Helloooooo! First off, I am so sorry for not having updated in a long while. I got a bit stuck and it was a tough break, but I've been continuously working on this and finally feel ready to get back into this! Honestly, I think all the new tlou part 2 talks at PSX has sucked me back into this head on, and I've missed my favorite family duo. The next chapter will not take as long to update as this one did, so please bear with my schedule!
Chaos erupted at the front gates upon their arrival, Tommy's anger having finally found its outlet throughout the short trek home.
He'd radioed back to his men at the gate to round up the rest of their militia, the ones who weren't on defense duty, and to meet him at the front gates. He'd also instructed for a couple of people to go down to their fallen comrade's house, keep his widow and children calm and far from the clamor that was bound to form at their arrival. Tommy wanted to tell them himself, in private.
And he was right about their arrival. As the last of the group trudged inside within the safety of the walls, the front gates were shut closed, a foreboding boom resounding that had her on edge. A large group was scattered around in a loose circle, faces tight with apprehension. Ellie watched as Trevor, one of Tommy's most reliable men and close friend to him, hopped down from the top of the gates, striding over to Tommy who led their group.
"What the fuck happened? Are you guys all right?" He stopped in front of Tommy, placing a hand on his shoulder, and gave him a once over. Tommy patted his arm reassuringly and stepped away, gaze down.
"Did ya take care of that thing I told ya to do?" The words were hushed, quiet from Tommy's taught lips. Trevor nodded hurriedly, fuzzy eyebrows furrowing impatiently.
"Yeah, yeah, Mark's family is good. Just— What's goin' on?"
Tommy sighed, eyes closing in relief at the knowledge that the fresh widow and her two kids were being tended to. Everyone was so damn weary at this point, loss being a part of daily life and yet never getting any easier.
When he opened his eyes, he jumped on top of one of the huge crates stacked against the wall and gazed around at his militia. Men and women alike, and Ellie—the youngest and only kid on the team—gave Tommy their undivided attention as he finally spoke.
"This community that we have here … that we fight for everyday … it means something; to us, to the generation after us, and to this damn world even if they don't know it. We protect each other, and we carry on what it means to be human." Tommy paused, a shaky breath passing through his lips. From this distance, practically right under his nose, she could hear the pain in that little take of air, the way it got caught in his throat. Ellie turned her gaze down.
"We lost one of our own tonight."
It was a bit strange how formal this whole thing was. Usually, when they lost someone, it was more than one because of the scale of the ambushes, and Tommy just came back and went straight to the families of those we'd lost—if they had any family to tell. There was never an emergency meeting that ensued, forcing their band of strongest people to succumb to worry and alertness. But it was needed now, and Ellie knew that. Tommy must have, too.
"I wish that were the only bit of bad news I had for ya," he said, and the soft mumbles that had aroused at the mention of a fallen member quieted, no one expecting that anything could be worse than that. "See, this was an attack on us. We're being watched."
Ellie glanced up at him, her eyebrows furrowing. Watched? The thought hadn't occurred to her, but now that he mentioned it, it made sense. She knew that hole was dug with the intent to trap, but the thought of someone scoping them out made the little hairs on her neck stand up, and involuntarily, her head swiveled toward the trees peeking out over the front gates. Were they watching their little town right now?
A few people from the crowd couldn't hold their tongue anymore, and questions rang out, piercing through the night air like arrows toward Tommy.
"Who was it?"
"The hell we doin' standing around for? Let's fuckin' do somethin'!"
"We oughta be comin' up with a plan. I don't like this not knowin' shit. We gotta prepare ourselves."
Agitation swam through the crowd, getting more and more pronounced as more people voiced their opinions. They were scared, and they'd never been blindsided so quietly and as subtle as they had just now, and no one knew how to react.
"Alright, alright, reign it in," Tommy said, tapping his foot against the crate loudly. Gradually, the noise quieted, the focus going back to Tommy once more. "I know you guys have a lot of questions, but for tonight I just want more men out on the walls; we can't have any inch of this place unprotected. I'm gonna spend the night talking with Maria, figuring out the game plan, and in the morning, I'll have something for ya. Now, I know it's not ideal, but try and work with us here."
