Disclaimer: I do not own the Tomorrow Series, The Ellie Chronicles or any of the characters. The genius John Marsden does.

AN: The main reason for writing this is the simple fact that I ship Ellie and Homer. This story takes place after Circle of Flight and contains spoilers for both series.

Summary: What will Ellie do when a friend desperately needs her help?

Just by saying someone's name you can tell a whole story.

I don't mean the way your parents say your name when they're angry, or the way your friends say your name when they have something exciting to share, or even the way Ms Dunn says your name when she wants you to pay attention in Math class. They aren't really trying to tell you anything. They are just trying to get you to listen to whatever it is they have to say next.

I mean like the way I said Robyn's name when we were trying to escape Stratton Prison.

That day is a day I will carry with me for the rest of my life. After the Kiwis had destroyed most of the prison with their bomb raids just moments earlier, we saw our chance to escape. Somehow we found each other in the rubble, and, even though we were all severely injured, we made it to the driveway. Only to find Major Harvey blocking the exit, pointing a gun at us. When I saw him there I started to lose hope. We had gotten this far and now some traitor, who didn't even deserve to still be alive, was going to stop us? I was sure we were going to die at his hands. I remember letting out a sob, because it all seemed so unfair.

While I was falling apart, Robyn, brave, brave Robyn, had already formed a plan. And at first I didn't understand why she was walking towards Major Harvey, but then I saw her hand slip underneath her t-shirt and pull the pin out of the grenade she was hiding there. And then I knew. Robyn had decided that she would give her life to save all of ours. And in that moment, I wanted to let her know that I knew, and that I would be forever grateful for what she was about to do and that she wouldn't be forgotten. I wanted to tell her all of that and more but didn't have the words or the time, so I called out her name. And I saw her turn her head towards me and she gave me a small smile and I knew that she knew.

That's what I meant.

-0-0-0-

I had just come home when the telephone rang. Home now meant the tiny apartment Lee and I, his four brothers and sisters, and Gavin shared in Stratton. After Mr Young bought our property and Lee and I decided to give our relationship a real try, Gavin and I packed our bags and moved to the city, into the already crowded apartment. There were only two bedrooms, which, after the move in, Lee and I divided into a room for the three boys and a room for the two girls. Lee and I slept on the daybed in the living room. The living conditions were far from ideal, but we decided that as long as things weren't completely getting out of hand, we would live here and try to save money for something better, although it was still very difficult to find something affordable after the war.

We had a great couple of weeks when Gavin and I first moved in. I guess everyone was on their best behaviour, Lee and I most of all. Those first few weeks were like a breath of fresh air. Life almost felt normal again. Almost. Because no teenager is supposed to share an apartment with her boyfriend, his four siblings and a kid she had taken in after the war.

But then we all sort of slipped back into our old behaviour; Lee would disappear for hours at a time, Gavin went back to throwing horrible tantrums, Paul and Philip fought more than ever, Pang started yelling; at me, for laying down some ground rules, at Lee for not sticking up for her when I grounded her after she kicked Intira, and at her brothers for fighting all the time. The only one who seemed ok with things was little Intira, who was happy as long as Pang was happy.

I might as well be honest; I was no better than Gavin and threw quite a few tantrums myself. Most of them involved a lot of screaming and yelling and blaming Lee for numerous things. Some of them scared the two little kids pretty badly. Last month, after one of my infamous fits, Intira was so scared of me she wouldn't look at me for an entire week.

There were quite a few times when we all had enough of each other. Ok, there were a lot of times when we all had enough. In a way it was easier for the kids, because whenever they had a bad day, or were in a bad mood, they could go into their room sulk for a little while. Or a long while. Usually the other kids were sensible enough to leave the other alone. Lee and I didn't have that luxury. I usually went outside to let off some steam but never stayed out long, because I felt guilty leaving the kids alone. But Lee would often be gone for hours on end without letting me know where he was. It frustrated me, but I knew there was nothing I could do about it; he had always been that way. But to me it was just one of the many things that started to irritate me as the months went by.

I never talked to Lee about it, but for me it was all or nothing this time. We had been on and off for so many times already that I'd lost track. I was still very attracted to Lee, and still loved him, but I had decided that if we couldn't work things out this time, well, then that would be it. There's only so much you can do to try to make it work.

Looking back now I think he felt the same way.

