To the Light { a joel miller fanfiction }

Chapter Eight - Mend

"If I never meet you
In this life
Let me feel the lack
A glance from your eyes
Then my life
Will be yours"
― James Jones, The Thin Red Line

___________________________________

When Adeline woke up in his home, in his bed, he was not there. A stark emptiness, cold seeping through the sheets, her limbs reaching out, blindly grasping for a thick arm, a hard chest.

"Joel." She muttered, eyes barely peeking open, lids fluttering at the milky, orange light streaming in through the gap in the curtains.

An answer did not come, not in a gruff here from the bathroom, or a rustling of pans from down in the kitchen. She sat up before she opened her eyes, her palms pressing down onto the mattress to push herself onto her butt. The tips of her fingers brushed against something in the process, soft and pliant, but rough, like paper. She squinted her eyes open, looking down at the thing, a note, written in Joel's neat, blocky handwriting.

Had to go out of Jackson to fix something. I'll be back in a day or two. Don't worry, I'll be fine. Stay at mine until I'm back. Be safe, be good.

Joel

She picked the thing up and stared at it, like if she looked at the words for long enough, they might morph and shift into something else. Left to fix something? Fix what? The note explicitly said not to worry, but all she could feel in her chest was a tight, heavy ball of anxiety. She didn't like when he was gone, she loathed it, but this was worse, this was different. What could he possibly need to fix... and why hadn't he said goodbye to her before he left?

She shifted nervously in his bed, taking his pillow into her lap and pressing her face into the fabric, inhaling that musky, woody pine scent of his skin that lingered there. Her first instinct was to stay there, in his bed, until he returned. But she knew that would do nothing to help her nerves, she needed a distraction, and Travis was surely waiting for her to show him around, which would most definitely be easier without Joel stalking after them like an angry bear.

She forced herself out of bed, shivering at the cold state of the hardwood and the barren state of the house. It always felt different when he wasn't there, his commanding presence made the space feel warm, safe. When he was gone everything felt cold and empty and hollow. He breathed life into each place that he went... breathed life into her when she showed up before him, a fractured and bereft thing. When he wasn't near everything felt a bit desolate, depleted of warmth and light, like the sun had dipped too far behind the clouds.

She got dressed, opting to take one of his jackets rather than her own, a small form of comfort, so she could at least smell him, bury her face in the fabric when the aching and worry became too much to bear.

She thought about going to find Ellie, grilling her about any further information regarding Joel's vague trip, but she brushed off the idea before it was fully formed. Joel must have left not long after dawn, so it was doubtful that he'd gone over to the shed and told Ellie anything more than what was written on that note.

Fix something.

What on Earth did that mean?

Part of her worried she might find her house empty, a twisting bout of nerves in her gut erupting at the possibility that fixing something might have involved dragging Travis out of Jackson. She wouldn't put it past him, but she also didn't think Joel would do that to her without reason. Still, she did keep a relatively hurried pace as she made the small trek from Joel's house to her own. It was cold outside, of course, but the bulk of the snow that had covered everything the day before had melted overnight, and the sun was beating down in a blinding fashion overhead. A small reprieve from the gray that had occupied the sky most of the month, though something inside of her still felt gray, a bit ashen without her personal radiator at her side.