Tommy nodded once more, and then hopped down, motioning for Trevor to follow him. They headed toward Mark's house to deliver the terrible news, and with their leader finally gone, the rest of the group dispersed, talking amongst themselves and splitting off into groups to man the walls. Through the intensity the lighting the makeshift spotlights encased the front area with, it was hard to miss the looks of confusion and worry etched into every single one of their faces.
Ellie sighed and rubbed at her eyes, the day's events weighing harshly on her. She was nearly alone now, left behind as the others paired off or went off with their loved ones. As she started walking home alone, she tried to ignore the pang in her heart.
She'd yet to talk to Joel, and that, too, brought her down. If she could just skip over the whole making up part and the apologies and go straight to the talking, that would be fucking perfect because she wanted to talk about what had happened. And that figure in the woods... there was no mistaking what it was now.
Maybe I should just follow Tommy, tell him what I saw. He should know all the—
"Ellie!"
A shaky breath escaped her cool lips as the familiar voice called to her from somewhere ahead in the darkness. With just the sound of his voice, her spirits began to lift, and with it, the dam that blocked her emotions from bursting forth rose up.
Her eyes searched frantically through the now minimal lighting she had since walking farther into town, away from the brightest of lights at the entrance gates. She didn't see him clearly until he was a few feet away, his worried face coming into view first. He slowed his run and braced his hands against her shoulders as he crashed into her, jostling her.
"What happened? I heard abo— Are you okay?"
Joel's words were panicked, his heavy panting loud from a foot away from her. His intense eyes were wider than usual as he frantically shook her from side to side, inspecting her body for any damage that could have come. Ellie let him do his evaluation, taking her own comfort in being looked after for a moment, missing the day she'd spent away from him. It was only a day, but it sure as shit felt like weeks.
"I'm not hurt. It wasn't me."
At her soft words, he finally calmed a little, reigning in the madman that still thrived within him at times. He was relieved, and she didn't know if that made them bad people for feeling relief on a night when they'd lost a valued member of their community. His hands slid away from her shoulders, leaving them cold to the night air.
"Come on. We'll talk inside," he said, leading the way to their house. Ellie followed compliantly.
They walked toward their house in silence, an eerie calm sprinkling over the town. It got like this on those unfortunate days when they took a hit to their population count, not a person around who had the gall to revel in a time like this one.
Ellie noticed the tense stance in Joel's shoulders as he rushed ahead of her, head swiveling from side to side every so often as though on guard. It felt like the opposite of yesterday morning when they'd raced these very same streets, letting a weight off their shoulders for just a moment.
They walked into their house and went straight to the kitchen, Ellie stalking forth to an empty chair and grabbing a comic from the side. The whole house was decorated with them the way she left them hanging around. It came in handy now as she focused all her energy on the pages she'd read a thousand times already.
It was always like this. She'd wanted to talk to him all day and now that he was right in front of her, leaning taut against the sink, ready, she hesitated.
He knew this. That's why he took a deep breath now, leading the conversation.
"I ain't seen ya since yesterday," he said carefully, testing the waters. "Whatchu been up to?"
She thought about answering him, but her impatience got the best of her. She dropped the reading façade and faced him, leaning back in her chair. "Where were you last night?"
He didn't move a muscle, and she thought for a moment that he might lie to her. "Jacob's." Before she could retort, he plowed on. "But you knew that."
She spoke through thin lips, very formal like. "I did."
It was a little dance between them, Ellie's eyes rolling around every little object in the small room, all the while Joel's gaze was focused solely on her, making her feel just that much more awkward.
"You wanna keep looking for a way out, I won't stop you. I know you've had a difficult night, and yesterday..." he trailed off, Ellie getting the feeling that he blamed her sour mood on him. He was partly right.
Joel huffed in frustration, pushing himself off the sink and moving the chair out of the table beside her. He plopped down onto the empty chair, laying himself into it, molding himself. She sneaked a peek at him, noting his eyes were closed. One of his elbows rested on the table as his hand covered his face, a deep sigh leaving his weary body. He was always so damned tired.
He dropped his hand, and Ellie's eyes flew to the comic before her again as he spoke.
"You were right, ya know." Her eyebrows furrowed the tiniest bit, wondering what he was talking about. He cleared his throat, uncomfortable; he never did feel comfortable talking about his feelings no matter how close they'd gotten. She suspected it was just a Joel thing, that he was like this even before. "I'm a real asshole, sometimes."
