A life less ordinary ||~~Elax/Elmax~~||

The system is broken

A/N  hey folks...I think I've lost all confidence writing this...but I'm gonna push through and will probably upload 3 chapters today if that's ok? Well, hope you enjoy...thanks  x

"Guys...hey guys!" said Dustin loudly, approaching the camp.

El and Max emerged from their tent, looking slightly flushed, as Mike and Will walked over the crest of the hill looking the same. "Hey, El, you ok now?" asked Lucas, remembering how upset she'd been before they left, clearly caring about his friend.

She smiled at him and nodded, "yes, thanks, Max, uh, you know, helped me."

"Cool" he replied with a smile. "And what's up with you guys? Where've you been?"

Mike and Will looked at each other slightly awkwardly, "oh, uh, we got distracted..." Mike started.

"Yeah, this, um, cute baby squirrel ran past" continued Will.

"And we wanted to follow it, you know, see...where it lived...maybe" finished Mike, lamely.

"Whatever guys," Dustin said, rolling his eyes as his friends' weirdness, "this dude we ran into said there's a storm coming, a bad one, we've basically got a couple of hours to get out of here else the road might become impassable"

"What? But the weather's been amazing" said Max.

"Yeah, hot, humid, I guess we're due a storm" acceded Mike rolling his eyes. "Right, come on, let's pack up...like asap, we've still got to carry everything to the car."

"It's ok, El, we'll come back another time" Lucas said reassuringly, mistaking the look on El's face. She nodded and smiled at him regardless.

They set to work packing up, El exchanging glances with Max, Will with Mike.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~*

They managed to pack and get all the equipment to the car about 10 minutes too late, leaving them all soaked to the skin, "ugh, this SUCKS!" yelled Dustin, pointlessly holding his shirt away from his body.

"Dude, come on, at least the rain is pretty warm" said Mike, trying to find a positive, "plus we had an awesome time, right?" When the only answer he got was a groan from Dustin, he looked at the others, El and Max were sat either side of Dustin, each looking out their respective windows clearly lost in thought. He turned to Will, sitting between him and Lucas, who was driving, and shared a shrug, after which he surreptitiously took Will's hand in his own, lacing their fingers together and sharing a smile.

They dropped Will off first, he lived furthest away from everyone, as he dragged his gear inside the house he looked around and saw Mike give him the 'call me' hand gesture and smiled. Next was Max's house. El watched as she walked slowly to the house, turning to wave them off she looked at El and they exchanged a faltering smile, one full of uncertainty.

Lucas parked up next to the Wheeler's house, he, Dustin, El and Mike all lived close enough together that they could walk home. As they got in the house, El turned to Mike, "I'm tired, I'm going for a nap" she stated, wanting to be alone as much as anything.

Mike nodded and watched her walk wearily upstairs, something wasn't ok, but he couldn't work out what it was, she'll tell me eventually, else I'll ask her.

"Mike!" he heard from the kitchen, "yesssss, you're home early, you can help me!" He turned to see an excited Holly at the table surrounded by paper, cardboard, paint, and glue. He pretended to grimace and rolled his eyes for effect, but was secretly thrilled as he still loved arts and crafts, not that I'd tell anyone...especially Lucas!

"Ok! What are we making?" he asked, unable to guess from the supplies.

"I have to make a solar system for next week" Holly stated proudly, "we got to choose and I remembered you telling me about it and I liked it."

Score! "Yessss, I love it, let's go!" Mike said far too enthusiastically, making Holly giggle.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~*

"And there...we...go" said Mike, supervising Holly putting the last planet onto her model. He surveyed the 9 planets in all their glory, ignoring the slightly messy glue marks, and smiled.

"This looks awesome" stated Holly excitedly, "thank you Mike!" she added, giving him a big hug.

He chuckled and returned the hug, "just leave it for an hour or so for the glue to dry then you should be able to move it...although maybe take a glue stick to school just in case a planet decides to go rogue" he suggested.

They were just packing up the arts and craft supplies when Mike felt tremors, the beginnings of another earthquake. He glanced up, remembering El had gone for a nap.

"Mike!" yelled Holly, pointing at her solar system display.

He could see the planets were shaking slightly and the glue stick started rolling. The feeling died down for a few seconds but then started again, but this time it was much stronger. Saturn was the first to go, it's rings making it unbalanced, then the biggest planet, Jupiter, decided to deorbit the sun and roll away, and finally the glue stick joined them. All the while, Holly was whimpering in fear, she wasn't used to the feeling as most of the quakes had happened at night.

"Holly, come here" Mike instructed, pulling her under a doorframe with him, "it's ok, it's just a tremor, ok?" Mike held Holly in his arms until the tremors stopped as quickly as they'd started.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~*

A few minutes later, while they were surveying the damage to the model and working out how to fix it, El made her way downstairs, rubbing her eyes. "Hey, are you ok?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" she snapped defensively.

"Uhhhh..." Mike started.

"I...I just had another nightmare is all" she said, looking guilty at her previous tone.

"It's ok, don't worry" he said, trying to make her feel better.

She looked around and realized that the pictures were again crooked on the walls, things were out of place, and then she saw that Holly's model was damaged. "Oh, Holly, I'm so sorry" she said.

"Why? It's not your fault" she said in a matter of fact way that only children can get away with.

El met Mike's eyes and gave him a guilty smile. "Hey, why don't you help us fix it" he said kindly. El nodded, grateful for his thoughtfulness.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~*