By the time I received the phone call Lee hadn't come home a couple of nights in a row and I had had enough. We were supposed to be in a relationship, but I felt more like a nanny, only there to look after the kids, than his girlfriend. Even the kids noticed he was gone most nights and started to ask me questions I couldn't answer. I tried to talk to Lee about it, but he brushed me off and didn't seem too interested in how I was feeling. I realised that things weren't working out between Lee and me. Like I said, those first few weeks were great, but we had been going downhill ever since.

It was a Thursday afternoon; the kids had just come home from school. Gavin was on the couch, watching a rerun of South Park, Pang was at the kitchen table, doing her homework and helping Intira draw a horse and Philip and Paul were in their bedroom, building Lego I think. It was a good day in the sense that no one was fighting. I was in the kitchen, unpacking the groceries I picked up earlier when the phone rang. Without having to ask her, Pang got up and answered it. I could hear her say her name, but then she went silent. I turned around to see if everything was ok, but she looked at me with a confused look on her face. She held out the phone, "I think someone's crying, Ellie."

I was sure it was Fi. There was no way it could have been any of the boys. Lee was at school and I was rather certain he wouldn't call me up crying because he had gotten a bad grade or got bullied. Kevin was still in New Zealand and although he could get quite emotional at times, there were other people he would call when he was in a desperate situation; I still wasn't his most favourite person. And well, Homer never even crossed my mind, I mean, come on, it's Homer. So, as far as I was concerned, it could only be Fi.

I took the phone from Pang and sat down on the stool next to it, preparing myself for one of Fi's endless rants about boys, or homework, or life in general. I took a deep breath, as to prepare myself for what was to come and asked, "Are you ok, Fi?"

It wasn't Fi. Not that whoever was on the other end of the phone was saying anything, but it definitely wasn't Fi. I would have known.

Not sure what to do, I kept quiet. There was no use in saying something when I didn't know whom I was talking to. I could hear someone breathing on the other end and I knew that they were building up the courage and strength to say something. I don't know how I knew that. I think it had something to do with the war. During that time one of the most important things I learned, besides trusting my instincts, was how to read people. I got really good at it too. There were times when all I needed was one look at Lee to tell what he was thinking and what his next move would be, or one change of breath from Fi, to make me to stop doing what I was doing because she heard someone or something coming our way. And this time, by the way the other person was breathing; deep breaths, mixed with those post-crying sobs you sometimes have, I could tell that whatever it was they would say, it was something important.

And when I finally heard something on the other end, it was just one word:

"Ellie."

But it told me everything I needed to know.

-0-0-0-

I dropped the note in Gavin's lap as I walked back to the kitchen and watched as he read what I had written down:

Pack your bag, be quiet, they don't need to know.

He looked at me, worried, but he knew he would have to trust me. And he did. He always trusted me.

When we first met his troop of feral kids in Stratton in the middle of the war, I couldn't care less about him. But as the war went on and he and three other kids joined our little group, my opinion about him changed rather a lot. And when he realised I wasn't just another grown up telling him what to do and that I always acted in his best interest, he came around as well. Even though he did not always agree with the things I decided, he learned to trust me.

And over time we formed a bond so strong that I now consider him to be my brother.

So when I shook my head to let him know that now wasn't the time to ask questions, he got up and walked to his room. I could hear him tell Philip and Paul that they could watch TV and seconds later they hopped on the couch. TV time was hard to come by in our house; a lot of the fighting revolved around what show the kids wanted to watch and they never seemed to agree. Gavin usually chose the channel and then sat on the remote, forcing the others to watch whatever he felt like watching. He was the strongest of the five and no one had ever tried to take the remote from him. It was a pretty clever tactic when you think of it.

It was also pretty clever of him to tell the other two boys they could have the TV; it had gotten them out of their bedroom and would probably keep them out of there until they had to go to bed, or until Pang would fight them for the remote and win. Whichever came first.

With Gavin packing, the other two boys watching TV and Pang and Intira at the kitchen table, I sneaked into the hall, where Lee and I kept our things in cardboard boxes. It wasn't the most sophisticated way of storing them, I admit, but with the limited space we had, it was our only option. I grabbed my duffel bag and started packing. There wasn't much to pack; just my clothes and my personal belongings, one of them a photo album with pictures of my parents and friends, that I took a couple of weeks after the war and a couple of weeks before my parents were brutally killed by enemy soldiers.