Oh. That.
She could feel her cheeks warm up with the slight embarrassment she felt from that moment of anger yesterday. She didn't really mean it, but it felt real to her when her anger had peaked, clouding over her judgment.
"You were right, too."
Joel looked confused for only a moment before he caught on, much quicker than she had. His head was already shaking in protest. "Now, that ain't right. I shouldn't'a said all that—"
"But it's true," Ellie cut in, not wanting to hear apologies. "My whole life I've felt like someone had it out for me, like some invisible force was trying to make my life as lonely as they could, tearing away everyone I've ever known. It never really occurred to me that I might have been the invisible force; that I could be the reason they're biting the dust now."
When she'd voiced her revelation, Joel sighed to himself, a sigh that seemed to pain him. His eyebrows were knitted together, features pinched with self-loathing as a hand rubbed against his forehead. He knew how she struggled with her guilt, he knew this, and she knew it bothered him. He didn't say as much, but he had told her once how none of this was on her, that she had to keep finding something to fight for. It wasn't easy for her to do that, not like it was for him, and she knew that annoyed him, that he couldn't take away the pain she felt no matter how hard he tried.
Joel leaned forward in his chair, getting right up in her personal space. She only backed up, leaning against the back of the chair. His eyes were intense on hers as he tried to reach her.
"Listen to me. Bad things happen to everyone, and I'm not saying that to lessen the weight of your losses; I just want you to know that we've all been where you are. I guarantee you every man and woman still making it in this world have had a moment just like this where they blamed themselves for ending up alone, or for not bein' able to protect their loved ones. But you're different. You're different because you have someone here to tell you these things. Matter of fact, I like to think you're some kind of special."
A wet chuckle escaped Ellie's lips then, the sound of his reassuring voice enough to settle the frazzled nerves she'd had ever since yesterday. "Pfft. You're just saying that to make me feel better."
Joel half-smiled, a breathy exhale leaving his lips. "Honest. Want me tell ya why?" She nodded, and he licked his lips, eyes traveling around the room as he thought. "Well, for one, I ain't never seen no one immune. I don't think I'll ever meet another person like you in my lifetime."
"I can't be the only one," she said. She'd thought about this at times, too, and even had a secret ambition of going to find someone like her, but it was farfetched. Where would she even start?
"I don't doubt there are others, but the chances of finding one of 'em is like finding a needle in a haystack. Which is why I say this in favor of you being special and all." He paused for a moment, biting his bottom lip before he continued. "And, ya know, I've never met a kid as tough as you. The things you've done... it's safe to say I never in my wildest imagination could've seen myself doing those things at your age. Although, I was mature like you are. When I was just a bit older than you, I was warming up baby bottles and working my ass off tryin' to find a job. That's what growing up too fast meant back then, starting a family in your teens. But you... you're way past that, survival the only thing you needed to learn, and yet you're just right for your age. Most these other kids are lacking, their parents wanting them to have a 'normal' childhood. It's only hurtin' them in the end."
Ellie agreed with him. She'd always seen herself as more focused than the other kids, and maybe that wasn't such a bad thing like some of the adults seemed to think. Joel may have told her that it's okay to be a kid, but she knew he appreciated her maturity; it's saved him far more times than he cared to recount.
"I guess we're not so different, you and me. Never have been," she said. It was a soft confession, but it held weight. That the two of them could be the same inside, it wasn't something she said lightly. Joel gave her a look, loaded with understanding and consideration. Was he pleased by this fact?
Joel blinked once, then in rapid succession, wiping away whatever he was feeling in that moment. He threw an arm on the table heavily, tapping the wood with a finger. "I just want you to know that you can't control the bad shit that throws itself at you. All you can do is buckle down and try not to drown." His insistent tapping stopped, and she caught his eyes. "For a girl who doesn't know how to swim, you're sure doing a hell of a job not getting swept up in the current."
There was a small, barely there smile on the older man's face, one that expressed genuine admirability. It was really hard to doubt him when he was staring at her with such conviction. She could almost forget the way they hurt each other yesterday. She wouldn't, but she could almost.
But forgetting wasn't what was needed right now. She didn't have to push down and toss away that memory. But if she wanted to get past this bump in their relationship, she'd have to forgive him.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry about what I said to you. I know I'm not your daughter, but..." But it doesn't feel that way.
