Safe and Sound// Ellie Williams

Comfort

To get the Wolves away from Ellie I ended up having to go the opposite direction of the park, so my walk back takes extra time. I'm hoping that by the time I get there, Ellie would have already been in the hospital and is making her way back. I stop just before I get to the park since I know the inside is a Seraphite patrol route, so I want to avoid it for now. I'm waiting outside the old train station and am waiting for Ellie to hopefully show up soon. I hear some noise so I duck behind cover and look around the corner. I sigh in relief when I see Ellie's figure walk out. She has a spaced out look in her eyes and she's covered in blood.

"Ellie." I whisper and she whips around aiming her gun at me. My eyes widen and I hold up my arms to show her it's just me.

"Oh, hey." Ellie mutters and lowers the gun. I look down at her hand it see it's shaking.

"What happened?" I ask Ellie as I approach her slowly.

"I found Nora." Is all Ellie says. 

"You're shaking El." 

"I'm fine. Let's just go back to the theatre." She starts walking towards the park and I grab her arm.

"That's a Seraphite patrol, Ellie. If you walk in there unaware they'll spot you."

"Just lead the way." Ellie mutters and I nod slowly at her. I start walking into the park, my bow ready and I stay in the crouched position. I look back at Ellie and see she's following me, but she has an expression on like she's just seen someone rise from the dead. I hear the Seraphites whistle and I crouch down further into the grass. Ellie moves beside me and we see them performing a hanging ceremony in the middle of the park. Ellie doesn't react as she watches them. 

"Here Ellie, I got this. Just stay here and wait for me to finish." Ellie stares blankly at nothing as she nods. I gulp not knowing what's wrong with her as I start to crawl in the grass. One of the soldiers that's farther away whistles signalling that the area is clear. I pull my arrow back and release it in a perfect shot. The soldier falls and I see one of the Seraphites turn to come over here, but I let out a whistle saying it's clear here and they turn back around. I continue crawling in the grass and take out, then divert the Seraphites until this area is clear. I see more in the area we have to go to so I crawl back to Ellie to get her to move with me. When I get to her she's still in the same position with the same blank look, "Hey Els. We gotta keep moving, you think you're okay to keep going." I ask her softly. She nods and I sigh but take it as a sign to go. We start heading to the next area and I let out a 'come over' whistle to get one of the soldiers to come over here to separate from the group. I see Ellie watch me as I do this and I pull back my arrow before releasing it. I crawl over to the soldier with Ellie following and take the bow and arrow off of the now dead soldiers corpse, "You think you can shoot this?" I ask Ellie as I hold out the bow and arrow to her.

"Yeah, I'm a pretty good shot." Ellie says and I nod. We both crawl through the grass and Ellie helps me take out the Seraphites faster. I continue to whistle to divert their attention and I'm lucky that no one suspects anything- it's not like they would expect someone against them to know the signals. When they're all taken out I turn to Ellie.

"Let's get back to the theatre." Ellie nods and we slowly make our way back. Ellie's hand continues to shake so I grab it to comfort her. She turns to me with her eyebrows furrows, "You're hand won't stop shaking."

"Sorry." Ellie mutters.

"You don't need to apologize. Let's just get back." I tell her softly and we walk back to the theatre silently.

When we get back I let go of Ellie's hand and open the theatres door. I keep my bow ready and search the area to make sure it's clear while Ellie just stays at the front. When I see it's clear I head back to the front and see Ellie sitting on the couch, "Hey, uh, lets get you cleaned up." I grab Ellie's hand again and lead her to the back. I set her on the sofa and go to grab some water and a cloth. When I'm back with Ellie I dip the cloth in the water and start with cleaning the blood off of Ellie's face. Ellie just watches me as I clean her up.

"I made her talk." Ellie tells me. I stop and look into her eyes. 

"You mind if I take off your shirt?" I ask her hesitantly. Ellie just raises her arms while I move to slip off her shirt. I make sure to not... look at anything and I start wiping the blood off of her collar bone and move to her back. I gulp when I see all of the injuries on her back. It's littered with a ton of bruises

"I fucked her up really bad." Ellie whispers. I stop, my hand hovering on her back, "I can't stop hearing her pleas for me to stop."

"They won't go away." I whisper to her

Ellie turns her head slightly where she isn't fully looking at me but I can see half her face, "How did you deal with this place for so long? Doing... all of this and not go insane." 

"I used to think I was no better than a demon. Always trying to kill the Wolves until it was just us. Sometimes it's like I have the demons in my head. Always taking up room, clawing and attacking at anything until it consumes everything. When I was here, I was in the middle of the herd." I gulp as my hands shake while I continue to clean Ellie's back, " I was thirteen when I went on my first patrol. I was just a little girl who was scared. I went with my dad and he had to drag me into the gunfire. He told me it was my duty, my honour, it was what I had to do. So I did what I had to do, but I never forget about that scared little girl... if I ever forget her I'm scared I'd forget myself."

"What? So thinking about when I was scared as a kid is supposed to help?" Ellie questions.

"No. But knowing that you're still scared keeps you human." I move so I'm sitting in front of Ellie and she stares down at me, "You're not a bad person Ellie. Showing remorse and being scared at what happened shows that." I grab onto her hand and hold it between my own. I rest them under my hand and place a soft kiss on her knuckles.

"Please don't go. Just for tonight." Ellie whispers. I nod at her and we lay down next to each other. I hand her a blanket to cover up and Ellie takes it.

I'm here, Ellie.