Okay, this is my first ever fanfiction on this site, so I'm a little bit excited and at the same time bloody terrified. This is basically the character I would have included if I had written Falling Skies. I didn't however and so I'm free to imagine. It's written in first person and follows the adventures of Ellie-Jean (EJ) in the Falling Skies universe. Hope you all like it!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the show, only the characters and events that aren't in the episodes

pippastray xxx


I ducked when the barricade exploded in our faces. I heard others around me fall to the ground coughing but, gritting my teeth and clutching my gun tightly, I struggled to my feet and looked for movement. From somewhere close by, one man screamed.

Of course, the two people impossible to kill were still there. Tom Mason and his son Hal were trying to clamber up but there was something wrong: Hal's left wrist wouldn't support him. I rushed over and helped him to his feet.

"Get up!" Tom shouted, sounding angry and impatient but in fact he was very worried. I shivered and looked around. There was a heavy coldness in the air, which normally meant one thing. There was no-one else still alive and the three of us ran from the debris of what had once been a barricade down to another street. It was deserted except for burnt-out metal shells that were barely recognisable as cars.

"In here!" Tom snapped at us and I pushed Hal into the deserted shop ahead of me. He'd heard the low growling as well. I shivered again, forcing Hal to the floor underneath what had once been either a desk or a counter. We all heard heard the creepy cicada like shrieking that was the Skitters and the low humming that was the Mechs. I quickly reloaded, keeping half my attention on what I was doing, the other half on the sounds coming from outside. There was a blonde girl crawling along the road: she was hurt and weapon-less. I wanted to help but that would get me killed.

"Skitters," one of them gasped. In the dark I couldn't tell who said it, they sounded so alike. Then came the screeching, like metal on metal. Tom was right next to me and I noticed how much the sound hurt him. Personally, it had ceased to bother me: fighting on the front line had gotten me used to it.

A young-ish man staggered forward into our line of sight. I'd seen him a few times before and he was friendly enough but I didn't know his name. I only realised it was him after a Mech had shot him in the head. Then a burst of blue light hit the blonde girl and she groaned in pain.

"Jerrod's cousin," Hal whispered and surged forward. Tom was way ahead though.

"No, don't," he hissed, holding Hal back, letting his gun lie on the floor for now. "Don't. No, no, no."

I shushed the both of them and then the Skitters came into view.

For those of you who don't know what Skitters are, they're creepy fuckers. They're green, have six legs and two arms, narrow eyes and weird-shaped heads. They're our evil invaders and possible conquerors. I hated them.

This one was exactly the same as the rest of them.

"That's Jerrod's cousin," whispered Hal desperately, knowing that his dad wouldn't let go of him anyway. I bit my lip and forced myself to my feet when another two came into our line of vision.

"Come on," I hissed at them, pulling Tom to his feet. He just about managed to grab his gun. "Come on!" I had no desire to still be in that room when the Skitters heard our escape but I hoped that they treated the blonde girl alright. Hal wasn't coming though and Tom had to drag him to his feet.

"Get up!" he snapped, holding his eldest son like he was a hostage and dragging him out of the room with me bringing up the rear.

We burst out of the back exit and were immediately faced with a whole load of guns.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Hal protested when the guns were levelled at us. I just breathed a sigh of relief.

"Mechs, front. The Colton Street barricade's down. Skitters too," Tom said breathlessly. They'd been doing a hell of a lot of running and the American History Professor wasn't exactly young, so I forgave him that.

"They're up to the Common," growled an older man. His name was General Dan Weaver, he was a war veteran and he was a prick. He knew what he was doing though so I just about managed to follow the orders he gave me, even if I hated his guts. He strode forward to walk next to Tom, with Hal, me and the others falling in behind, all on high alert now. "Both barricade's there are gone. We're falling back. Back Bay is lost." Hal sent me a look I was well accustomed to. We'd been slowly and steadily losing Boston all week but this was really hitting us hard. Tom then immediately voiced what Hal and I were silently saying to each other.

"They take Back Bay, they take the city," he reminded Weaver, jogging alongside him with his firearm at the ready.

"No kidding," replied Weaver and I realised this was not what he wanted to be doing: running away before the alien surge. As I saw it, we had no other option, seeing as anything else would be suicide and he knew it. "Porter's calling us in." Well, that explained everything. I'd never met General Porter but he'd organised all the survivors from round here into a unit and we'd survived that way, even beginning to fight back. I admired him for being able to do that. "Let's go!"

We hadn't taken five steps when a silent something flew over us and dropped something small into the city centre. The explosion gave it all away, as well as the howling wind that blew against us. Then I heard footsteps and looked down from the pretty lights of the explosion to see a dark-skinned woman, probably a few years older than me, running towards us, screaming her head off.

"Quiet!" Tom whispered, running out towards her. "Skitters and Mechs!" He was sounding really quite worried now and he didn't want any more unwelcome attention.

"They've got South Boston!" she yelled, before falling into Tom's arms, ready to keep running. She was one of ours but I'd never seen or spoken to her before and to be honest she didn't look all that scared.

"Rearguard, come on!" Weaver shouted at us, starting to run. Tom let the woman run ahead of him but me and Hal joined him at the back. Hal looked like he wasn't prepared to leave at all.

To be honest neither was I but we all kept running.


We ran all the way back to the building we were using as base for the moment, slowing down once we saw the first of the watches. We were all exhausted.

As we walked through the trees, one of the younger fighters, Jimmy I think his name was, came out to talk to Hal. They didn't get on really but Hal was the closest to his age out of us all and he was after news.