She was sure he had understood her miscommunicated thought. The words were just too sweet for her callous mouth to voice aloud that her teeth almost started aching.
"Yeah," he said, gritty, whispered, and he nodded imperceptibly into the tight space the kitchen seemed to give them.
Ellie puffed her cheeks and slowly blew air out from between her lips, the sound harsh and disruptive of the sweet moment. "I bet Sarah never spoke so badly to you, the way I do."
Joel barked out a laugh at this, bringing a finger up to rub at his eye. "You'd be surprised the hell that girl could bring out when she was angry. I'd reckon she'd match you in the way of sass."
"No way," Ellie said. There was no way his own daughter could get mad enough to start spewing insults at him. Could there?
"Just because we was family don't mean we didn't have our share of arguments. We bickered like cats and dogs, complete opposites of each other, always butting heads. I believe she even gathered a backpack one night, filled with a can of chips and some coloring books, and she wandered down the street to the neighbor's backyard. See, they had a dog, and so there was a pretty big doghouse in their backyard. She crawled in there with him and said to me that she was going to live there. This was her idea of running away because I wouldn't let her do somethin' or other, I forget now."
Ellie's eyebrows were high on her head, amused and shocked at the idea. "That's insane. Did she really think she could live in that doghouse forever?"
"Not forever, just until she was big enough to kick me outta the house, and then she was gonna go back to live there all by herself."
Chuckles burst forth from Ellie's mouth, finding it funny how this little girl thought she was gonna shove Joel aside and take charge of the house all by herself. "Pretty ambitious, kid. Might need to take note of these stories for later."
"Don't you go running off on me now," he said. His tone was light, but she knew he meant it seriously.
"As if I'd want to. Everything I need to live is right here. I'd be pretty stupid to think life is better anywhere else."
Joel leaned over the table, reaching for one of his landmark books. He opened it casually, sifting through the pages until he found the page he was looking for, then he tapped the page once with his finger and swung the book around to face Ellie. Curiosity piqued, she lifted the book in her hands and glanced at the page, reading the title indulgently.
"Devil's Tower: A quick guide to its rich culture and history." Directly beneath the headline was a faded picture of a huge rock-like mountain that looked like someone had chopped off the peak of it. Hundreds of little crevices ran down the sides of the singular, natural structure like rivulets pouring over, flooding the rock.
"What happened to it?" she asked, turning the book this way and that, trying to gauge the right angle.
"What do ya mean?"
"I mean, it's missing the pointy edge, or whatever. Like every other mountain I've ever seen."
Joel furrowed his brows and peeked at the image. "Nah, that's how it's meant to look. That's just how the rock formed; nothin' happened to it."
"Oh," she said, and he faltered at her less-than-enthusiastic response. "Did you ever go here, or something?" It was a pretty random thing to be showing her out of the blue.
He cleared his throat, setting himself upright. "Ain't never had the time. Tommy and me, we'd taken a trip across the country before, but we never came 'round these parts when we was older. A damn shame, though, seeing as this was where our folks grew up."
"They lived in..." she scanned the page, looking for where this mountain was located, "Oh, cool, here in Wyoming? But I thought you were from that Texas area?"
"My folks moved down there before me and Tommy was born, my dad's job forcing the pair of them to hike it down south. But, yeah, they grew up and met each other here in Wyoming, and we took a few trips back here as a family when I was a boy. My mama, though... she'd always wanted to take us there when we got older." He took a sad breath. "She never got the chance."
Forlorn, he sounded. He stared at his methodically thumping fingers on the table, unseeing, as his memories of the dead took a hold of him. Subtly, she dropped the book with a loud thump, enough to get his attention.
"I think it's a pretty fucking rad rock."
He chuckled slightly and glanced down at his knees before gazing at her inquisitively. "You know, I was thinking... Well, since we ain't got nothing but time no more, I don't see no reason why we can't finally go make that trip."
Ellie's eyes raised to meet his, seeing his glint of vulnerability at his question. It was clearly something he'd been wanting since he was a kid, and it meant something to her that he wanted to go visit this place with her. To invite her on this journey that was a long-held family ambition.
Why, she just about burst at the seams with emotion.
