[It's hours before she replies. Ellie doesn't know where those hours went. She woke up wedged into a corner of the tiny bathroom of her apartment, covered in sweat, her throat raw and her heart pounding.
In the past few days, she's been two completely different people. She's died, remembers her own death in vivid detail. She's been holding her shit together and doing a damn good job of it.
She hasn't had an episode since the first week she came to New Amsterdam.
This one has her skin tingling, hurting, aching so much she wants to rip it off. She stares his name, his innocuous conversation with Nathan, Nathan responding like it's normal, like it's all a normal fucking day.
call it selfishness. call it hope. call it whatever you want. nothing changes the fact that joel cannot, should not be alive, and that no amount of henries reassuring him that they have the best medical care available, that they pulled him back to the brink has really hit home with him.
but ellie can't, shouldn't be here. she ought to be in jackson. it's her home. the one place in the world she's made a place for herself that's purely, solely hers.
(he thinks he saw her there, at the end. but he sure as hell hopes not. just the neurons firing in a dying brain. because if she was there, if she watched —
some things you don't come back from.)
he might have doubted it was even her if she'd said literally anything else. funny how one little comment can banish all doubt. ）
Ellie?
（ miller. it ain't hardly lost on him, and it somehow hits worse and harder and deeper than any blow. ）
[God. She can't see him, can't hear him. It feels like talking to a ghost. Like talking to him all those nights alone on the road, or in that basement with the hordes passing overhead, it pitch-black darkness to save the batteries of a dying flashlight, where time held no meaning.
She's seen him in every corner, over and over in her dreams. Heard his voice every time she's strung her bow or double-checked a body to make sure it wasn't getting up again.
Maybe it's better like this. He can't see the tears lacing through the words. How's he feeling? Is it better or worse that she's here?]
I can't fucking believe you got to go to the moon first.
（ a year ago, two, maybe he would have joked with her. but time and actions splintered them, and everything feels so tenuous. walking on broken glass ain't the goddamn half of it. we were going to fix this. the cold night on the porch, the bite of good, black coffee in his hands, the way the steam curled, the way hope rose up in him again.
suddenly, he's grateful for the fact this ain't but text. he doesn't think he could speak. already he's havin' to scrub a hand hard across his face. ）
You know, I ain't seen a single lick of cheese?
（ jesus, that was bad. he actually grimaces on his own account. wondering if it's too irreverent. wondering if it's not irreverent enough. wondering if it's all right, if being cavalier will just hurt her worse.
given what he's learned, there's not even a guarantee that she's —
that she knows. she could be fifteen years old again, before everything went to hell. just a little girl he was tryin' so desperately to save.
would that make it easier? if she were? or would it just be harder knowin' they'd be headed down the same path? ）
[Ellie laughs alone in her bathroom and it comes out like something broken, caught together with a sob as she presses her eyes into the heels of her hands, shaking, hurting, good.
It's terrifying, feeling one step to the side of reality, and surprisingly, gloriously alive. It doesn't feel real. None of this feels real.]
I'd like that.
I'm gonna try to get up there. But can you take a picture of the view for me?
（ this all feels so terrifyingly normal. a fever dream. some far-off, distant thing.
he used to dream, sometimes, that sarah was alive. waking up from those was always the hardest. those were the times where it was nothing else but sheer spite for the world that would get him out of bed in the mornings.
but if this were a dream, would it be his, or hers? ）
Ellie...
I'm going to be real honest, I don't have the first clue how to go about doing that. But... ah, I'll try.
That might be the worst fucking picture of the moon I've ever seen
[... but that doesn't mean it doesn't mean the absolute world to her. It makes her laugh despite it all, past all the fucked-up feelings still caught in her throat, and she saves it. Saves all of it.]
Well, when you've barely seen a camera in just about thirty years...
（ it's almost cavalier in its self-deprecation. joel takes a deep breath, but it catches and trembles and hangs up in his ribcage in all the wrong ways. it feels like trying to breathe with broken ribs. he read about flail chest once in a medical textbook, hoping that wasn't it one time tommy got hurt real bad, and lived somehow.
you have moments in your life that seem to stretch on into forever. they ain't long themselves, usually. but they're stamped on you like a brand, and they define who you are in ways the rest of the chaff of existence just can't. this ain't one of them, but it feels like an echo of another — standing on that porch, with ellie talkin' about how her life should have mattered. ）
Gotta say, I'm real disappointed there's no coffee on the moon.
[Ellie laughs, though Joel can't hear it, shuts her eyes. She can practically hear his voice in her ear.]
It's fine. I'll get out there sometime and see it for myself.
[Someday -- it's something she's promised herself. For after they get some things handled. For after they get Joel back safe, so she can really see with her own two eyes that he's here, and whole-
Ellie reaches up to wipe her face. Yeah. Joel's more important, by far.]
You'd think Jimothy could afford to buy you a cup or two. What an asshole.
Yeah, it really doesn't fucking seem like it. I'll fill you in later.
[God. Everything just seems unimportant and unreal right now. It feels like a dream she had, even if it's still hovering close. Two worlds, converging.]
Yeah, they're talking about it. I'll be there to meet you when you're on the ground.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
@ellie.miller | private 1/2
Date: 2020-12-17 05:45 pm (UTC)[It's hours before she replies. Ellie doesn't know where those hours went. She woke up wedged into a corner of the tiny bathroom of her apartment, covered in sweat, her throat raw and her heart pounding.
In the past few days, she's been two completely different people. She's died, remembers her own death in vivid detail. She's been holding her shit together and doing a damn good job of it.
She hasn't had an episode since the first week she came to New Amsterdam.
