"(*coughs and taps the weird write-y person on the shoulder*) Hey, Rain, there's already a ton of stories with this AU floating around out there, all of them written by people more talented than you." I know, I know. Consider this my take on it, I guess (*sheepish smile*)
More than a few of the concepts in this AU were borrowed with permission from grovyrosegirl (thank you!), who can be found on Tumblr and fanfiction dot net under that username.
Fic-ward, ho!
Ellegaard had always guarded her workshop with the utmost vigilance, not to mention defensive mechanisms complex enough to deter even the most determined, insufferable, frustrating (and also unbearably, horrendously perfect) masked rogue. It was her sanctuary, her refuge from the aggravations of day-to-day life. Her place to lose herself in what she knew, what she loved, for hours at a time.
So it was more than a tad disconcerting to trudge into her workshop one tired evening, after noticing vaguely that it seemed rather easier to open than usual, to come across a curly-haired child standing in the middle of the room, dark eyes wide and utterly awestruck as she trailed a hand across the blueprint-littered, redstone-smudged desk.
Ellegaard's eyebrows shot up, shoulders dropping briefly before tensing up again. Of course, she was rather well-known for her engineering expertise, but nobody had ever even dared to come within five feet of this room before (Magnus being the obvious exception) and if they had entertained such an audacious idea, the defences should have been more than enough to both keep them out and alert Ellegaard to the fact that someone was trying to break into her precious laboratory.
So what, exactly, did this little girl think she was doing? And more to the point, how in the name of Heaven did she get in without triggering any of the traps or alarms?
Ellegaard kept her eyes on the child, debating how best to approach this. Although Ellie's steps had been somewhat heavier than usual due to fatigue, it appeared that the kid hadn't noticed her entrance, much too preoccupied with the various components, tools and half-finished pieces of machinery that surrounded them.
That being the case, Ellegaard decided to announce her presence first and foremost. At the sound of her clearing her throat, the kid spun around so quickly that if Ellegaard had blinked, she would've missed the movement. Her eyes, impossibly, widened further, jaw dropping and face aflame. In fact, had Ellie not been silently seething (and also somewhat bewildered, though she'd be damned if she showed it), she would have found the image comical. It was the very definition of being caught red-handed – literally, Ellegaard thought wryly, eyes lingering on the smudges her desk had left on the girl's hand.
The silence stretched on for several long moments until Ellegaard raised an impatient eyebrow. "Care to explain to me just what you're doing in my laboratory?" she asked, not bothering to keep the acidity out of her tone.
The girl flinched violently, gaze dropping to stare at her cracked shoes, cheeks the same colour as the burning torches lining the walls. Her lips moved, but whatever she said was much too quiet and too stammery for Ellegaard to catch.
"Speak up."
She winced again, her chin against her chest. "I just…wanted to see."
Ellegaard gave a long, low half-sigh, half-growl, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Do I really need to point this out to you? You're trespassing. You have no right to be in here, it's dangerous, I'll be damned if I have any idea how you got past all the defences–"
"I disabled them."
The woman stopped mid-rant, stepping back as if the girl had physically pushed her. Silence reigned, during which the little girl hesitantly raised her gaze to Ellegaard's face before quickly dropping it again.
"Excuse me?"
"I…I disabled your defences," the child mumbled, wrapping her arms around herself.
"You?" Ellegaard asked stupidly, running her hands through her hair.
The girl nodded slightly. Still avoiding eye contact.
Ellie lifted her chin a little, then tilted her head, a cynical half-smile settling onto her face. "And how did you do that, may I ask?"
The girl blinked several times, loosening her arms slightly. "I…well…" And, not without some hesitation, she launched into her explanation, going into great detail about the inner workings of each trap and her own thought processes while working out how to deactivate them. Ellegaard stood impassive, head still cocked to the side and arms tightly folded, but she couldn't help noticing that the child seemed to grow more confident with each sentence until she was almost talking too fast for Ellegaard to keep up with, eyes bright and speech punctuated with hand gestures. A mild curiosity tugged at the edges of Ellegaard's (frankly rather brilliant) mind as she listened with grudging, though mounting, interest.
"-and then I just opened the door and…walked…in," the girl finished, mumbling the last part, her self-assurance apparently slipping as she remembered she was still trespassing. The eager light in her dark eyes had vanished as the anxiety returned to them.
