A/N: Speaking of life happening. Stuff and things and normalcy and busyness kept me from updating (general laziness contributed, I won't lie) until yesterday, when I totalled my car and messed up my neck and back. So now that I'm being forced to rest... I'm back to writing. Enjoy the update, thanks for those of you who are still with me :) I have not abandoned this tale.
The heaviness lingered in Ellie's limbs as she dragged herself down the stairs again the following morning, feeling as if she hadn't had a lick of sleep. For whatever ridiculous reason, the baby was like some kind of nocturnal entity these days, reasonably quiet in the day, but doing acrobatic routines all through the night, thumping around beneath her ribs, on her bladder, making the skin that was already tight and itchy even more sore, and aggravating that annoying redness around the place where her belly button had randomly decided to turn more or less inside-out. The sound of voices reminded her that the shirt she'd chosen to pull on wasn't exactly the most fashionable – or decent – of choices, but she was really beyond caring, and gave a last helpless tug at the hem which hit somewhere in the low-middle of the curve of tight flesh overhanging her jeans.
"Morning, gang," she greeted through a yawn, and saw Reuben seated at the table, hands freed, opposite Maria, with Joel in his chair hitched as far away from the boy as possible, his rifle across his knees, no less. Angry red marks flared across the young man's wrists as he spooned up the oatmeal in trembling motions, and Ellie didn't need to ask if sugar was going to be a part of this meal. It wasn't. "Don't all get up and hug me at once," Ellie murmured, pulling out her own chair, the one next to Reuben's allotted seat, and easing herself down with all the grace of an eighty-year-old man, and letting out a huff of relief. "Why's he untied?" She jerked a thumb toward the silent figure.
"Just what I've been askin' for the last half hour..." Joel began in a low growl, but Maria cut him off.
"His fingers were gray. Gray like Ellie's shirt gray." The woman's gaze was piercing as she looked at Joel. Reuben kept his eyes on his oatmeal.
"I don't care about his circulation, I'm tryin' to keep us alive, Maria-"
"What do you think he's going to do? Slash our throats in our sleep and roast us up as barbecue?" Maria's tone was brutal, looking from Ellie to Joel. "I'm with Tommy on this one, he's harmless."
"He was with them," Joel remonstrated, and Ellie broke in in a complaining tone, "Do we have to do this now? I'm about to die of starvation. Like really and truly die, my stomach was growling all last night when I tried to lay back down."
"You were up last night, sweetie?" Maria queried, turning her gaze back to the girl. "Everything alright?"
"Right as rain, only the creature wouldn't stop doing somersaults and karate-chopping my liver, or whatever it was, but it hurt so dang much. Walking around seems to quiet things down in there, so I just... me and Reuben talked a little."
Joel's hand came down on the lever of the rifle with a hollow clank. "You were up talkin' to him in the middle of the night?"
"I didn't know he was awake!" Ellie protested.
Joel drew a hand down his face, thinking that it was a wonder he wasn't entirely gray-haired and crow's-footed by now.
"She talked to me about her letter. That was it," Reuben broke in, his voice quiet.
"Letter?" Maria's brow furrowed.
"Yeah – just... don't," Ellie murmured, glancing at the young man. "I don't wanna talk about it any more."
Joel was silent at this revelation, but looked between Ellie and Reuben for a long moment. For him, that girl was the canary in the coal mine. He trusted her intuition more than he trusted his own in many ways. And while she didn't have the best track record in trying to find a soulmate, the sheer fact that she'd trusted this total stranger with the information just revealed to her about Marlene and her mother... He released a quiet grunt, almost of approval.
"Is the oatmeal on the stove?" Ellie began hopefully. "And can I put sugar in mine?"
"No, Joel says you did that yesterday," Maria reproved with a quiet smile. "We already got a bowl made for you – under that napkin."
"You all are conspiring against me," Ellie breathed, pushing herself to her feet and making her way over to the counter, whisking the napkin off of the partially-congealed mass, and taking a whiff. Plain. Plain and starchy sweet, not sugar sweet. "Dangit..."
"You want me, or Maria to start givin' you the health speech?" Joel began, a note of teasing in his tone, and Ellie's eyes widened in mock horror.
"Neither. Please. Or I'll be asking Reuben out for help changing the subject."
"I don't have anything interesting to talk about," the boy broke in with a wry almost-smile. "I promise. I'm the boringest person in the world."
"I doubt it," Ellie returned flippantly, swiping a finger full of the stuff from the edge of her bowl and licking it clean without so much as searching about for a spoon. "You like to read?"
"I like to sing."
"I like to sing."
"Here we go..." Joel breathed out through his nose.