This one has her skin tingling, hurting, aching so much she wants to rip it off. She stares his name, his innocuous conversation with Nathan, Nathan responding like it's normal, like it's all a normal fucking day.
Joel, alive.
Joel.
Alive.]
@ellie.miller | private 2/2
Date: 2020-12-17 05:47 pm (UTC)Yeah, but can you really deny that view?
no subject
Date: 2020-12-17 06:24 pm (UTC)call it selfishness. call it hope. call it whatever you want. nothing changes the fact that joel cannot, should not be alive, and that no amount of henries reassuring him that they have the best medical care available, that they pulled him back to the brink has really hit home with him.
but ellie can't, shouldn't be here. she ought to be in jackson. it's her home. the one place in the world she's made a place for herself that's purely, solely hers.
(he thinks he saw her there, at the end. but he sure as hell hopes not. just the neurons firing in a dying brain. because if she was there, if she watched —
some things you don't come back from.)
he might have doubted it was even her if she'd said literally anything else. funny how one little comment can banish all doubt. ）
Ellie?
（ miller. it ain't hardly lost on him, and it somehow hits worse and harder and deeper than any blow. ）
no subject
Date: 2020-12-17 06:33 pm (UTC)[God. She can't see him, can't hear him. It feels like talking to a ghost. Like talking to him all those nights alone on the road, or in that basement with the hordes passing overhead, it pitch-black darkness to save the batteries of a dying flashlight, where time held no meaning.
She's seen him in every corner, over and over in her dreams. Heard his voice every time she's strung her bow or double-checked a body to make sure it wasn't getting up again.
Maybe it's better like this. He can't see the tears lacing through the words. How's he feeling? Is it better or worse that she's here?]
I can't fucking believe you got to go to the moon first.
1/3
Date: 2020-12-17 08:23 pm (UTC)（ he doesn't exactly mean to send that. he's still getting a hang of these damn chips they've all got shoved in their heads. but it's honest.
give him. a minute. then: ）
no subject
Date: 2020-12-17 08:25 pm (UTC)（ a year ago, two, maybe he would have joked with her. but time and actions splintered them, and everything feels so tenuous. walking on broken glass ain't the goddamn half of it. we were going to fix this. the cold night on the porch, the bite of good, black coffee in his hands, the way the steam curled, the way hope rose up in him again.
suddenly, he's grateful for the fact this ain't but text. he doesn't think he could speak. already he's havin' to scrub a hand hard across his face. ）
You know, I ain't seen a single lick of cheese?
（ jesus, that was bad. he actually grimaces on his own account. wondering if it's too irreverent. wondering if it's not irreverent enough. wondering if it's all right, if being cavalier will just hurt her worse.
given what he's learned, there's not even a guarantee that she's —
that she knows. she could be fifteen years old again, before everything went to hell. just a little girl he was tryin' so desperately to save.
would that make it easier? if she were? or would it just be harder knowin' they'd be headed down the same path? ）
no subject
Date: 2020-12-17 08:26 pm (UTC)You know. If you wanted.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-17 08:45 pm (UTC)[Ellie laughs alone in her bathroom and it comes out like something broken, caught together with a sob as she presses her eyes into the heels of her hands, shaking, hurting, good.
It's terrifying, feeling one step to the side of reality, and surprisingly, gloriously alive. It doesn't feel real. None of this feels real.]
I'd like that.
I'm gonna try to get up there. But can you take a picture of the view for me?
no subject
Date: 2020-12-17 08:56 pm (UTC)he used to dream, sometimes, that sarah was alive. waking up from those was always the hardest. those were the times where it was nothing else but sheer spite for the world that would get him out of bed in the mornings.
but if this were a dream, would it be his, or hers? ）
Ellie...
I'm going to be real honest, I don't have the first clue how to go about doing that. But... ah, I'll try.
（ attached.jpg
this is the worst possible picture of the moon. is it upside down? jesus christ, joel. ）
no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 05:58 pm (UTC)That might be the worst fucking picture of the moon I've ever seen
[... but that doesn't mean it doesn't mean the absolute world to her. It makes her laugh despite it all, past all the fucked-up feelings still caught in her throat, and she saves it. Saves all of it.]
Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-19 04:24 pm (UTC)（ it's almost cavalier in its self-deprecation. joel takes a deep breath, but it catches and trembles and hangs up in his ribcage in all the wrong ways. it feels like trying to breathe with broken ribs. he read about flail chest once in a medical textbook, hoping that wasn't it one time tommy got hurt real bad, and lived somehow.
you have moments in your life that seem to stretch on into forever. they ain't long themselves, usually. but they're stamped on you like a brand, and they define who you are in ways the rest of the chaff of existence just can't. this ain't one of them, but it feels like an echo of another — standing on that porch, with ellie talkin' about how her life should have mattered. ）
Gotta say, I'm real disappointed there's no coffee on the moon.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-19 07:17 pm (UTC)It's fine. I'll get out there sometime and see it for myself.
[Someday -- it's something she's promised herself. For after they get some things handled. For after they get Joel back safe, so she can really see with her own two eyes that he's here, and whole-
Ellie reaches up to wipe her face. Yeah. Joel's more important, by far.]
You'd think Jimothy could afford to buy you a cup or two. What an asshole.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-20 02:47 am (UTC)Sounds like we'll be coming back on a shuttle at some point in the near future, by the by. To some place called New Tokyo.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-20 02:52 am (UTC)[God. Everything just seems unimportant and unreal right now. It feels like a dream she had, even if it's still hovering close. Two worlds, converging.]
Yeah, they're talking about it. I'll be there to meet you when you're on the ground.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-26 04:17 am (UTC)I'll see you there.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-26 04:19 am (UTC)