¹epiphany ─ j. miller

How You Doing, Baby Brother?

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
FALL
HOW YOU DOING, BABY BROTHER?

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Wyoming. Personally, Elva had never been, and neither had Joel. But, after a while of walking and surviving, they made it. Rain was pouring down onto the grass and trees around them, drenching their heads and bodies.

"Jackson County." Ellie read from one of the signs. "That means we're close to Jackson City, right?" She asked.

"It shouldn't be more than a few miles away." Elva replied.

"Are you ready to see dear old brother?" Ellie snickered.

Joel sighed. "I'm just ready to get there."

Elva nodded. He assumed she was equally as nervous to see Tommy again, they had no clue how he had changed over the years he was a Firefly.

"Are you nervous?" Ellie asked.

"I don't know what I'm feeling." Joel spoke.

The pathway, although overgrown, was still visible as they walked beneath an old, large bridge. Cars were deserted along the path, but other than that, it looked like nobody had been walking there for the last twenty years.

The path came to a dead end, leading off into the river below. "Well, so much for this road." Ellie exclaimed.

"We can probably just follow the river." Elva suggested, looking down at the rushing water. She looked over to Joel for confirmation, the instructions to get to Jackson still hazy in her mind.

"Yeah, that should lead us straight to Tommy's." He replied.

They set off again, walking down into another piece of land. Following the river wasn't hard, well, Ellie kept it entertaining.

"What happened between you three?"

"What do you mean?" Joel asked.

"You guys and Tommy." Ellie replied. "You're not together, so clearly something went down." She spoke, following the adults down to the river.

Joel sighed. "We just- we had a bit of a disagreement, that's all."

The young girl looked to Elva, the woman throwing a shrug her way. "You know what happened. FEDRA took me, they had a quarrel. Ask him about it." She spoke, holding her hands up in mock surrender.

Ellie scoffed a bit. "Oh, here we go. So, what was it about?"

"Tommy saw the world one way, I saw it the other." He reluctantly answered. Elva visibly tensed at the short sentence, God knows why.

"And that's why he joined the Fireflies?" Ellie asked.

"Yeah, your friend Marlene promised him hope." Joel sighed. "That kept him busy for a while, but just like Tommy, he eventually quit that too."

Elva snickered a bit as they reached the river. "He could never stick to anything, could he?" She asked rhetorically. Joel thought back to the millions of times Tommy had joined something or other and completely abandoned it.

"How was it, the last time you guys saw him?"

"I believe his last words to me were: 'When the hell are you going to figure out what you want in life, Joel?'." He answered.

Ellie looked to Elva expectantly. "He yelled my name before I passed out, that's all I really remember." She shrugged, not really having much of an answer for the young girl.

"Jeez. Dark, much?" Ellie scoffed. "Is he gonna help us?"

"I suppose we're gonna find out." Joel sighed.