Somehow that silenced Ellie, and she resumed her seat, consuming the rest of her oatmeal wordlessly, feeling the semi-warmth of the cooked grain spreading through her and steadying her bleary vision. The curtain of gloom from the previous day descended again, and Reuben seemed to match her sentiments in his furtive silence, Joel staring the boy down as if he could nail him to the opposite wall with just his eyes, Maria punctuating the ringing silence with the occasional sigh.
"I'm gonna go relieve Tommy," Joel said at last, handing the rifle to Maria with a purposeful air.
"What's that for."
The man stared wordlessly at the boy.
"Joel, we're fine. I have mine if needed, and Ellie-"
"What, she's gonna break into a sprint and alert the guard if somethin' happens?"
"Hey-" Ellie cut in, her brow furrowing the skin of her freckled forehead into a mass of tiny lines. "I'm still fast-"
"You all do what makes you feel comfortable," Reuben cut in. "You can tie me up if you want, but... maybe just with a rope or something. Those zipties kill. Worn 'em enough you'd you think I'd have callouses, but I guess not."
Something in the boy's tone arrested Joel. "You been ziptied before? What'd you do?" His tone wasn't quite accusatory, and Ellie held her breath.
"My brother." Reuben's face was blank. "And the others, whenever I was bein' bad. They'd zip me to the bars in the cages, have their fun, whatever. Or just tie me up all around so I couldn't do anything. Happened all the time."
Maria's face had grown a shade paler. Ellie looked at the table, still processing a bit of this from their conversation last night, and Joel's eyes were very, very still.
"Doesn't sound like we need to tie you up," he murmured at last. "But if you do anything that Maria thinks is amiss-"
"I'll kick his ass," Ellie volunteered, offering a sideways smile.
"Watch your mouth," was all Joel said as he made his way out the door.
Maria could only sit around so long before her action-driven nature tugged her toward the window, and as she watched Earl subside in a fit of sneezes from the parapet, she saw her opportunity. "I'm goin' to make some rounds, check on the fellas," she said, kicking a half-broken plastic basket of assorted clothing items toward where Ellie wrestled her guitar on the floor, strumming a few idle chords and grimacing at the protrusion of her belly and the encumbrance it created in leaning over her instrument. "You want to sort this for me?"
"Not really," Ellie returned with a grin, and Maria pointed a motherly finger in her direction. "Where's Reuben?" She tried to make it sound as idle as possible. Paranoia was one thing that Joel wasn't hesitant to show, but concern... if Maria felt a little concern for the boy and his apparently traumatic history, she didn't let it show. Not yet.
"He's on the porch, I think, he said the house was getting stuffy," Ellie returned, and Maria's eyebrows shot upwards. How the heck... she must have missed something, and hurried toward the door, rifle in hands. Sure enough, the boy was seated on the top step, legs stretched out before him, twisted limb turning his foot inwards as he watched the passers-by.
"Got bored of sitting in there?"
"No... no." Reuben shrugged. "Just, wanted to see this place a little bit. Get my bearings, but I figured you all wouldn't be really crazy about me wandering off."
"You figured right. Joel's still... he's a little overprotective sometimes."
"He your husband?"
"No." Maria squatted, gun across her knees, and lowered one hand to the boards before sitting completely. Earl sneezed again from the parapet, and the sound punctuated the quiet morning air. "He's my husband's brother. My husband is Tommy."
"The guy who was questioning me?"
Maria nodded. "Yeah. And Ellie-"
"Yeah." Reuben's reply was a little too quick for polite interest. "Who is she? Where's the rest..."
The woman was looking at him, listening. "She said she talked to you last night."
"She didn't talk about herself much. If she's not yours, and she's not Joel's, and her baby-" A light flush overcame his face and he scrubbed at it self-consciously with the heel of one red chafed hand. "I just wanna know more about her."
"Listen, Reuben." Maria took a deep breath. "You're a prisoner here, eventually might stay be with the group, but your status isn't upgraded yet. Don't go getting ideas."
"Ideas?" The young man's voice cracked. "About-? No- no... No, no. I don't mean any harm, or anything by it at all, I just... she seems like she's been through hell. But she still smiles and is strong but – she's been through hell. So have I."
"So have we all," Maria returned lowly. "But you're not wrong. That's why I'm cautioning you, she needs a good friend, someone that's not going to hurt her. She's been hurt too many times. When she came to Joel, she'd just lost her best friend. Ellie -" Maria inhaled deeply. "Ellie was in love with this girl. And she was bit, and turned, and I'm assuming Ellie put her down. She never talks about it. She travels here with Joel, they go on, their trip was a bust, and they come back. Ellie's friend was Matt. They... were under some pressure, and got together. He's the father of her baby, but -" Stopping short, Maria shook her head. "I shouldn't be telling you this. It's too complicated."