Swallowing thickly, she smiled. "We?" Joel was smiling, too, his bottom lip sucked in between his teeth to contain it. "Hell, yeah, we should go! I-I mean it's right here in the state, not that far away. We could be there in a month, maybe less if we took a truck! We could—"
"Now, hold on there, kiddo, breathe for a second."
"Oh, man," she said breathlessly, now clutching the book back in her hands, devouring all the little info this cheap book had to give her. "It says here that the Devil's Tower used to be a popular tourist site, where thousands of people all over the nation came to see it all year round. Some dead president named it a National Monument in 1906, whatever the hell that means, and—"
The book was suddenly pinned to the table beneath Joel's rough hand as he brought it down much to her dismay.
"Easy there, tiger. We can't just hop up and ride out tomorrow."
"Why not?" It seemed simple enough to Ellie. Gather some supplies, rack up on food, let Maria know that she'd have to find some more help with the militia while she was away. The man had been waiting all his life for this, why would he wait another minute?
"We've gotta plan this trip out. We're gonna need food, water, guns, ammo, I mean— This ain't no vacation like it used to be. We're gonna be putting ourselves at risk going beyond these walls, and it's gonna be a rough journey if we don't have a plan mapped out first."
She sighed, all of that sudden rush of energy leaving just as quickly as it had come. He was right, of course. Had she not learned during her last trek outside these walls with Joel just how dangerous aimless wandering could get?
"I know," she said, pouty. "But aren't you just a little excited?"
"Of course I am, but I've been waiting a long damn time to reach that mountain, I know I can hold out just a little longer."
Psshh. Ellie had no doubt he had the patience of a rock, and the forethought to stay ahead of an adventure filled outing. The thought that she could go on a journey of her own, just like every hero she'd ever read in her comics, it filled her insides up with some deeply buried feeling from her childhood, something a bit unsettling if she were honest. Something a bit like hope.
Ellie flipped through the pages a minute more, skimming the detailed information on the misshapen rock, before Joel stood up, grabbing her attention.
"I hate to leave you alone right now, but..." he said, eyes shadowed with heaviness.
"No, go to talk to Tommy." A beat passed as the weight of their reality settled back into her body. "He's at Mark's," she said quietly.
His eyes cast down as he nodded quickly, trying to gain his composure back. She didn't think Joel and Mark had been friends, but it didn't even matter. Loss was loss, and it was never a relief.
As he passed her, he stopped to lay a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it lightly before moving on out, the sound of the door shutting softly behind him.
Ellie leaned heavily against the back of her chair, letting her head fall back as she closed her eyes.
She felt terrible. Not because they'd lost someone, but because more than she felt terrible, she felt happy... and wasn't that terrible? Even now, she couldn't help the grin from forming on her chapped lips, the sight of a mountain she'd never seen before ten minutes ago painting the darkness behind her closed eyelids.
Going back to the schoolroom after the night she'd had was surreal. Things didn't slow down for the dead, and if anything, they were starting to pick up speed. Throughout the night when Mark was ambushed, Tommy had multiplied his men. There were four main entrances that were on constant guard and each was designated right in the middle of each side, facing all four directions. On a typical day, two watchers sat atop the makeshift tower while five men patrolled from behind the door, ready at a signal.
Now, though, as she passed by the North tower toward the schoolroom, she could see double the people standing around near the gate, a few of them she recognized from wall duty, but for the most part, there seemed to be a ton of new people she didn't recognize from her team. They were people who had smaller jobs of organizing and maintaining order inside the walls. Tommy and Maria needed every available hand.
If she didn't have a job to do, she'd be pissed that she wasn't up there with them. No, Tommy had given her a different job.
Ellie pushed her way through the heavy doors of the schoolroom, and all talking within ceased at her arrival. She could feel their prickly stares as she skipped right over her own desk and stood at the forefront of the classroom where her teacher, Ben, usually stood, the feeling bubbling within her equal parts thrilled and anxious. Her eyes roved over the room, taking in the varying glances of kids she'd been working alongside anywhere from a month to two years ago.
The younger kids were usually taught in a room across the hall by a different teacher, Ali, so It was weird to see young babyfaces mixed in with the harder, skeptical lines of the older kids; another one of Tommy's new rules: mixing the older class in with the younger class. As Tommy had relayed to her via Joel this morning: everyone was to learn her material.
