Author's Note: I thought I could get this done in time for Squall's birthday. I was mistaken. Oh well. Here's another chapter with more insight into Squall's past. Enjoy. And don't kill me.

11. Further

Three and a half years earlier...

He was pretty sure this was wrong. Every bit of logic and rationality was telling him so, telling him that he should be back home, back in the safe and familiar walls of Garden, back where he was meant to be. But there was something so much stronger than logic buzzing inside him, now, something beckoning him, like a siren's song echoing out to a lost ship.

He had been surprised when his cell phone rang late on Wednesday night, and even more surprised to find out who was on the other end. He could hear the smile in Zurie's voice when she asked to see him again. His mouth watered and his stomach became weightless at the prospect of experience, of newness and the beautiful unknown, and he agreed all too eagerly to come to Deling City and spend the weekend with her.

As he sat on the bus with his duffel bag at his feet, his skin tingled with anticipation. His night out with Irvine and Zell was already two weeks old, but the feeling was still fresh in his mind; it had created a hunger inside of him he didn't know was possible, and he lusted after the high, the raw unravelling of reality. Another meeting Zurie came with the promise of more.

She was his chance at youth, at freedom and self-discovery. She knew nothing of his past, the turmoil inside him, and the best part was she didn't care. Squall Leonhart was just another twenty-something, some guy she met at a club and went to a party with. He wasn't a commander or a SeeD or a knight. He wasn't a father and he wasn't a son. He simply was.

He tried to ignore the voice in the back of his mind that kept nagging him, telling him this was just temporary, that he was running from his problems, and that what he was doing wouldn't dissolve the loneliness and the hurt. It whispered Rinoa's name, and screamed Ellie's. It told him to use his head and think of the long-term, and it warned him of the untold consequences lying in the wait if he continued down this path.

But Squall couldn't even comprehend consequences anymore. All he wanted was this, now; everything else was irrelevant. Staring out into the grey afternoon with his head propped against the window, he felt a gluttonous excitement build inside of him, like a child on his way to the toy store. He tried to memorize every detail as the bus drove along its route to her apartment. The kitsch neighbourhood of vintage-style homes. The bridge crossing over the Monterosa River. The elementary school with a broken swingset.

His eyes moved to the sign at the front of the bus. "NEXT: 29th AVENUE". He slung his bag over his shoulder and pulled the cord to alert the driver to stop. The vehicle lumbered to a halt and he disembarked, feeling the pleasant rush of the cool April wind as he stepped onto the sidewalk. The apartment was just a little further up the block; he could see it, the cheap-looking yellow siding, rows of windows sporting knick-knacks and band stickers and Galbadia Bears flags.

Apartment 312. He hit the corresponding button on the intercom, waited. A loud buzz sounded and the front door came unlocked. He entered quickly, and was immediately assaulted with the smell of stale air. He found his way to the stairs and hiked up to the third floor, and down the hall to her door. The sounds of muffled house music reverberated through the walls and seeped into his ears. His knock echoed through the empty corridor, and hyper footsteps came bounding in response.

"Squall, hiya! You made it." Zurie threw her arms around him, kissed his cheek.

"Hi." He gently pulled himself out of her grasp and offered her a wan smile. A sudden fear washed over him as he tried to think of what to say. His mind was trapped in a world of formalities and command structure, but this was not Garden; this was the wilderness. "Thanks for, er, inviting me..."

"Of course!" She grabbed his bag and tossed it into the living room before leading him inside. "This weekend is gonna be madness. I'm pretty stoked."

He stepped into the tiny apartment, eyes taking a moment to adjust to the darkness. The air was heavy with smoke, and it smelled like shisha and sandalwood incense. Her furniture was a mismatched array of second-hand sofas and dinged up curbside shelving. A hookah sat at the centre of it all, set in the middle of a pile of clashing throw pillows. Only a single lamp burned, situated in the corner, its red light filling the room with a strange industrial ambiance. Her black cat sprawled across the top of a green plush loveseat, eyeing him for a disinterested moment.

Zurie stepped over a rogue pile of laundry before plopping down onto one of the throw pillows, and motioned for him to follow suit. He carefully made his way around the obstacles scattered across the floor, took a spot next to her, and let out the breath he didn't know he was holding. He felt like he had landed on another planet. There was no order here, but as nervous as it made him, he felt strangely at ease. He wanted to erase the evidence of everything he had been, to bury it all and start fresh. This place held no hints of the life he lead.