"No- no..." Reuben's voice was plaintive, turning, dragging his bum leg as his eyes met the blonde woman's. "People always do that, the second they caught me listening, they'd shut up or beat me up or send me off, but they never tell me the truth. Not just straight, and I wanna know."
"Ellie's not fair game if you're looking for some kind of twisted romance."
"I'm not looking for romance," Reuben muttered. "My brother and his buddies used to screw me over when there was no one else around. I'm never gonna be able to do something like that right. I just... I want to understand the people here, and I want to prove myself to you. I want to show you that I'm not like them. First step to that is understanding you all, and why you're helping me."
Maria had gone quiet for a long moment, and then she simply continued. "Ellie's immune. She was bit when her best friend was, but she never turned. Apparently she can infect other people though, we're not sure how. Matt- he turned. He was shot. It was a heck of a lot to go through, especially 'cause she said she didn't love him. Her friend here – Anna... she loved her. But Anna's not like that."
Reuben's face was awash with a combination of emotions that were impossible for Maria to sort out. His face wasn't thoughtfully expressive like Matt's had been, a sort of poetic "before" feel about him. Reuben was guarded, but his eyes flashed truth to anyone willing to look close enough. A product of his past, but unable to hide what went through his mind.
"Ellie's been through a lot. So have you." Maria's tone was quiet. "If you can manage to do it without Joel shooting you – maybe a friendship from a small distance would be good for the both of you."
Reuben let out a long breath. "I never knew my father. I was raised by my mother in one of the rural zones, and so was James. Surgery, blah blah." He gestured. "Made me an easy target for the survivors. I'm not fast, but I was too smart to let any clickers get to me. Smarts don't help you when your brother's like mine though. When the zone burned – and he met David-" The tale became a little disjointed, and Reuben struggled to his feet. "...I'm gonna go back inside now."
"Be careful." Maria's words were sober. "Nothing that'll freak Joel out. Ellie's a thornbush right now, I'd leave her alone."
Reuben murmured something that Maria didn't catch, but the faintest hint of a smile pulled his cheek into a dimple as he limped through the screen door.
The basket of clothing ignored, Ellie was still on the floor wrestling her guitar, slamming her fingers across the strings in discordant riffs and rasping out something that might have passed as music in a bygone era, but which was unrecognizable as any form of talent in this primitive day and age. Looking up, she gave a tiny grin and dragged her left hand down the neck, descending the almost-chord and holding her long note low and brazen until she ran out of air and gave a final strum and a jerk of her head. Reuben dared a few slow claps.
"Wow," was all he said. "You said you liked to sing, but -"
"That was a prime example of why my musical career really and truly began and ended in the first grade," Ellie snorted, drumming a few fingers on the wooden body of the instrument. "I always wanted to rap. And to beatbox, all that."
"Why didn't you?"
She shrugged. "Just never got around to it, I guess. Do you play?"
"Oh, no." Reuben shook his head. "Left-handed. I tried when I was young, but my brother said I was doing it wrong and broke my guitar. Never got back into it."
Ellie's breath whistled between her teeth. "Geez. Nice brother. But we already established that."
"Yeah," Reuben returned grimly, leaning in the doorway. There was a long pause for a moment, and Ellie took in the far-off, almost listless look in the young man's eyes. "You like the Beatles?" she asked at last, her voice low, hopeful. He tore his gaze back to her.
"Hm?"
"The Beatles. You like their stuff?"
"Is there anyone who doesn't?"
"Joel." Ellie's return was prompt. "He likes country music, though. Can't appreciate real stuff, he's from Texas. It's not his fault."
There was another long silence, and by the time Reuben looked like he was going to say something of his own accord, Ellie had scrambled to her feet, depositing her guitar on the sofa and brushing past him to the front door, looking out with her breath snagging in her throat.
"What-" Reuben wheeled and hurried over as fast as he could manage, and Ellie held out her hand, beckoning panicked silence. The parapets had been abandoned, voices rose in a single shout from the east gate. Hurried footsteps, a few peppered gunshot. Then she heard it, the steady rhythm that had been pounding behind her head, filtering through the beat of her music, the thud of her heart, and the insistent stirrings of the life taking up room beneath her skin.
"Hoofbeats."
"Hoofbeats?"
"Bandits." Her voice was lighter than air, and in a split-second, she had spun, pinning him back against the entryway wall, pistol produced from nowhere and pressed to his jugular. "You set us up-"