#however !!!!

ㅤlife was so quiet here. it might have been easy on mornings like these to forget the tragedies that had carried them here. the air was still a bit cold with remnants of the night, though the sun coasting over the hill was quick to warm whatever it touched. the breeze rustling the tall grass just beyond the house was the only sound save for his own breath. this was calm. this was peace.

ㅤhe should have known that he wasn't going to be alone for long. not that he minded. no, he preferred it most days. nevertheless, her voice startles him when it rings clearly through the early morning air. now that the winter had been banished by earlier sunrises and later sunsets, it was rare that he started his morning anywhere other than the porch. how long had it been since he'd seen sprawling fields without the accompanying dread of what lay beyond them? how many years had he spent searching for ways out of the walls that confined him, only now to see undisturbed horizon?

ㅤso no, he wasn't disappointed to have been interrupted. peace like this deserved to be shared ── especially with her. " hmm, " he hums as he finds the words. all he'd wanted for so long was safety, consistency. he'd found that with tess, albeit behind boston's walls. then he'd met ellie. desires long put to rest had started to awaken. he wanted to protect her, to give her a life of safety, to show her things she'd been robbed of merely by chance. two decades of suppressing the will to care for someone else and some smart - ass teenager had picked it out of him as if he hadn't spent years cementing it into place. then he'd wanted to save her. he'd wanted to give them a life only his brother could promise. then he'd wanted to spare her. [ . . . ] as he was sure she relived that day in nightmares, he, too, could hear her pleas. JOEL, GET UP! he'd wanted to be better for her. to right the wrongs he'd so desperately tried to disguise as sacrifices.

ㅤat the heart of it all, he supposed he wanted what he had been robbed of. a family. a home. a place outside of chaos without need for constant caution. and somehow, through all of it, she'd decided to choose those things, too. it's subtle, and in the harsh light of the morning it was probably indiscernible, but a smile plays at the corner of his lips. the lines on his face grow deeper with the gesture, eyes crinkling at the corners. " reckon it is . . . " he offers with a nod, turning to face her. " we've got our work cut out for us, but ── can't deny that view. " lips curl into a smirk, remembering a child so different from the young woman before him seeing the world for the first time. how had her desires changed, that little girl with a hope he couldn't understand? could this be what she wanted? truly, after everything? " think it'll be . . . enough? " enough to heal old wounds to make room for new desires, new dreams, new life.