Most of the older kids had chagrined faces, probably wondering what the hell Ellie was doing in the place of authority, gauging whether this was one of her stunts to showcase her "superior knowledge" as some kids teased. The younger kids just looked scared, eyes wide and hands obediently tucked in their laps.
In the far back corner, she recognized Marco sitting slumped in his seat as he fiddled with his fingers on the desk, a tiny toothpick hanging from his lips. She'd never really noticed him before, but after their tense first meeting, she wondered how she ever skimmed over his underrated presence. And where the hell did he manage to find toothpicks?
As if he could sense her looking, his eyes shot up, and surprisingly, he offered a small smile.
Ellie raised her eyebrows in greeting, not wanting anyone else to notice the silent conversation, then faced the entirety of the room. As she gathered breath for an improvised speech, the silence was cut by an annoyingly familiar voice.
"Last time I checked, you weren't the teacher. You were sitting down here, playing peasant with the rest of us."
Her eyes darted to the right side of the room where most of the teens sat, and a scowl took over her face. It didn't surprise her that the voice belonged to a boy she'd frequently had minor run-ins with over the years. Ryan was a bit of an enemy if she had to call him anything, though he wasn't really. Just some petty boy who didn't know any better and thought cracking jokes at Ellie would make the threats outside the walls seem less real.
Ryan raised a high eyebrow at her, and continued. "Guess the princess finally decided she'd had enough of us and is turning into Cinderella once more."
This was something else Ryan liked to tease her about. In that first couple of weeks since she and Joel had come to live there, the teacher had asked Ellie for a few stories of the outside. He said it would do them all some good to hear firsthand accounts of protecting yourself out there. Ellie gave them a few pointers and tips, and the whole class had been enraptured by her death-defying memories. Except for Ryan. He sat there and listened to every one of her tales like a bored child, and when they left class one day, he'd called her, "The princess of the dead world."
For two years he called her this, and while most of the other kids ignored Ryan's childish quips, a couple of his friends had taken to using the name, which annoyed the fuck out of her some days. Joel knew about these nicknames the kids had given her, and while sometimes she was seconds away from punching someone in the mouth for using the word on her, Joel had kept her grounded enough with his pleas and words of advice.
"Them kids ain't worth losing what we have here. They don't know no better. Be the bigger person here, Ellie."
Easier said than done, but for Joel, she had tried.
Ellie watched through narrowed as a girl next to Ryan, Julie, she thought her name was, scrunched up her face in annoyance. "That's not how the story goes," she said, leaning forward on her desk with both arms as she spoke to Ryan. "Cinderella was a peasant to start with, she can't turn back into a princess if she wasn't one to start with."
Ryan faltered at the truth of her statement before smacking his lips. "Whatever. It's the same basic concept. Yesterday was midnight, and the princess is back where she belongs."
Ellie rolled her eyes as her older classmates bickered, and instead focused on the younglings. A few of them were glancing back and forth between the bickering teens and Ellie, anxiety growing in their innocent faces. Her lesson was going superbly, and she hadn't even started.
One of the smaller kids caught sight of Ellie watching and raised his hand cautiously. She walked over to him and bent down on one knee, low enough to hear the young boy cup his bony little hands to her ear. "Where's Ali?"
Unexpectedly, her heart clenched at hearing the fear in this boy's voice. Fear for his teacher, at this sudden change that he wasn't given a reason for. She remembered when she was little, and how things had changed so fast she barely had the chance to ask questions about it before it changed again. She remembered the anxiety she lived with, fear for her life and those she held dear to her. She gazed into the boy's eyes and tried her damnedest to appear calm.
"Colin, right?" she said. He nodded once, and she smiled lightly at him. "Right. Colin. I'm Ellie, and I know it seems scary right now because today isn't just like every other day you've had before, but I'm gonna need you to be brave today. Can you do that? For Ali? She's perfectly fine, by the way. She just has a job to do right now, and I'm going to be here with you for a while until she comes back. Is that cool with you?"
The boy nodded, but she doubted he'd do anything else. As she stood up from Colin's desk, a young girl beside him waved her hand frantically to get her attention.
"Ellie! Not everyone's here, you can't start yet."
Ellie's eyebrows crinkled. "Who's missing?"
"Shawn and Kate."
