Safe and Sound// Ellie Williams

The Fight

It's been a few weeks since Cat and Ellie broke up and Cat's been... really good surprisingly. She talks about Ellie without feeling sad and she's been okay. I guess in our world dating is different than the old world for breakups, but all of the books I read from Aster's collection of the old world the girl is usually crying and eating ice cream. Whatever ice cream is.

"You know Tate I never actually commented on how well Ellie's tattoo ended up being. For someone who tattoos so well it's crazy how you don't have any." Cat tells me as she is in the middle of giving Alaia a small tattoo.

"I don't really know what I'd get."

"Hm... If you ever want one I can do it. Just let me know." I nod at Cat and watch her as she works. We're interrupted when Dina and Jesse come rushing into Cat's house.

"Hey you guys haven't happened to see Ellie right?" Jesse asks. We all shake our head no.

"She disappeared last night. Ran off without even leaving a note. Joel's out looking for her right now so we're wondering if you have any idea as to where she could have ran off." Dina says.

"No, I haven't seen her since two days ago." Cat says.

"Yeah. Tate, Aster and I saw her last night before bed and she seemed fine then." Alaia tells them and I get worried. Why would she run off?

"Okay well some of the patrollers are keeping and eye out for her, but we said if she's not back by tonight then we're gonna go look for her. You guys want to come?" Jesse asks and we all nod. Jesse and Dina stay with us and the atmosphere is quiet. No one really wants to speak since we're all wondering what is going on. We hear a knock on the door and Jesse jumps up to go get it. We see Joel with Tommy next to him.

"Hey. Ellie's back home and she's okay. We just, we got in a disagreement. I just wanted to let y'all know since I'm sure you were all worried." Joel says and he looks so defeated. What happened? What disagreement? Was this about Joel's overprotectiveness? Was he stepping over a line? Did Ellie do something?

"Okay. Thanks Joel. We'll go check up on her." Jesse says.

"Might want to wait a while. Doesn't seem like she wants to talk right now." We all nod at Joel and him and Tommy leave. We all sit in quiet trying to process everything.

"What do you think happened?" Dina asks, but no one responds. We all just stay quiet and hope that Ellie's okay.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a few hours I decide to go check up on Ellie. Dina wants to go with me, but Jesse convinces her to try tomorrow. It's Tuesday so we decided I'm the best to go since we usually would have our guitar lessons together tonight anyways. I knock on Ellie's door and wait for her to answer. The door swings open.

"Fuck off Joel-" Ellie cuts herself off when she sees it's me. I give her a small smile and wave my hand slightly, "Oh. Sorry I didn't know it was you."

"It's okay. I, uh... it's Tuesday."

"Right. Sorry I'm just not in the mood right now."

"That's okay." Ellie and I haven't been alone since her and Cat's break up. Ellie cancelled our other guitar lessons and I can tell she's been avoiding me a bit. I don't want to automatically bring up Joel so I decide now is the best time to bring up that issue, "About what Cat said-"

"Oh yeah she was just jealous you shouldn't take it seriously."

"I know but-"

"I don't know why she gets like that."

"Maybe it's just-"

"I mean it's not like we've even done anything." I raise my eyebrows at her and Ellie gapes at me. She turns red slightly and looks away.

"You know, you're really great at letting people speak." I tell her.

Ellie chuckles nervously, "Right."

"I was just gonna ask if you're okay."

"Oh, uh, yeah. Thanks."

"And uh, I heard you ran off last night."

Ellie rubs the back of her neck and avoids eye contact with me, "Right. Joel and I aren't really speaking. Ever." I raise my eyebrows at her. Never?  "He's just been lying to me about some stuff that I should have known about. I can't really talk about it."

"That's fine. You don't have to." Ellie nods at me and we stay quiet.

"Look I don't mean to be a dick but I think I just want to get some sleep." Ellie tells me.

"Oh right, sorry. I'll just- I'll just see ya tomorrow?"

Ellie nods and gives me a strained smile, "Sure." I nod and start to walk away. I look back and Ellie's closing the door. We make eye contact one last time before the door closes and she's completely out of my view.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ellie has not left her place. She hasn't been to patrol and she has not seen anybody. She just blocked herself off from the outside and I understand that she's upset, but she's really making me, and everybody else, worried right now. We are all planning on going over together but I'm surprised to see her in the Tipsy Bison when I walk in with Aster and Alaia before patrol. She's seated with Dina and Jesse and looks like nothing the past few days have happened.

"Hey." Aster says as we approach the table. 

"Hey. We were just getting a bite to eat before patrol." Ellie says.

"You're going on patrol today?" I ask.

Ellie nods at me, "Yeah. I'm scheduled." I nod slowly still confused at the situation. Ellie gets up and starts to leave and I quickly follow her.

"Hey Ellie. How are you doing?"

"Fine."

"I just. I haven't seen you."

"Yeah. I just needed a few days alone."

"Right." We stand there in silence and Ellie motions for towards the door.

"I gotta go." 

"Right, yeah. Sorry. I'll, uh, I'll see you later."

"Yeah." Ellie says as she walks out and I stay there for a minute. That's the most I've talked to Ellie in days and it just felt... wrong. I don't know what happened between her and Joel, but it must have been bad. She said she's done with him forever.

What did you do Joel?