The irritation that had been brewing in Ellegaard's chest almost seemed to drain away somewhat, replaced by something she couldn't quite put her finger on. If this girl was telling the truth (and Ellie had to admit that all of the signs so far pointed to that), then she…well, she was clever. Remarkably clever. Or a very good liar. After a long, long, long pause, she slowly unfolded her arms, moving forward. The kid automatically took an unsteady step back as though afraid the engineer was going to strike her.
"What's your name?"
"Olivia," the child muttered after a second or two, evidently forcing herself to maintain eye contact this time.
"Well, Olivia…" Ellegaard narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure – and I mean completely, 100% certain – that you're telling the truth? Nobody helped you to get in here?" A new suspicion materialised in her head. "A certain…green man…didn't enlist you to break in for a prank, perhaps?"
Olivia shook her head hard, brow creased in confusion, but she continued staring up at Ellegaard like a child meeting their favourite superhero – which, Ellegaard reminded herself, probably wasn't at all far from the truth. That new feeling she couldn't name intensified.
"Where are your parents, Olivia?" asked Ellegaard, her tone a little softer than it was before but still firm and stern. "If they're not with you, then they probably need to know that you're here."
Those dark eyes suddenly widened, saddened, directed themselves to the wall rather than Ellie's face. Olivia opened her mouth, then closed it again, hands twisting each other. Ellegaard frowned, brow furrowing, before her own eyes went wide, an unpleasantly cold feeling making itself at home in her heart.
Oh.
She hadn't considered…she hadn't thought that…
She just hadn't thought.
Ellie's hand came up to rub the nape of her neck, the woman herself painfully aware that she was somewhat out of her depth here. She could hardly just send Olivia out and leave her by herself, she knew that much. She was a child, for goodness's sakes. So what should Ellegaard do? What could she do?
"You know," Ellegaard found herself saying, tone uncharacteristically gentle, "if you really did manage to get in here by yourself…that's quite impressive, Olivia. You ought to be proud of your knowledge. Not many people could have done that without help, especially children."
Olivia's gaze flicked back over to Ellie, her jaw falling almost as low as it had when she'd been discovered. She muttered something Ellie didn't catch, a pink flush creeping up her neck and face. Ellegaard tried to suppress a smile, getting the distinct feeling that she hadn't quite managed it.
"Do you have a home at all?" she continued, an unanticipated idea forming in that brilliant brain of hers.
Pause. Shrug. Avoiding eye contact again.
"Well, in that case…" Ellegaard paused as well, thinking intently about how best to phrase this. "I…can't say I'd particularly mind if you wanted to…stay for a bit." She pressed her lips together tightly, finally doing what Soren had always advised her to do and swallowing her pride before reluctantly, though no less honestly, adding, "Some help probably wouldn't go amiss."
The sorrow that had just looked so painfully wrong on the face of a kid faded as Olivia stared at Ellie with the purest wonder and disbelief the engineer had seen in her life. "Really?" she croaked after several seconds, as though she didn't dare to believe it, as though she was afraid Ellegaard had played some horrible joke on her.
Ellegaard merely shrugged, offering Olivia a real smile this time. "Well, I don't see why not. You obviously know what you're doing, but I could teach you much more. And since you're already here…"
Olivia winced slightly at the reminder of her intrusion.
"…get yourself some gloves." Ellegaard nodded towards a chest that sat in the corner, pulling her own gloves out of her inventory as she made her way over to one of the workbenches, tiredness forgotten in the anticipation of creation. "Now tell me, how familiar are you with advanced sorting systems?"
She didn't have to look at Olivia to know that the girl was smiling brightly for the first time.
And neither of them questioned it when, still deep in lively conversation as they walked down the hall, Ellegaard automatically showed Olivia to one of the temple's cosy spare rooms later that night.
It's not very often that I write stuff that isn't loaded with angst, so I hope I did okay here. This story has 4 chapters, by the way, so fret not - the other Order people are all gonna show up at some point or another.
Again, thank you to grovyrosegirl for lending me her ideas, and I'll see you guys soon. Be good to yourselves, now.
(*awkwardly tips hat*)
~ Rainy