It wasn't exactly a party, but everyone had come together on our farm one afternoon, Homer and his parents, Fi and her mum, Lee and his brothers and sisters, and Kevin and his parents. It was a rainy autumn day, so we were crammed up in our kitchen, but we had a good time nonetheless. It was nice to have everyone together again. I took tons of pictures that afternoon, to the point where Homer told me to get that camera out of his face or he'd take it from me and do awful things to it, but afterwards I was glad I did. Not long after that Kevin moved to New Zealand, Fi moved to away to boarding school and Lee moved to Stratton. Only Homer, Gavin and I stayed behind in Wirrawee.

After I finished packing, I sat down behind the computer to look up bus schedules. The computer was old. We had gotten it at a thrift store a couple of months earlier, because Lee needed it for school, but he was so frustrated with how slow the thing was that he hardly ever used it. While I was waiting for the page to load I thought about how I was going to tell Lee we were leaving. It wouldn't be easy, but for some reason I didn't think he would put up too much of a fight.

Besides Lee there were other people that would also want an explanation from me; Gavin's teachers, my teachers, but most of all Mrs Oates and Mr Green from the Department of Social Responsibility. But they would have to wait until tomorrow. Or the day after.

I wrote down the departure times of the bus on my hand and hoped we could catch the last bus tonight, so we would be in Wirrawee just after nine. As I turned the computer off and looked around the living room my eye fell on the box of paperwork Gavin and I had gathered over the months. There were so many papers I had given up organizing all of it and just dumped it in a cardboard box instead. While I retrieved the box from the top of the fridge, I could hear the front door being opened and closed. I took a deep breath, sure that he had seen my packed bag in the hall, and prepared myself for the talk that was about to follow.

"Ellie?" Lee asked, walking into the kitchen. "What's going on?"

I tried to look as confident as possible, hoping I could avoid a big discussion. "Gavin and I are going home."

"What do you mean you're going home?" Lee asked slowly. "Your home is here, Ellie."

I shook my head. "We're going back to Wirrawee."

"Why?"

"Because we have to."

"Ellie," Lee sighed. I could tell he already was growing tired of this conversation. "Could you please, for once, just tell me what you mean instead of giving me vague answers? Why are you leaving?"

"Homer called."

"And?"

"And nothing," I looked at him. "We're going home."

Lee shook his head. "I think you owe me an explanation."

"I really can't give you any more than that," I said. It was true.

I still didn't know what it was that made Homer call me, but I knew it was something bad, and maybe even something that shouldn't be discussed over the phone. It was a very short conversation; he said my name and I told him that we would be on our way. Whether or not I should take Gavin with me wasn't even a question.

"Does this mean we are done?" Lee's voice interrupted my thoughts.

I looked at him and shrugged. "We have been done for a long time, Lee."

"So you're not coming back?" He asked and I knew he agreed with my previous statement.

I shook my head. "No."

It was only then that I noticed the room had gone completely silent and when I looked around I found three sets of eyes trained on Lee and me. Pang looked very angry, while Paul and Philip just looked confused. Intira was still colouring, too busy and too young to understand what was going on. I opened my mouth to explain them what happened, but figured they'd probably heard it anyway. Instead I turned to Lee, "I'm sorry."

I hope he understood what I was trying to say. That I wasn't just sorry about jumping the gun on him, but also that I was sorry that this was how things ended between us.

He just shook his head.

If there ever was such a thing as perfect timing, it was that Gavin chose that moment to come out of his room, his backpack slung across one shoulder. He looked at me expectantly and I gave him a quick nod. Without saying goodbye, Gavin made his way to the hall. I couldn't blame him. He was fine having me as his family now, but he had always made it pretty clear that he didn't care too much for Lee or the other kids.

I took a deep breath while trying to decide what to do; should I say goodbye to everyone or do what Gavin did and walk away without looking back? I figured the kids wouldn't want to say goodbye anyway, given how upset they all were at this moment, so I took one step towards Lee and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. I could feel him stiffen under my touch and pulled away. "I really am sorry, Lee." I said before picked up my bag and followed Gavin, not looking back.

That was three weeks ago.

AN: Please let me know what you think! Part of the next chapter is already sitting on my laptop, but if you have any suggestions or things you would like to see in the story, don't hesitate to let me know! Thank you :)