"We holding?" he asked, not stopping to see how tired, angry and slightly less hopeful we all looked. "Who'd we lose?"

"Captain Jameson, Jerrod's cousin, a bunch of guys I didn't know," replied Hal shortly, not turning round to talk to Jimmy as he climbing the stairs.

"Jameson's dead?" Jimmy shouted to us. No reply. "Who's gonna command the 2nd?" he asked to himself.

We walked through the long corridors, past people warming their hands over oil drums and into a large hall. I sensed that Tom really just wanted to get some sleep but he knew there was still work to be done. He stood at the entrance for a moment, forcing people to go round him, but just watching, not seeing the civilians staring at us like we were heroes. I didn't see where Hal went but I noticed where Tom's gaze went and I smiled.

Uncle Tom had three sons: Hal was the oldest, his middle son was missing and Matt was the youngest. He was only eight. He was also sat in an old car seat, fast asleep in his thick coat. He walked over, not noticing me following him, and crouched down in front of Matt. Then very gently, he swung the little boy over his shoulder in a firearm's carry. Then he went to get some food, which I thought was a great idea.

"You're back from work early." This was Dr Anne Glass, a lovely woman who had a serious crush on Uncle Tom, although he hadn't noticed yet. She always managed to make everything sound so ordinary, which was and wasn't good news.

"Tough day at the office," he replied wearily.

"No shit," I chipped in and Uncle Tom fake-glared at me. I just smiled sweetly in return. "You got anything left?"

"You'd be surprised," Dr Glass told me, slightly frostily: she had a thing against soldiers complaining about civilians and I suppose my question hadn't given her the best indicator of my position in that particular argument.

"We lost the widget account," Uncle Tom finished while Lourdes handed me a bowl of what was meant to be either stew or soup. Whatever it was, it was watery and didn't look all that nice.

"Oh rats. Bad?" asked Dr Glass. Uncle Tom just sighed deeply. God, he looked shattered. He needed to have something to eat, get off his feet and catch a good ten hours' sleep. He looked thin too and overworked.

"Yeah. They're up to Back Bay," he told her and that got her worried. It did that to most people we told.

"Any food?" she asked while we walked away. She noticed that Uncle Tom had a tag-a-long but she didn't comment. I was getting used to following the Masons around: they provided me with some company, seeing as they didn't mind being around an young English woman, whereas most of these Americans did.

Uncle Tom just handed her a single can. Where he had gotten it from I had no idea. It looked so lonely, even if it was just a can.

"Price of tuna's gone up," Anne said drily and I smirked at her. I loved her sense of humour sometimes. Tom made to turn around and find Matt somewhere better to sleep but she stopped him and went to get something off a table. "Wait. Matt drew these." She passed Uncle Tom a whole sheaf of papers, all with coloured drawings on them. It has to be said, Matt was not the best of artists. "He's doing much better. Drew his whole family."

Tom picked up the top drawing and looked it closely. A man, a woman and three boys stood outside a nice house. Hal walked past and Tom tilted the drawing slightly so he could see.

"That does not look like me," was his only comment before he walked off, probably looking for somewhere to sleep. His wrist seemed better but there was a large bruise forming. Anne shook her head slightly, I giggled and Tom looked round for his son with an amused smile threatening to touch his lips. Then someone ruined the moment.

"Tom? Tom." I had no idea who the man yelling was but everyone knew which Tom he meant. It didn't look like he'd be getting any sleep for a while then. "Porter wants to see you."

"Have fun with that," I muttered under my breath. It would just be more business, we both knew that, and Uncle Tom didn't look like he could be bothered. Plus, it would mean he had to deal with Weaver and that was a challenge neither of us ever felt motivated enough for.

"Can you take Matt for me, E.J?" he asked and I just nodded: I always had time for Matt. Carefully he lowered Matt onto my shoulder, which was only an inch below his, handed the drawings to Anne and walked off. I noticed he was still holding his gun.

"Um, Anne?" She turned to face me, intrigued already. "Could I take those, please?" I pointed to the drawings she was still holding. My request just made her smile.

"Of course," she replied and she tucked them in my back pocket for me, seeing as I had no free hands at the moment. "There's one at the bottom that I think you'll find interesting," she added before she turned away. I noticed she didn't ask about the insomnia anymore.

My name is Ellie-Jean Dunstan. Most people call me E.J though and nowadays I'm a Mason more than a Dunstan. Tom isn't actually my uncle, he's just developed a strange protectiveness: I think I may be replacing his missing son until we can find him. I have bright red hair, which attracted strange looks, the Americans don't acknowledge the existence of gingers and redheads, and blue eyes. I'm tall for a girl and wiry too, so that even Hal won't annoy me. I'm a couple of years older than him and I was about to start university (or college as the Americans said). I'd been living across the road from the Masons for three years before the invasion. A month afterwards, I found them again, only Mrs Mason was dead, Ben was missing and I had no-one at all.

Life sucked, but at least I had Matt for now.

I found a quieter corner next to an oil drum and carefully wrapped Matt in my coat. I rarely took it off now except when someone else needed it, and he curled up in my lap. It made eating very difficult but I managed and then I looked through his pictures. The one right at the bottom showed a girl, about twenty-one, wearing a long-ish leather coat and with her baseball cap hiding her hair, surrounded by dead Skitters. Of course, the girl was me and I made a mental note to show Tom that. He'd also included me when he'd drawn what family he had left.

That made me feel a little less alone.