Secure// Ellie Williams

Leaving

When I wake up the next morning Ellie's already awake and still laying in bed. I wrap my arms around her tighter and stay in the same position.

"You comfortable?" Ellie asks. I just nod at her, placing a small kiss on her neck.

"Very."

"You want to talk about last night?"

I continue trailing kisses along Ellie's neck and using my good hand to explore Ellie, "What's there to talk about?" Ellie tries to say something, but I find her sweet spot and stay there.

"Well, uh, why were you upset?" Ellie finally sputters out.

"Who's to say I was upset?" My hand trails up Ellie's stomach and she grabs it to get me to stop.

"Come on Lils, stop doing that. Don't try and distract me to avoid the conversation." I release my lips from her neck and just look into her eyes. I sigh and flop back down onto my back so I'm staring at the ceiling. Ellie keeps her eyes trained onto me.

"They took me off of patrol."

"You knew that was going to happen though?"

"Indefinitely. They took me off of patrols indefinitely. I just- I thought at some point I could go back and it would all turn back to normal and I'd be okay, but nothing is going to go back to normal Els. It's not getting better, I'm still getting treated like a baby who can't do anything and it's annoying because it's true! There's so many things I can't do anymore. God Tommy had to cut my fucking food yesterday." I close my eyes and lean deeper into the pillow as my voice breaks, "I couldn't even cut my own food, Ellie."

"You want to know what my favourite thing about you is?" Ellie asks me and I turn to her, "That you can literally do anything, even when people tell you that you can't. Just prove to them that you can Lils."

I smile at Ellie, "Wow, who knew you could be all poetic."

"Shut up."

"But wait, who knows about Ellie's dark secret... She writes poetry and music."

"You're the worst." Ellie tells me as she pushes my shoulder slightly.

"No but seriously, thank you. You're much better at consoling people than you give yourself credit for."

"Yeah, yeah I'm all poetic and shit I get it." Ellie continues to lay next to me and we just smile while looking at each other.

"I missed this." I tell her softly.

"Missed what?"

"Just this. Us."

"We've been us for a little while now."

"Yeah but I don't know... you just make everything better."

Ellie smiles and pushes some loose hair out of my face, "You make everything better too."

"What do you think about leaving?"

"And going where?"

"Anywhere. Just get out of Jackson for a little bit."

"I'd like that." Ellie replies softly.

"Here, pinky promise that we go somewhere together." I hold out my pinky to her.

"Pinky promise?"

"Yeah. I read about it and a pinky promise is forever."

Ellie chuckles, "You're such a weirdo." She holds out her pinky to me and I interlock them.

"Now we have to go somewhere."

Ellie stays quiet like she's still thinking of something, "How about next week?"

"Really?"

Ellie shrugs, "Yeah, why not?"

"Okay, next week then." Ellie smiles at me and I return it.   We're really gonna do this.

~~~~~~~~~

The week flies by quicker than I expected. Ellie and I decided to keep our plans a secret from everybody. We thought it would be better if people don't know until we're gone and we decided to leave at night when everyone is asleep.

"So where are we going?" I ask Ellie for the hundredth time. She still refuses to tell me since she wants it to be a surprise.

"You're so impatient."

"No I'm just persistent."

Ellie scoffs, "Same thing." I go over to Ellie and wrap my arm around her waist and rest my head on her shoulder, "I'm not telling you and you're just slowing us down if you distract me."

"Fine. Only because the quicker we go the quicker I can find out where we are going." I turn and quickly pack my bag. When I finish I turn to Ellie who just finished packing herself. She turns and starts to write the note for Joel, Tommy and Maria. We talked about the possibility of letting Dina, Jesse, Adam and Alaina know, but decided it'd probably be better if it was just between the two of us. We also estimated to be gone for about a month at most. When Ellie's finished with the note we head out of the house and start to head towards the stables to take a horse and sneak out. We're only going to take one since we can share Ellie's horse. When we get to the stables we move quickly to make sure that no one notices us and it seems like we're okay. We lead Shimmer out of the stables and reach the front of the gate.

"You completely sure about this?" Ellie asks.

I nod at her, "Yeah, you?"

"Yeah." Ellie helps me onto the horse and then she jumps on. I wrap my arm around her and we start to move away from Jackson. This being my first time leaving Wyoming.

"Can you tell me now where we're going."

"Some place in California I read about once. I think you'll like it."

"Can you get a bit more specific."

"It's near Mount Shasta."

I nod, "Okay. Let's go then." I keep ahold of Ellie as she starts to move. 

I look back at Jackson and say bye to it for the first time in 19 years.