"I'm actually kinda surprised that you showed up," she said. "How was the flight? Does it take a long time to get here from Balamb?"

"Not really." He rested his back against the base of the musty old couch. "I've done it tons of times."

She nodded. "Sorry, my humble abode probably isn't up to Garden standards. It's home, though."

"Don't worry about it. It's fine."

He dared to look at her for a moment, take in her form, her facade. She was a petite girl, slim, skin like china, honest eyes hidden under dyed red bangs. She wore a pair of ripped skinny jeans and a loose-fitting grey tank top that revealed a cherry blossom tattoo snaking up her side. Her fingers were adorned with chunky rings, and her black nail polish looked weathered.

Everything about her was a foreign language.

"Have you eaten?"

He shook his head.

"We should go out and get something. There's a couple good take-out places we could hit downtown," she said. "My friend's band is playing at the Green Room tonight. Are you into checking them out?"

"Sure."

He didn't know what else to say, or do. He felt awkward, sitting there and waiting to feel something. Did she have some sort of expectation of him? Maybe his nerves were caused by the fact that she didn't have any expectations at all. He became painfully aware of the fact that he had no idea how to act his age. Garden was in his words, SeeD was in his actions; beyond that, what did he have?

"Wanna share a spliff with me?" she asked, reaching to the end table to retrieve a pre-rolled joint and a full ashtray. "Or are you still trying to stay on the straight and narrow?"

He shrugged. She lit the joint, and he became entranced with her, how she seemed to be perpetually floating. Herb-scented smoke rose from her lips like poetry, and she was beautiful then; he wanted to drink her in, become intoxicated by her. She smiled when she caught him staring, and offered him a hit. He took a long drag and started to cough; it was unforgiving, rougher than a cigarette, but after a moment, the feeling started to melt away, and it was almost—

"Good, right?"

Everything with Zurie was good. Pot was good. Music was good. Talking was good. Ecstasy was good. This was good. He felt like he had been asleep this whole time, and she had come to wake him, open his eyes and force him to see the world under her sun. He felt the smoke rise in his mind and half a minute later he was stoned. It wasn't quite like what he was expecting; he felt his fears become muted, like someone had pulled a warm blanket over his mind. He looked up to the ceiling and thought about nothing.

She giggled. "How many first times have you had since you met me?"

He gave her a curious look. "I've only seen you once before."

"Answer the question."

"Not enough."

Squall found himself thinking about the SeeD inauguration ball, about the twelve-piece orchestra and the complex melodies they played, about the looks of self-satisfaction that stained the faces of the graduates and their instructors. They had celebrated with expensive champagne, with handshakes and pats on the back, and when they danced, they took only well-practiced steps, moving perfectly in time to the music. The foxtrot, the tango, the waltz.

Nobody was waltzing here.

He sat in a booth at the back of the bar, taking it all in. It was a small venue, much smaller than the club he had visited with Irvine and Zell, but he found that he preferred it that way. It felt intimate, and the atmosphere was more genuine. The band played loud indie rock over their amplifiers, light-hearted, energetic, and somewhat predictable.

They drank beer from clear bottles stuffed with lime wedges, she made observations about the crowd, and he laughed. She was not the walking disaster he pegged her for when they had first met. Zurie was a girl who knew exactly who she was and what she wanted. She didn't think about the past, and she didn't care about the future. She had a GED and a waitressing job and she lived off her tips. She didn't believe in romance and all her relationships were flings. She was the epitome of a girl going nowhere, and Squall envied her.

"Look at that one over there, he looks like a cow who's lost the herd." She pointed to a man standing in the middle of the walkway, looking around the room with a glint of urgency in his eye. Squall watched, pictured the man standing on the wrong side of a shit-covered pasture, calling hopelessly to anyone who would hear him moo. Only when two other people appeared out of the thick dance floor crowd did he become visibly relieved. Zurie smirked crookedly, shook her head. "People are just like cattle. They follow each other aimlessly, graze about, and pump out new cows that will inevitably do the same. Lazy, fat, stupid cows."

"So, what does that make us?" Squall asked over the music. He finished his beer and added it to the growing collection of empty bottles on the table.

