he was sure she was out of earshot.
Ellie smirked from her seat. She squinted and read Mr. Miller’s name from his desk. Joel. He seemed cool. Maybe this school wouldn’t be completely intolerable, or at least her first period. During the next few minutes, she actually paid attention to his lecture.
It was about dinosaurs.
Cool.
Ellie didn’t really remember her next few classes. Her second class, science, had some old religious lady who didn’t believe in evolution, so that sucked. Third period was math, and yet another weird religious dude, who’d been annoyingly keen on eye contact as he introduced her to the class. The next few weren’t memorable: all boring, quiet classes in a boring, quiet school.
Ellie had actually been looking forward to detention. Every minute that would prolong biking home in the freezing cold to go sleep outside in a treehouse in the freezing cold was appreciated. Plus, Joel actually remembered her name when she showed up, which was sort of cool.
“Ellie,” Joel greeted as she walked into the detention room. 205, which was in the science hallway.
“Joel,” Ellie echoed.
His eyes met hers. “Mr. Miller,” He corrected cautiously.
Ellie shook her head. “I don’t believe in calling teachers by their last names,” She explained. “It makes it seem like they think they’re better than me.”
Joel snorted dryly in amusement. “Alright, then.” There was something tired always hanging on his face, like the simple act of pushing a word out was too high of a demand, and he couldn’t bother. His face looked sad, and gray. Ellie wondered why. Maybe that was just what people looked like when they got old. “Phone? You’ll get it back at the end.”
“I don’t have one,” Ellie rejected.
Joel lifted his eyes up from the computer in front of him and sent her a doubtful expression over the top of the screen.
“Really,” Ellie repeated, and turned her pockets out to show that they were empty. “Nada.”
Joel accepted that, though really it just seemed like he couldn’t bother to press any further. “Alright,” He checked her name off of the attendance list. “Settle in. You’ve got two hours.”
“Two hours?” Ellie echoed flatly.
Joel grunted in response. “I don’t make the rules.” It seemed like his attempt at an apology. “Go take a seat,” He repeated after.
Ellie glanced over her shoulder and examined the gaggle of other kids in detention. She’d heard rumors already, even if it’d only been a few hours so far. Taking up the first row, there was a pack of inexplicably tanned girls, considering it was winter, who’d apparently bullied another one all the way into a psychiatric hospital. Behind them, there was a sketchy looking senior, who apparently dealt drugs to other kids in the parking lot behind the school. Lastly, a few jock looking guys, who were serving time for trying to spike girls’ drinks at the homecoming dance. Among all of them, Ellie sat, just thirteen, and hiding in the corner.
Unsurprisingly, after a few minutes, Ellie turned invisible, and detention went by without much drama. At least, none pertaining to her.
Earlier in the day, Ellie had managed to swipe a textbook from the school library. The Rise and Fall of The Dinosaurs. She rested her chin against the bottom of the page and then flipped through with her eyes glued to the old paper. It tuned out the peripheral image of the clock, as well as the distant sound of the older kids arguing with Joel.
The classroom was warm, unlike Ellie’s treehouse, and the seat was more comfortable than the sleeping bag that she’d stolen from a department store earlier in the week, so it wasn’t long before she dozed off.
Ellie slept through Joel’s proclamation of freedom. “Alright,” He announced eventually after sparing a glance towards his broken watch. He sat back and watched the ensuing scramble as the kids all tripped over each other while battling for the box of cellphones. “I’m sure I’ll be seein’ all y'all again tomorrow,” He said above the arguing. Eventually, the tornado left the room, and then it was quiet again.
No.
It wasn’t quiet.
There was snoring coming from somewhere, soft and small.
Joel panned his dark brown eyes over the room and eventually found Ellie, still dozed off, still sitting as far away from everyone else as she possibly could. His face almost softened, but he caught it before it could. He remembered the breakdown that Marlene had given him before Ellie was put into his class. She was a foster-kid, known to be a fighter and difficult with adults, though right off the bat she didn’t seem that way.