Ellie almost started to ask if anyone knew where they were, but the ever-obnoxious Ryan cut in. "Don't you know what happened last night?" he asked the smaller children, annoyance in his tone. He was greeted with wide, confused glances from the children. He huffed exaggeratedly. "We were attacked. We were targeted, and we were hunted."
Not only did the children wear looks of horror, but some of the older teens' eyes went wide with realization. Their parents no doubt sugar-coated it for a majority of them—as they tended to do around here—and hearing it so plainly, so bluntly, as if it were a fact they were so defenseless against, shook them to their core.
He continued. "They took Shawn and Kate's dad first, just last night. That's why they're not here. Their mama's probably figurin' a way to hightail it outta here right now."
"Okay, you know what, that's enough," Ellie said, voice tight with vehemence. "You're not helping anyone."
"And you are?" he challenged, eyeing her intensely.
"I'm doing what I can, but it's not gonna help anyone to make everyone afraid."
The kid scoffed. "We all know why you aren't scared." Slowly, dramatically, he rose from his seat, his voice projecting over the small classroom. "You never let us forget how you survived outside these walls, how you killed people, how you endured on your own. And now, if this place goes to shit, it's no bother to you. You'll run off with Joel and survive." He spat the word out like filth coating his lips. When he spoke again, his voice was low, and Ellie had to give him credit for being an effective spokesman. "How about the rest of us? Most of us have lived behind the safety of these walls all our lives... We aren't soldiers, we aren't prepared for this, not really. When the hunters come, and they will come, we're gonna be sitting here like lambs; waiting for the big bad wolf to come and devour our livelihood."
Ellie could sense the danger of the situation she was in, noting the wondrous, wary glances everyone wore as they listened to Ryan, enraptured by his matter-of-fact speaking style. People tended to believe other people who spoke passionately, despite the nonsense they uttered, because the more it seemed someone actually believed what they were saying, the more unlikely people would be to doubt them.
If this entire classroom revolted against her before she could even explain what she was there to do, that'd be a big failure on her part. Can't you reign in one room of kids, Ellie?
A thought niggled to the forefront of her mind as her mind raced for a way out of this would-be anarchy; a thought that constantly brought warmth into her chest.
"I guess we're not so different, you and I."
Joel wasn't a quitter, and neither was Ellie.
Head held high, eyes gazed down, fingers trailing over the nearest student's desk lazily, Ellie spoke. "You think you got it all figured out, huh?" She didn't expect a response, and Ryan was smart enough to know this. The boy slowly sat back down in his chair, narrowed eyes on her. "You hear a few things, you know a few things, but you know it's not enough. You know something bad is coming, and your first defense is to blame it on circumstances and give up."
Ellie smacked her hand on the desk loudly and walked toward the front of the room once more, leaning against the desk behind her. She needed everyone to hear what she had to say. "What he's saying is true. We were attacked last night, and this was no random attack—it was an ambush. They'll be back to try to finish the job, maybe even try to steal this place from us."
Whimpers stifled through the left side of the room where the smaller children sat, but Ellie refused to look up, knowing her resolve would break, and she wouldn't get her point across.
"Last night... You can't even imagine how horrible it was. Mark had fallen into an inescapable hole that was dug about 30 feet into the ground. It wasn't the fall that killed him, though the fall alone could've totally splattered his brains all over the ground. No, but he wasn't alone down there. Whoever dug up that hole was kind enough to give him company at least."
Daring a peak, she tilted her eyes to the right, feeling the heavy gaze of all the teens staring at her, horrified as she recounted what she saw. Marco was the only one not looking at her, his own eyes downcast with what looked like sorrow.
Even Ryan, who was talking a big talk just a few minutes ago, was staring at her, jaw set tightly as he kept her eye contact. "It was all we could to sit and listen to him in his final moments: screaming as the runner tore into him, begging for help; and when that didn't come, for death."
Ellie coughed, trying to clear the sudden tightness in her throat. It was almost too much for her to have to relay the scene over again for everyone, but she didn't have a better idea to get everyone's cooperation than to explain to them just how essential it was that they cooperate in this foreboding time.