"We," she drew out the word, letting it suspend in the air, "are the lions."

Lions, huh? He raised an eyebrow, offered her a half-shrug. "I'm not proud enough or strong enough for that anymore."

She gave him a iniquitous smile. "I beg to differ."

"You wouldn't say that if you really knew me."

"What else do I need to know?" The waitress walked by and Zurie ordered two more drinks before returning her attention back to him. "You're good-looking. You work at Balamb Garden. You're quiet. You worry a lot. You're partying with me again. You're a human being."

He laughed. When she described him, it sounded so simplistic, like he was a character in a children's book. How little she knew of him, his problems. But then maybe he over-complicated things. He tried to imagine himself as the person she made him out to be, and failed.

"Are you gay?" It was not the first time he had been asked; as a teenager, his indifference toward women had often been misinterpreted as an indication of his sexuality. But when his peers at Garden had posed the query, it was often laced with malice and insult. Zurie's voice held no such undertones, her question innocent and sincere.

He felt his own curiosity stir, and posed another question in lieu of his answer. "...Why?"

"Just wondering." Then she said in air quotes, "Trying to 'really know you'."

"I see..." His lips twitched into an uncertain smile, and he let out a long, low sigh. "Well, I'm not."

He tried to remember if he'd ever mentioned Rinoa to her before; if he had, it was only in passing during one of their overly-inebriated conversations. His ex-lover was a topic that he did not wish to explore tonight, and he hoped that his duplicitous thoughts would co-operate—even if just for a few abbreviated hours. She had already overstayed her welcome in his head, and the loneliness left in her wake had carved its way into his brain, piercing with its cold, serrated blade.

He did not want to be alone tonight. Solitude was something he was no longer conditioned to, the years of belonging to her bringing him the comfort of consistency, a comfort which he foolishly took for granted. If only he hadn't broken his rules in the first place; he could have rejected her and stopped the hurting before it started.

But then what would I have become? His eyes cast themselves downward. A drone, stuck in the permanence of a job, someone whose destiny is written by the highest bidder?

A prisoner in my own home?

Would I even have lived this long? Would I have cared either way?

"Did I offend you?" Zurie brought him back to the moment. His head snapped up and he turned a bewildered expression to her. "About the being gay thing."

Squall waved a dismissive hand. "No, no, sorry. I'm not offended. My mind just wandered a bit."

"Good." She gave a satisfied nod. "Tell me something else about you. Something...interesting, different. I dunno."

He tried to think of a subject that wasn't mired by complications, or classified information, or remotely interesting. A few long, blank moments passed before he settled on a topic. "I travel a lot. I've been to every continent."

This fact delighted her, and her eyes lit up like fireflies. "I've never been anywhere other than here and Dollet. You've been to Esthar? What's it like?"

"Big. Futuristic. I can't really describe it." When he thought about Esthar, his words eluded him. He couldn't find a way to talk about the spotless blue streets, or the strange clothing its citizens donned, or the dry desert heat, or the buildings that seemed to reach the stars. He could only think about Laguna Loire, and a past he never had, and a relationship left unfulfilled.

The waitress came back and set down two fresh bottles, and Squall handed her two-hundred-fifty gil, enough for the drinks and a generous tip. He pushed the lime wedge down the bottleneck and took a large drink. His head was buzzing. Only in the affectionate embrace of substance could he feel relaxed, but after months of agony, he was happy that he could still feel that way at all.

Zurie didn't seem to have any problems relaxing, herself; she bobbed her head along to the music, a near-perpetual grin painted on her girlish face. Again he found himself marvelling at her, how strange she was. Maybe she was normal and he simply didn't know any better. His version of "normal" came from discipline, from routine. Hers very obviously did not.

And she was so oddly curious about him. But she didn't ask about what kind of career path he was on, or what he thought about religion or politics, or where he wanted to be in five years. She was only interested in the little things, the things that five-year-olds were curious about, things he had never really thought through before. He wondered if he had enough answers for her. He didn't think he was terribly interesting to begin with.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-five."

"Favourite colour?"

"Red."

"Favourite dish?"

"Cedar plank Balamb fish, cooked by my friend's mom."

"Favourite drink?"

He smirked at her then. "Anything alcoholic."

