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"So what's the plan then, huh? We just stroll on in?"

"Like I said before, obviously not. At least not without some sort of plan."

The apartment was emptied out of the other roommates for several hours some mornings, the time of which they took for their discussion this morning. They sat on the couch and chair opposite of each other in the great room.

"You mean the plan of going back to that… place that we escaped from." Ellie spoke sharply in a disgruntled manner.

"You're the one who okayed it last night. If you changed your mind, we won't. Really." Riley looked back over at Ellie who simply kept quiet and averted her gaze. "We could… get in by sneaking. Not like we haven't done it before."

"How about we discuss what the hell we're going to do once we get there, not how to get in."

"Alright, okay. We could probably, I don't know, do… something." She looked over at Ellie out of the corner of her eye.

"No keep going. It sounds like you're getting somewhere."

"I am. I'm just curious as to what you're thinking first."

"Right." She sighed and sunk further into her chair. "We're really doing this, huh?"

"You know we don't have to."

"I know. But I do think you're right, sort of." Ellie let her head fall backward in thought and stared beyond the ceiling. She spoke slowly, thinking of each word just before saying them. "So, if we do do this, I think we should try what we almost did before. Get some evidence."

"You mean the notebook page."

"Yeah." She watched as Riley rested her head against her palm and sighed. "What?"

"I still don't know how it happened. I had that fucking page then… nothing. Gone."

Ellie shrugged. "Doesn't really matter now, does it?"

"I guess not. But if I hadn't of lost it, or whatever happened, we wouldn't be talking about this right now. Who the hell knows what we'd be doing."

Ellie got up from the chair and fell against Riley on the couch. "Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter."

"What if we can't find anything?"

"We'll figure it out if it comes to that." A tinge of frustration crept into her voice. "Any other doubts that, for some reason, I'm helping you with?"

"Yeah, I know. Sorry." Riley nodded her head in agreement with herself. "We can do this."

Ellie rested her head on the couch's arm and put one leg against the ground and the other across Riley's lap. "So, how do we do it?"

"Well, like I said, sneaking in at night doesn't seem like a bad way to go."

"I guess. But what if everything is locked?"

"Break a window then."

"And let everyone know we're there?"

Riley grunted in defeat. "By all means, go ahead. You seem to have an idea."

"I can criticize even if I didn't have one. But… I may just happen to."

"Shoot."

"What if we go in as obviously as possible? We walk up, tell him we were wrong and that we want to come back."

"Would that work? And why would we even do that?"

"No idea if it would work. But if it would, we would have free roam inside. That's why." Riley had a look of distance in her eyes. "What is it this time?"

"Listen to us. We're talking about some spy shit here, or something."

"And again you're the one with the doubts."

"Not really. It's just… different now that we're talking about it. I still want to do it, don't get me wrong, we just need to make sure we're gonna do this right."

"I think so too. But it kind of sounds like you're saying my way's not right."

"I don't know. It sounds fine."

Ellie rolled her eyes. "Okay, well… let's say we go with that. What next?"

"We do what you said, find a notebook to prove what he's doing. Or some documents or something."

"And if we can't find anything?"

"Then we get the hell out of there. He's not going to be careless like before, not after what we did." Riley sighed again. "Almost did. If he doesn't want something found, it'll probably stay that way."

"At least we'll have tried then."

"Yeah." She finished it there and loosened her nerves. "This doesn't feel real, you know? We're just sitting here all casually in our shitty little apartment talking about trying to take down David. Weird as hell."

"Yeah I feel the same."

Riley rested her head against her right hand, keeping Ellie visible to her left. "So what do we do now?"

"I don't know." Ellie emptily scoffed. "We just do it, I guess."

"Okay, but would it be alright with you if I built on your amazing plan so far?"

"Fuck you, just say it."

"When we go, we'll be gone, what, a couple of days?" Ellie shrugged, still on her back. "Let's say a few. We won't need to bring anything really, just what we'd be wearing would be enough. And we'd have to behave like nothing is wrong."

"Assuming of course he'd let us back in."

"True, but I think that he'd have to. He may hate us, but he's still an employee of the state, right?"

Ellie laughed condescendingly. "An employee of the state?"

"You're an asshole. I'm trying to say it would be, like, his job to take us in regardless."

"Maybe?"

"You're not helping. Anyway, when we're on our own inside, we'd just search a couple places. Like the desk and basement. If there, great. If not, leave."

"You make it sound pretty simple."

Riley let her head fall backwards and stared at the ceiling. "Well, the plan itself is. Actually doing it might be different."

"Yeah might be." Her sarcasm was clear. "How are we getting there by the way? Because there's no way in hell I'm walking between two cities again."

"Oh come on, we had some fun. You know it."

Ellie rolled her head back and forth to draw out her response. "It was alright. Made bearable by you of course."

Riley flashed a familiar crooked smile. "I guess we could… take a taxi. Or a bus."

"Bus will be cheaper."

They sat in silence for several minutes after Ellie's last statement, both of them knowing that that was the last thing they really needed to figure out, however mundane an ending to such a serious conversation.

The day was early and the apartment was as quiet as it would ever get. Cars outside propagated their road noise through the window, the AC unit puttered as it attempted to spit out hot air, the refrigerator hummed in the kitchen, footsteps rapped their way across the floor in the above apartment. Every little noise was a surreal experience unto its own despite how common they may were.