Joel was used to taking shit from pissy little assholes in detention. Rich, spoiled rotten girls who’d volunteer their fathers’ phone numbers, thick-headed boys with wandering eyes who thought that getting into a verbal confrontation with him and acting tough would make them cool. Along with those two, came the kids who just genuinely enjoyed being difficult.
Ellie didn’t fit in with any of these crowds. She was quiet, and the entire time, she’d just read, even when one of the boys had thrown a crumpled up ball at her head, most likely with some cruel note scrawled inside. Joel’s first impression was that she was a good kid.
Joel’s first impression was that Ellie reminded him of Sarah.
Stop.
Joel forced the name out of his mind. With a creak from his old bones, he forced himself up from his seat and then grumbled down the path of desks until he made it to Ellie’s. Briefly, he glanced over the book underneath her slumbering face.
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs.
Joel almost raised an eyebrow. Maybe he’d finally have a student who actually cared about what he was teaching, or even listened.
“Ellie,” Joel eventually beckoned. He stood above Ellie and watched her features tighten for a moment when he called her name, but then quickly relax and return to her state of slumber. “Kid. Hey.” With a brief nudge, she fussed in complaint, and then eventually stirred. “Hey,” He repeated, taking a step back and then leaning against the radiator beside them. “You’re free to go.”
Ellie yawned for a long moment, and then stretched her arms out, and then finally sat up. She brushed the drool off the side of her face. Ten years ago, it would’ve made Joel smile, but now it only reminded him of what he’d lost. “Oh,” She replied eventually, and then began to bury her things in her backpack, which looked older than her, along with her all but shredded sneakers. “Sorry for sleeping on your desk.”
Joel turned back to his desk. “That’s alright,” He muttered.
Ellie talked as she woke up more and packed her things. Joel was beginning to learn that she did a lot of talking. “I liked your lecture on dinosaurs,” She granted as she stuffed her book into her sagging bag. “It sounded like you actually knew what you were talking about, which seems rare for this school.”
Joel almost smirked. “Who else have you got?” He questioned behind hollow curiosity.
“Well, my science teacher doesn’t believe in science,” Ellie started. “She just spends the whole class talking about God and stuff.”
“That’d be Mrs. Smith,” Joel nodded. “Who else?”
“My math teacher’s also weird,” Ellie continued. “He doesn’t really teach. He just praises you if you get it, and lets you sink if you don’t. He’s my gym teacher, too.”
“Mr. Matthews,” Joel confirmed again, though his tone was shorter. He’d never liked David. He couldn’t count on two hands how many girls had come up to him about David, scared or full of complaints. Still, Marlene never cared, because David kept the test scores high and the budget low, and that was all that’d ever mattered to her. “Are you doin’ any extracurriculars?”
Ellie smiled. “I think detention’ll be taking up most of my time,” She replied honestly.
Joel huffed. “Got to appreciate that can-do attitude,” He echoed. His tone was drab and flat, but it was still the first joke he’d made in almost ten years.
“Grownups don’t like me,” Ellie shrugged. “Actually, kids probably like me less,” She added a second later.
Joel again fought a softening expression. Sarah had always had a hard time in school, too, and he’d never understood why. His kid was kind, and smart, and awesome, as he’d so often told her, much to her annoyance. “You’ll make friends,” He corrected, though he knew how little that probably helped, especially when his voice was still stuck in that distant, unavailable tone that it’d been in for the last ten years. “Just hang in there.”
Ellie scoffed as she finished with her backpack. “Geez, I feel so much better now that you just quoted a cat poster at me.”
“I bet,” Joel returned the tease, though again his voice was lacking life. It didn’t stop the smile that curled onto Ellie’s lips. She turned her face down to slip her coat on, that of which was much too big on her and clearly donated or stolen, and then made a point to smile up at him again.
“See you tomorrow, Joel,” Ellie waved as she retreated towards the classroom door.
Joel could tell that the name thing was going to be sticking around. “See you tomorrow, Ellie.” He echoed just as she disappeared into the hallway. His eyes lingered on the door for a few more seconds, but then he picked himself up again and started to collect his things, too.
