Safe and Sound// Ellie Williams

The Incident (Part 1)

I wake up the next morning more tired than I've ever felt in a while. I couldn't sleep after the events of last night. So much happened and I don't even know how to process it all. I went straight to bed when I got back, but I was spending my whole night staring at the wall. I sigh before getting up and throwing on a jacket for patrol. I grab my bow and arrows before I head out the door and towards the stables to meet up with Jesse. As I'm walking to the stables I see Dina playing in the playground with a bunch of the kids.

"Hey, Dina!" I get her attention and she calls a timeout before heading over to me.

"You ready for patrol? I'm just heading over to meet with Jesse."

"Oh yeah about that... These fuckers just got me in an intense snowball fight."

"Snowball fi-" I'm about to question what that is but my answer comes in the form of a ball of snow thrown at my face, "Okay that makes sense." I say as I wipe the snow off of me.

"Hey! I said timeout!" Dina yells back at them. I grab a snowball and throw it at one of the kids hitting him in the chest, "Oh shit okay we're doing this." Dina says as she ducks into cover and piles up a ball of snow. I jump the fence and run into cover while scooping up some snow. One of the kids tries to sneak up on me but I see her and retaliate with a snowball. The kids laugh as we continue this.

"Hey! You got patrol Tate!" I hear Jesse's voice and look over to see him and Ellie at the fence.

"Oh hey! One second!" I yell back. I see Jesse whisper something to Ellie before walking away as she turns red. I walk over to Ellie with some snow still in my hand, "Hey." I say slowly to Ellie.

"Hey. Jesse's gonna be taking over for Joel and Tommy this morning so he asked me to join you on patrol today."

"Oh yeah sure. Creek route right?"

"Yeah." I nod and feel wind pass my head before Ellie is hit with a snowball, "Hey! What the fuck?" Ellie exclaims and the kids laugh sheepishly while Dina grabs another snowball and throws it at the kid.

"You want to join?" I ask Ellie. She nods her head with a small smile, "Oh wait, but first." I say as I take the snow in my hand and slam it into Ellie's face.

"Fuck! Seriously?"

"Yeah that was for being a dick last night."

"Right... I'm sorry about that."

"It's fine." I'm about to walk away when she speaks up again.

"Wait did you just say dick? Was that your first time swearing?"

"Yeah, I guess so. I don't really know if that counts as a swear though. Guess you're just a bad influence."

Ellie chuckles, "Guess so." She jumps the fence and we continue the snowball fight until we decide we have to go to patrol before Jesse gets mad at us. Before we go I turn to Dina.

"You not patrolling today?"

She shook her head, "No. Jesse wants me to rest for some... personal reasons." I look at her confused before nodding my head. I walk out with Ellie and we make our way to the stables. When we get to the stables I hop onto my horse while Ellie grabs a gun and hops onto Shimmer. She walks her horse over to me and we sit and wait to be let out.

"Okay guys the storm is getting bad, so we're hoping that you can complete patrol before it gets worse. Just go to your post, log the info and clear any infected. If the storm worsens or you get into anything you can't handle come back immediately." Jesse tells the group and the doors open for us to leave. I start leading Ellie up the route since she's never really done it before.

"So... do you like this route?" Ellie asks me. I look at her with my eyebrow raised.

"It's okay. Jesse and I only took it over recently. It used to be Dina and Eugene, but once he died she joined up with you." Ellie nods at my response and we continue to ride in silence. I don't know why it's so awkward, "Look uh, I know it's none of my business, but I just wanted to see if you're okay with Joel. The guy really cares about you."

"I know. We talked last night and we're working on things." I nod at Ellie and she gives me a smile. I'm riding a little bit ahead of her so I just return the smile before continuing to ride to our next station. I can feel the wind picking up and I have to tighten my jacket to try and stay warm. I see our post up ahead so I kick on my horse a little bit to move faster there. When we get there I jump off and tie him up while Ellie ties up Shimmer.

"Come on." I tell Ellie and lead her through the building. We get to the rope to let us up and I start to climb. I hear Ellie jump on the rope and I look down to see her just start to pull herself up. I go over to the log book and start to log our patrol. When I'm finished I turn to see Ellie start to walk towards the balcony. I walk over and see her looking at the view, "Nice view, huh."

"Yeah." Ellie says quietly. I walk next to her and look out. I can feel her eyes on me as I'm looking over the landscape. I turn to her and give her a soft smile and she returns it.

"You see over there? By the town? That's our next checkpoint." Ellie turns away from me and looks at the town.

"Okay. Let's go." I nod at Ellie and we make our way back to the horses. When we leave the checkpoint we can see the storm is starting to pick up. Now it's hard to see where we are and the wind is extremely strong, "We should find some place to camp out and wait out the storm!" Ellie shouts at me. I can barely hear her, but I nod and we start making our way towards the checkpoint, or anywhere where we can hide out for a little bit. We are lucky when we approach an old building and Ellie motions for me to follow her. There's a hole at the side where we can go through and put the horses in to get them away from the storm. After we've tied them up I lead us into the building to look for a place to just relax until the storm dies out. We look around and see that it's an old library. I'm looking around the place while Ellie looks for a generator. I know she finds it when the lights flicker and suddenly the whole place is lit up.

"Nice." I tell Ellie when she approaches me. She gives me a smile before we find a door that leads us downstairs.

"You ever been here?" Ellie asks and I shake my head muttering a small 'no'. When we walk into the basement my eyes widen at the sight in front of us. Plants line the tables and when I get a second look I see it's marijuana plants.

"How did we not know this was here?" I ask and Ellie shrugs, "Don't know. Seems like a good place to camp out though." I nod at Ellie and watch her walk around.

Looks like we're gonna be stuck here for a while.