"My kind of man." She brought her beer bottle to his and toasted the sentiment. "Now, do you think I qualify as really knowing you? I think I hit all the important points."

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

"You put too much value on bullshit," she told him. "You don't have to say it. I can just tell."

"It's hard not to put emphasis on it when it's all my life seems to consist of," Squall stated dryly. He drank, tried to blur the thoughts out. He didn't want to talk about himself anymore; each word spoken to his name was a burden on the shoulders of a girl who didn't want to carry anything. She was too airy, too light for his weight.

"I am going to make it my mission to break you in to reality," she said then, her crooked smile returning to grace her lips. "I think you've got the stick of Garden shoved too far up your ass or something. You need to stop thinking about the way things should be, and just let them be."

His eyes turned to the table's surface. If only you knew, Zurie. If only you knew even a fraction of what I've been through. Would you even remotely understand what reality is for me? What it feels like to wake up every day as a failure?

"See? You're doing it right now." She poked the side of his head. "Squall's brain, shut up!"

He brushed her hand aside and gave her an amused look. "Wow, I think that really worked. It's a miracle," he said sarcastically.

The band started playing another song, and Zurie perked up in recognition. She started to bob her head again to the tempo, and then she started to tap, mimicking the drummer. She rose to her feet and looked at him with excited eyes. "We have to dance," she declared as if it was a life-or-death situation.

Squall shook his head. "I can't."

"Come on." She grabbed his hand, pulled him out of his seat. "And don't give me any shit about not being able to, because if you haven't noticed, no one else here can, either."

She led him onto the crowded floor and he followed blindly, trapped under her influence. The sensation of déjà vu was overwhelming, like a dream that kept repeating, snaring him in an endless cycle. But this was not a ballroom, and he was not reluctant, and she was not Rinoa.

She stopped in a spot that was barely big enough to house them, and started to dance. He saw the music in her body, the way she moved her hips in those ripped jeans, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He became agonizingly aware of how awkward he must have looked, motionless, completely under her spell.

"Don't just stand there," she said, and put her hands on his hips, leading his movements with her own. He was not used to dancing this way; there were no rules, no choreography, only moves that were as noisy as the rock music accompanying it. "Just feel it," she said.

Her hands left his hips and snaked around to the small of his back, and she was pressed against him, coaching him with her body. He tensed against her touch; he had never let anyone other than Rinoa get this close before. He tried to remember to move but he was growing paralysed with fear. Everything was happening so fast—it wasn't right, couldn't be right.

But part of him whispered that right and wrong were nothing more than a distant memory, and no one was about to say otherwise.

They stumbled into her apartment well after 03:00, drunk. She threw her jacket aside and kicked off her shoes before letting herself collapse on the couch. He followed suit, taking a seat next to her and getting absorbed by the lumpy cushions, the musty smell rising to mix with the sandalwood. With practised ease, she lit a cigarette and took a long drag, letting the smoke fill the air between them. He examined the cloud with spinning vision, the way it took different shapes. Guardian forces, monsters, evaporating into nothing. When she was done, she passed the cigarette over to him, and he finished it off before extinguishing it in the ashtray.

He felt his thoughts drip into his mind one at a time through a hazy filter, and he wondered what Rinoa would think if she could see him now. Would she be happy that he had finally come to desire a world outside Garden? Or would she be angry that he had resorted to cheap highs as a means of escape? And would he care either way? In this state, he wasn't sure if he could care about anything.

Zurie frowned. "You think too much."

"I don't think enough."

"Problems are only problems if you let them be, beautiful," she said, and she was close, too close. She put a hand on his thigh and spoke into his ear, warm breath raising the hair on the back of his neck. "We're not so different, you and I. You just don't know it, yet."

Then she got up and made her way over to the stereo, scrutinized her selection of CDs. She settled for something melodic, piano and ambiance and white noise straddled over the steady beat of the drums. Her body swayed, tantalizing as she spun around and made her way back to him. In the red light of the room, she looked almost feral. The lyrics of the song rolled off her tongue, French sounding like honey in her voice.

"Et il est un jour arrivé. Marteler le ciel, et marteler la mer. Et la mer avait embrassé moi... Et la délivré moi de ma caille... Rien ne peut m'arrêter maintenant."

Nothing can stop me now.