Once more, she turned her attention to Ryan, trying to drive her point where it needed fixing the most. "You laugh and mock me for my raw survival skills, but you don't know what I've had to endure to learn those skills. What I've had to see, what I've had to do, what's been done to—" She took a shuddering breath, collecting herself. "It's not fun to have this knowledge, and I don't take it lightly. Nobody who's been outside these walls does. You think Joel wouldn't give anything for me to have the kind of childhood that he had? The one that was all rainbows and sunshine and safety?" She knew she was delving into personal territory, but she couldn't stop herself. The more she stared at the boy the more desperate she was getting to reach him. "Kind of like how your parents have been doing to you all."
"What have they been doing to us?" one of the children asked. She swiveled her head around automatically, seeking out the kid.
"Only what any parent would want to do: keep you kids safe. But they're clinging to a way of life that's already expired, a life that can get you killed in this world today."
Another small voice rang out, sounding even smaller with its message. "I don't want to die."
It was a simple statement, one that anyone in their right mind would agree with, but hearing it come from the trembling lips of a small child she had just corrupted was too much for her.
She felt like the world's biggest asshole.
Then came another voice, one that was much more welcomed than those before him. "No one's dying. Not today, kid. Because Ellie has a plan. Isn't that right?"
Marco's voice rang clear from the teen's group, and her heart squeezed with relief. She closed her eyes as she gazed at the ground, allowing herself two seconds of misery before she straightened, slipping back into casual Ellie mode.
"It wasn't exactly my idea, but... There's a reason I'm standing up here in front of you guys. A reason I'm going to be taking up classes for the time being. As Ryan so arrogantly pointed out, I have survival skills and first-hand knowledge of what's out there. Since we need as many able-bodied people on the walls, Ali and Ben are going to be needed out there for a while, and Tommy asked if I could help pass on my knowledge to you guys because it's never too early to start learning how to defend yourself. That's why I'm up here. I'm going to show you guys a different kind of Survival 101 than you're used to."
It was music to her ears when cautious, excited chatter took hold of the somber room, the kids quickly shifting into animated bundles, restless in their chairs as they wondered what they'd be doing. The teens, too, talked amongst themselves with light in their faces, not enough to diminish what they'd just talked about, but just the amount of interest she was hoping for.
"Okay, okay. I know it's weird taking lessons from another kid, but cut me some slack, guys. Everyone's got jobs to do, and it seems I'm pretty suited for this, so this is how it's gonna be for a while until things settle down around here."
Everyone murmured in agreement and finally, some of the anxiety that had pooled in the middle of her stomach had begun to lesson, eager to begin just as much as they were.
"I think Tommy set up some bows out back, so let's go on out there for our lesson."
The children took off from their seats as soon as she'd mentioned the bows out back, the older kids trailing along easily. This was an area the teens were familiar, but it was going to be something new for the younger ones.
She fell into step with Marco, bringing up the caboose of the line. With her fingers tucked into her jean pockets, she knocked his elbow with hers, grabbing his attention. "How'd you know Tommy sent me here to teach you guys about defense and stuff?"
Marco squinted ahead of him as he thought, his lips twirling that stupid toothpick between his teeth. "I didn't know."
Ellie faltered. "Then ... why did you tell that kid I had a plan? What if I didn't? Then, you would have just put me on the spot! Real asshole move."
The corner of his mouth lifted up as he chuckled once. "I told that kid what he needed to hear." He turned his head to face her, brown eyes glowing with trust. "And I knew you'd come through."
A scoff left her lips before she could reign it in. "That's a lot of blind faith you're putting in someone you just met. It's pretty stupid if you ask me."
"What can I say? I'm an excellent judge of character."
"Oh, I see. I suppose that sixth sense is what kept you alive all this time? Because I know it's not that brain of yours."
Marco faced her with a sad smile, before dropping his head, effectively not answering her banter. Ellie wondered briefly if she'd said the wrong thing, but Marco saved her the trouble of wondering.
"I can say with confidence that my 'sixth sense' was not my survival tool." He paused, eyeing her a minute more. "Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime."
There he went again. There he went trying to worm his way into her life like he had any right to be there. She couldn't even be mad at him, though, because what she said was, "I'm holding you to that."
Maybe she'd wanted friends more than she'd let on to herself.
Also, I wanted to thank anyone who read or commented on this fic, because as I struggled to get through some parts, those comments always fueled me to keep going and to see this through. It's always a delight to hear that people enjoy this story, and I just wanted to thank you for your kind words :)