Joel’s shitty, old pickup truck welcomed him into the parking lot. He caught a brief glimpse of a kid in the distance, Ellie when he squinted, and her rusted, barely-together old bike. He found himself worrying about her in the less than freezing weather and icy road, but then immediately lectured himself for caring.
Christ, Joel admonished himself as he stepped into his truck. He turned the heat on, and tried to let his mind wander away from how he was sitting here all nice and warm while a little girl was biking home alone in the freezing snow and pitch black. Why the hell do you care? He forced the thoughts away as he turned the engine of his truck over.
On the drive home, Joel blasted some of his country music and managed to effectively irradiate the worries from his head. It didn’t matter much, because as soon as he got home, despite his best attempts to take her out of the house, Sarah’s name consumed his thoughts immediately.
Joel had tried to minimize Sarah’s presence after she died, for his own sake and sanity. All of the family picture frames that had once hugged the old house’s walls with pride were now hidden either in the attic or in dressers. In the back of his mind, he knew that his baby deserved better than to be stuffed away in a box, but she also hurt him too much to take out, so that was exactly where she stayed.
Joel welcomed the sensation of a cold beer spilling down his throat. The numb feeling that he’d been looking for with it was soon to follow, and he fell asleep on the couch to the same type of shitty action movie that Sarah would have made fun of him for ten years ago.
As always, her blood filled Joel’s nightmares. The feeling of her skin underneath his fingertips, freezing cold and bruised and trembling. The image of her face, also bruised and cut and all but hidden under an oxygen mask, along with her eyes, even more terrified and stiff than the rest of her, broke into him like how they had twenty years ago.
The entire time Joel was in Sarah’s hospital room before she’d passed, she hadn’t managed a word. All he’d had of her was her eyes, terrified and filled with tears until they closed forever. He could still feel the panic of watching them go down in his chest, even twenty years later.
“I’m right here, baby girl. I’m right here with you now. I’m not movin’ an inch, okay? I’ve got you.”
Joel didn’t know if any of that had actually comforted Sarah in her final hours. He hoped it had. The debate kept him up every night, like this one.
Joel laid in his bed until the pitch black of the sky began to transform with the colors of dawn. Sarah’s ghost gave him hollow company the entire time while he rotted away, until eventually he managed to force himself out so that he could get ready for work.
The shower that Joel took was cold, like maybe if he shocked his mind enough, he could drive Sarah out of it. It worked a little, but not enough, and so her ghost came with him to work, too.
All of Joel’s classes usually went by monotonously. He taught prehistoric history first, third, and seventh period with his eighth graders. Even if none of his students bothered to pay attention, especially during first period, he reveled in the class, because it pissed off some of the preachier teachers, namely David. That felt satisfying.
Joel’s class was always especially uninterested during first period, mainly because it was seven o’clock in the morning and none of them wanted to be there. So, he’d made a habit of getting through that class, like he was reading off of a script until the bell rang.
Well, it changed this morning.
Halfway through a lecture about how archaeologists had just found a T. Rex fossil with some potential DNA inside of it, and the ramifications of that discovery, Joel saw a hand shoot up from the corner of the room. The realization stopped him, like a chicken with three heads had just snuck its way in. He couldn’t remember the last time any of his students had given a damn about anything that he was saying.
But now, here Ellie was, raising her hand and waiting impatiently as if anyone else was going to come along and take her spot.
“Ellie,” Joel nodded her way. A few heads picked up at her name, a few rolled eyes and disapproving glares, while the rest continued staring at their phones.
“Do you think they could clone it?” Ellie questioned, enamored. The pure excitement on her face had a smile daring to spread over Joel’s face, but he stopped it.
“You mean like Jurassic Park?” Joel drawled back, to which he received a very pleased nod, like he’d just become much cooler in Ellie’s eyes. “Well, anythin’s possible, and it’s been done before. An extinct species of goat was brought back a few years ago. Maybe the same thing could happen here.”
Ellie grinned at that. “That’s cool,” She decided, settling down against her desk and already daydreaming of T. Rexes.
Joel watched from the front of the room, nearly wearing a smile, before he forced his focus elsewhere, terrified of the lack of nothing on his face.
He didn’t know, but it was going to become a habit.