Riley was startled out of her experience by a noise unlike the others with its dynamic range, beautiful in its uniqueness.

"We should sleep on it for a few days. See how we feel then."

"Move." Riley forced Ellie onto her side and fit herself in between her and the couch's back. She put her right arm tightly around Ellie and let out a huge yawn as she did. "Let's just lay here forever. Forget about everything else."

Ellie smiled and relaxed into the embrace. "Fine with me."

The blanket of clouds that seemed to perpetually hover over the city cast a lethargically gray atmosphere over them. That, combined with a quiet empty apartment, afforded them some much needed sleep.

The time was near midday when Ellie was eventually awoken from a car horn on the street below. She fought to open her eyes when she felt the arm still around her and then sluggishly twisted over to her other side. She started at her nose and began to slowly look over every detail of Riley's face.

As she did she could feel the doubt, the confusion, the anxiety, the worry, all of it fade away as though they were trivial. She exuded an aura that was wholly calming and made it seem as if everything would be okay. And though she knew that their lives were far from ideal, she had her.

And above that, there was a feeling weighing heavily on her that she's never known before… she actually needed someone. She needed her.

That same feeling strongly urged her to close the small gap between their faces and gently kiss the still sleeping girl. Though light, it was enough to pull her from her sleep.

Riley slowly opened her eyes and looked back at the face just inches from her own. Confusion gave way to contentment. "Hey… What was that for?"

"No reason. I just really love you."

"I love you too." A tired smile found its way to Riley's face. "You're really cute when you're like this."

"Like what?"

"This. All mushy and sweet. It's gross and I love it."

Ellie rolled her eyes as Riley returned the kiss and several more before the two rested their heads together.

"Sorry for waking you."

Riley quietly chuckled at the absurdity. "Why? You can sleeping beauty me any time you want."

Ellie stared at her with a smirk. "Yeah?" She pushed herself up and threw her leg over Riley, letting her long hair hang down between them. "Well in that case…"

Riley grinned back at the girl above her and wrapped her arms around her waist to pull her down on top of her.

Before long the coldness of the room became of no issue, even as layers were shed, and the incessant clamor from the surrounding city was drowned out by the produced sounds of their own. The world and its difficulties melted away into insignificance as the two tirelessly enjoyed each other.

After a modest length of time, though unreasonably short to them, a rapping on the door echoed throughout the apartment.

Riley quickly glanced up at the door and then let her head fall in disbelief and frustration. "You have to be kidding me."

"Finish later?"

"Yeah… we're so not done."

Ellie rolled sideways and let her feet fall to the floor with an overly dramatic groan. She quickly gathered up the chaotically scattered garments and threw on her own, waiting for Riley to do the same before unwillingly staggering to the door. She peered out and then closed it before sliding the chained metal nub through its rail. With the lock undone the door flung open and Marlene and Aiden walked their way through it with bags in each hand.

Ellie trudged back to the couch and fell against Riley while Marlene and Aiden dropped their stashes onto the counters in the kitchen and began putting their contents away.

"Hi girls."

"Hey." Both responded with the same monotone voice.

"Well don't be too excited to see us."

Riley rolled her eyes at Ellie who took over speaking. "Just… tired. How'd it go?"

"Terrible." Aiden didn't hesitate to respond.

"Ignore him. He just got bored. It went well actually. Got most of the food we need for the week. Speaking of which, I'll need your guys' cut in the next few days."

"We'll get it to you soon." Ellie turned to face Riley again and dropped her voice. "Listen, I was serious about what I said before. About sleeping on it."

Riley's brow raised and was followed immediately by her entire face falling flat in realization. "You switch subjects really fast, you know that? One second we're having some fun and the next we're back about the orphanage." Ellie raised her own brow in expectation of a response. "Yeah, I know."

Ellie nodded and rested her head on Riley's shoulder for a minute before sticking her hand out and flapping it up and down in the direction of the sofa table. "Remote."

Riley groaned. "You're so damn lazy." She dropped the remote onto Ellie's lap instead of handing it to her.

Marlene and Aiden soon joined them after finishing with their work in the kitchen. Marlene sat on the other half of the couch not occupied by the girls and Aiden on the chair that Joel usually settled himself into. Ellie flipped through the channels until Marlene stopped her at a show that she normally watched religiously. For the next hour the four of them sat in silence watching some reality show. Neither Riley nor Ellie had any interest in what was happening, but it was a distraction all the same.

A week had passed without so much of a mention as to their conversation that they had between them in the empty apartment, but it was obvious in their talks that they were avoiding it. The days seemed like they were getting shorter and shorter, bringing the time in which they felt they needed to decide closer and closer. Unfortunately for Ellie that time came forcibly.

It was again shortly after midnight when she woke from a nightmare. The room was dark but Riley knew immediately what happened when Ellie laid against her breathing faster than normal. She put an arm around her without either saying a word.

The nightmare wasn't unlike her previous; the way it played out was always slightly different, but the message always the same.

"Fuck it." Ellie had a crack in her voice causing her to sound exhausted. "We're doing it."

"…you sure?"

"Yes." Ellie nodded and curled up into a mass against Riley.

"Okay."