Safe and Sound// Ellie Williams

Ge-tar Lessons

I knock on Ellie's door and wait for her to open it. I know she was on patrol earlier today, but she told me to come here around this time since she should be back. I'm only waiting for a few seconds before the door swings open and a flustered Ellie appears.

"Hey sorry. I just got back. You can come in now I just gotta get changed quickly." Ellie tells me and I nod. I walk into her place and after I close the door I turn to see Ellie whip off her hoodie that has some blood on it and before she takes her shirt off she just looks at me awkwardly, "Oh, right." I mutter and turn around to give Ellie some privacy. I hear her rustling around behind me and I get the urge to turn around. I slowly turn my head, but when I see Ellie's bare back I whip back around towards the wall. I can hear my heart beating a thousand miles per minute. I don't know why I did that.

"Okay, I'm good." Ellie says and I turn around to her in new clean clothes. Her bloody ones thrown to the side.

"Trouble on patrol?"

Ellie shrugs, "Nothing major." I nod and start to bounce on my toes, not really sure what to do now. Ellie clears her throat, "You want to get started?"

"Oh yeah, uh, yeah." Ellie chuckles and motions for me to sit next to her on the couch while she goes to grab her guitar. She puts it on my lap and positions it to a playing position before she sits down in front of me to adjust it. I watch her as she starts to strum and move the pins at the top.

"I'm just tuning it right now." Ellie tells me and I nod at her, "Okay that should be good. I'll start showing you the notes for today and just start with the basics." I nod at Ellie and she grabs my left hand and positions it on the guitar. I feel my heart beat faster, but I ignore it, "So this is G." She tells me and I look at the hand position. I give the guitar a quick strum. She then changes my hand position, "This is E." I strum again before she moves it again, "This is F." I again strum the guitar and look at Ellie, "Okay now practice moving between those chords to get comfortable with changing notes." I nod and do what she says. I stay focused on the playing as I move between G, E and F, "So, why'd you want to learn guitar?" Ellie asks me as I continue to switch between the notes.

"Before I came to Jackson I wouldn't be able to do this. And I like hearing music... it's calming. It'd be nice to not rely on you to hear it, no matter how much I liked it." Ellie nods at me and I can see her start to get shy from the comment. It still surprises me how reserved Ellie can actually be considering the tattoo and her whole appearance. Not that it's bad, just surprising, "I found this song too. When we went to the music shop; I want to learn how to play it." 

"Did you bring it?" Ellie asks and I nod. I put down the guitar and grab my bag to take out the song. I give it to Ellie who examines it.

"Wow. These lyrics are dark."

I nod at Ellie, "Yeah." I mutter. I don't really expand on why I like them so much, I just do. Ellie picks up her guitar and sits next to me. She keeps the book with the music open in front of her and she starts to play some of the notes. I smile at her playing, even though she stumbles a bit on them, the notes are exactly how I pictured to go with the words. I close my eyes and listen to Ellie play.

"Come on Isabella! The wolves are nearby we have to fight." My father tells me. This is my first patrol and I've been training for this, but I don't know if I can kill them, no matter how terrible they are. I start hyperventilating and my father grabs my shoulders, "May she guide you through the storm. May she keep you calm. Come on Isabella this is your duty." Father tells me and I look at him with fear in my eyes. He pulls me close to him and covers me when we hear a bomb go off not too far from us. Fire surrounds us as the sound of bullets fill my ears. I shakily take out my bow and nock in an arrow. I see a wolf who doesn't see father and I. I pull the arrow back and aim it at the enemy before releasing it into the target.

Everything's on fire.

The war is never-ending 

When I open my eyes Ellie has already finished playing and is watching me with a small smile. I return it, "That was beautiful." I tell her.

"It could have been better." 

"Can you teach me that?" Ellie nods and puts the guitar back into my hands and starts to go over the hand movements with me.

"So the beginning is going to hurt your hands for a little bit. You're gonna have to build up your calluses." I nod at Ellie and continue to practice. Ellie helps me anytime I stumble or forget the movement. After about an hour my hands start to hurt, so we stop. 

"Well, that didn't suck." Ellie tells me. 

"Were you expecting it to suck?" I ask confusedly.

"Oh, no. It was a joke." Ellie tells me awkwardly.

"Oh." I say and it gets awkward for a minute, "I guess I only understand funny ones." I tell her. I hope that was an okay joke.

Ellie raises her eyebrows and looks at me with a smirk, "Oh really?" I nod at her with a small smile and she shakes her head, "So you can make jokes." She teases me.

"I guess so." We smile at each other and I look out her window to see it's getting dark, "I should probably go, before Ian goes sending an army out for me."

"Right. He's almost as protective as Joel."

"I don't think anyone can beat how protective Joel is."

"Yeah." Ellie mutters. I get up and place the guitar against her couch.

"Well, uh, I'll see you later?" Ellie nods at me and I start to leave.

"Oh, Tate. We can do this once each week if you want? Every Tuesday?" Ellie asks me and I nod at her with a smile. As I'm walking back to my place, I'm suddenly more excited for Tuesday's.