A dark smile formed on her wanting lips, and he dared to meet her gaze. Maybe he was a lion, but she was a snake, cunning, luring him further down the spiral. He felt himself descend into the madness, falling and doing nothing to stop it. The music drowned in his ocean and all he could hear was his heartbeat.

"You're a strange boy, Squall."

"Oh," was all he could manage.

He thought about Rinoa again, and felt the familiar hand of guilt wrap its skeletal fingers around his mind. It felt like he was cheating on her memory, adding further taint their already broken bond. Zurie was someone he had just met, someone he shared a high and a few drinks with, and he didn't even know her last name. How could he ever see Ellie again if he let this carry on? His daughter deserved better than him, this mess of a man, wrapped in shame, hiding in booze, hiding in drugs, hiding, hiding, hiding.

He looked into her eyes. They held only one answer.

Zurie took her place on his lap, knees sinking into the sofa on either side of him, sending him into an excitement-laced panic. She could sense his wanting, as much as he tried to hide it, deny it, and she wielded it against him. Her calculated seduction. No romance, only sexuality and the promise of nothing more.

"We shouldn't do this," he said quietly.

"No, we really shouldn't," she whispered back.

And then she was kissing him, and she tasted like beer and cigarettes and emptiness, her tongue meeting his, almost violent. He was shaking, afraid to continue and afraid to stop, afraid of what was going to happen and afraid that he wouldn't find out. But the more she pressed on, the braver he became, and he found himself returning her actions with equal fervour. He was sure she could feel him against her, hard and desperate.

Her hands grabbed at the hem of his shirt and she pulled it over his head. She traced kisses down his neck, over his chest, across the constellation of battle scars, and she asked no questions, her face showing no concern, only desire. He stopped her long enough to remove her shirt and unclasp her bra, spilling her small breasts out into the smoky air. He traced her tattoo with his fingers, the branches and the blossoms, graffiti on the art of her body.

It didn't take long before their clothes became just another pile of discarded laundry scattered across her floor, and he was silently relieved for the condom in his wallet. A moment later he was inside her, feeling every inch of her as they tumbled down from the couch and onto the pillowed floor, her hands in his hair, parting it between her roaming digits, his arms around her, holding her, this nowhere girl with no last name.

Love was absent as they fucked on the floor, rolling around in different positions, knocking over her hookah, scaring her cat away to another room. The music threaded in with her moaning, primal like her eyes, her fire red hair framing her pretty face, her Cheshire smile. He felt nothing of himself, drunk on cheap beer and sex, open and bare for her, the second woman he had ever been with.

And he knew then that love was a lie, a well-written piece of fiction that left people broken and humiliated. Love was insistent, love was selfish, love was a traitor. Love sent him into space, across the threshold of time, through flower fields and then stole his heart and smashed it into the pavement. The only thing that awaited those who loved was a wake of boundless desolation that would swallow them whole and drown them.

But lust, lust was something else. Lust was truth. Lust did not have shadows hiding in the wings. Lust said what it wanted, and took it.

His head hurt. That was the first thing he noticed as he slowly eased back into consciousness. The ramifications of drinking slammed into his skull with jackhammer force, a drilling ache that only became more painful with each attempt to open his eyes. It was his second hangover in less than a month, and he was starting to realize that it didn't get easier with repetition. He dared a peek at the ceiling to see that it was spinning lazily above him, urging the acid in his stomach to churn and rise in a hot trail up the back of his throat.

He closed his eyes again and hoped no one would call him to his office. If he had it his way, he would not leave his apartment for anything short of a fire, and even then, he would likely debate it. He rolled carefully onto his side so not to dizzy himself any further, pulling his blanket up over shoulders and begging for sleep to return. If only that damned cat would stop meowing...

The second thing he noticed was that he was not in his bed, and then it occurred to him that he was not on a bed at all. And then he remembered that he was not in his apartment, or in Garden, or even Balamb for that matter. It took a monolithic effort to piece together exactly what had happened to him and where he was; the patchwork tapestry of events had fallen apart into an alcohol soaked mess.

Slowly, he sat up and forced himself to take in his surroundings, and everything started to fall back into place; hazy memories floated back into his mind, blotted with black, empty spaces that he couldn't seem to fill. He looked down at himself and saw that he was on Zurie's couch, naked, half-buried by an old duvet. The living room smelled like sex and booze and cigarette smoke, the evidence of their activities hanging densely in the stagnant air.

He swung his feet to the floor and dropped his head into his hands. He felt like a living, breathing catastrophe, with his rotting stomach, his dirty, unkempt hair, and the dark circles he was certain were framing his eyes. An angry, lumbering groan tore through his insides, and he fought off the retch that threatened to escape. Everything continued to turn in a frustrating, unending rotation, sending him into an agonizing bout of vertigo.

He took in a deep breath and lay back down, willing the feeling to dissipate. It seemed unfair that living beyond his past for a couple hours came at such an enormous cost. Did anything even remotely enjoyable have anything short of a painful outcome? Maybe good things were only destined for other people; maybe Squall Leonhart was supposed to know only suffering. But still, if this was the price of forgetting—Rinoa, Ellie, and the trauma of loss—then he would gladly pay it.

He heard the front door unlock and swing open, and a moment later, Zurie stepped inside, carrying with her a brown paper bag and a drink tray with two cups of coffee. She looked to be faring a lot better than himself, and he imagined she probably had a lot more experience in the realm of partying and the resulting hangovers.

With his face half-buried in a couch cushion, he watched her as she set everything down on the coffee table and let herself collapse onto the musty old loveseat. The cat rubbed against her legs greedily before jumping into her lap, and she scratched behind its ears in a way it clearly liked. Each gesture she made was done with an easy languor, her movements like daydreams. How could she still be so impossibly foreign to him, even after he had mapped out every inch of her body?

It only took a few brief seconds before her eyes caught him staring, and a wry smirk settled on her face. "You're finally awake."

He sat up again, suddenly aware that he was still unclothed, and pulled the duvet over himself in a pointless attempt at modesty. When he spoke, his words felt parched. "...How long were you gone for?"

She shrugged. "Maybe an hour. I got us lunch."

Lunch? "What time is it?"

"It's...," she glanced at her cell phone, "just after 14:00."

"Holy fuck," he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I feel like I've been run over by a goddamn semi."

She laughed. "You were pretty wasted last night. Did you have fun, though?"

He paused, tried to gather himself. "...I think so."

Another laugh. She brought him one of the cups of coffee, which he took graciously, nodding a silent 'thank you'. Its caffeinated warmth sat like lead in his writhing stomach, washing down the bile that had coated his tastebuds. The familiar sound of a lighter flicking filled his ears, and he cast his eyes back on her from over the brim of his cup, watching intently as she lit a fresh joint.

"Smoke some of this so that you can eat," she said, rolling it between her fingers in a teasing motion before handing it over.

He took a long, hard pull, sending himself into a coughing fit as the effects of the weed immediately began to crawl into his mind. Everything started to feel a bit flatter, but it wasn't enough; if he was going to do this, he wanted to be completely stoned. And he didn't care if it was going to help the hangover at all—it was the fog he was after. To mask out reality for a little longer, to kill his guilt... Pot wasn't a high; it was a mental refuge.

He took one more drag and handed the joint back to Zurie. She seemed to unravel a little more with each hit, her young eyes focused on nothing in particular. A low sigh escaped her, mixed with the sweet smoke, and for a moment, Squall thought he could sense something troubling stirring inside of her. Her lips pressed into a tense, thin line, like disappointment. It occurred to him that he didn't think she was capable of feeling disappointment at all.

"When I was at the coffee shop," she began, "I saw an old friend of mine from high school. She had her kid with her."

He offered her only an inquisitive glance and continued silence.

"I didn't even know that she'd had a kid at all. I mean, the thing was just screaming, running around the store like some...fucking little asshole; I wanted to throw it against a wall and tell it to stop." She took another lengthy toke. "I just felt...sorry for her. Like, her life is over. All she has to look forward to is credit card debt and a child that will turn into a resentful teenager."

He listened as she talked about children, the way she described them, like they were human cages, holding cells for their adult prisoners. Her words curled into a dark mist as the malevolence evaporated from her mouth. Children were a bane, children were demons encased in small bodies. Children were leeches that sucked away their parents' dreams and replaced them with their own.

He didn't tell her that he didn't have any dreams to begin with.

He didn't tell her that once, he had felt the same as she did.

He didn't tell her about Ellie.