Safe and Sound// Ellie Williams

Seattle

"You sure you know where you're going?" I ask Ellie well she looks at the map. We've been travelling for 3 weeks now and it feels like we will never get to Seattle at this point. Not that I would be complaining if it wasn't for the fact that Ian and Tommy are in Seattle.

"Of course I know where I'm going." Ellie replies back. I raise my eyebrows and watch as Ellie stares confusedly at the map we found of Seattle earlier. She starts to look around before she looks at me and rolls her eyes, "Shut up." I raise my hands and let Ellie look around. She kicks on Shimmer and starts trotting through the forest until we get out and surprisingly see the entrance into Seattle, "See. Told ya I knew where I was going." Ellie smiles back at me.

"Yeah, I could really tell."

"Hey you're getting better with the sarcasm and jokes."

"All thanks to your company." I say sarcastically.

"Ok maybe too much better." I smile at Ellie and we get to the front of the gate and jump off of Shimmer. I start walking ahead of Ellie to look for an entrance, but she calls my name and I turn around to listen to what she is going to say, "I just. I wanted to talk before we, you know, walk into a war zone. You know about, uh, about the library." Right the kiss. Didn't think we would talk about that, "It's just, it's cool. I wanted to let you know that it's cool and we can just forget about it."

"Right, uh, forget about it." I hate to admit that the kiss replays in my head a lot. It was my first kiss and it was with Ellie. There's a lot to think about, but I guess I was thinking too slow. Ellie gives me a nod and we keep looking for a way in. I'm looking around when I hear a noise and I whip around to see Ellie climbing up a ladder to the top of the gate, "Hey! Ellie! Be careful!"

"Yeah I will! Don't worry!" I watch as Ellie jumps along the top of the gate until she gets to the other side and climbs down out of my view. I wait by Shimmer for Ellie to open the gate. I hear some noise going on the other side and I furrow my eyebrows. i'm about to shout but the gate opens and I see Ellie there with a satisfied smile on her face. I start to lead Shimmer through the gate and when I just make it through it slams shut and Shimmer gets started. I have to shoo her to calm down and Ellie runs down to us.

"Holy shit! You okay?" Ellie asks and I nod. Still trying to calm down Shimmer.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good. Let's just go. That was loud it would have attracted attention." Ellie nods and I hop up on Shimmer and Ellie follows suit. She motions Shimmer to move and we start moving towards the city. As we get closer my heart beats and I feel nervous. All of my old life is facing me the closer we get into Seattle.

"Hey, you okay?" Ellie asks me. Concern written on her face.

"Yeah... just a lot memories." When we get to another gate I look at the key pad. I don't know the codes, "See that there? The Serevena Hotel. That's a WLF base." I point to the hotel just on the other side of the gate.

"Okay. I found a note with some of the codes. Should be useful." Ellie tells me and I nod. Ellie goes over to put in the code, but nothing happens. She looks around and sees a generator connected to the door. When she heads over to it she starts to pull the chord but nothing happens, "Looks like it's out of gas." Ellie tells me.

"There's an area over there. There's a lot of buildings so we could probably find some gas."

"Okay." Ellie nods. When we get to the open area we stop to look at the map. There are multiple buildings we can go into so we have to pick strategically, "So FEDRA was the other group against the WLF. Was that the group you were a part of?" Ellie asks me as we ride to one of the buildings.

"No. FEDRA have been gone for a while." Ellie nods and doesn't questions it any further.

"WLF did some pretty fucked up stuff. With leaving those bodies out as messages." Ellie says referring to the bodies left outside the main gate.

"Yeah."

"Did you, uh, did you do any of that stuff?"

"FEDRA was gone by the time I was patrolling."

"That doesn't really answer my question."

"Has anyone not done any messed up stuff?"

Ellie chuckles, "True... How old were you? When you first killed someone."

"Thirteen. It's when we are assigned our duties. I was a soldier so I patrolled with my dad until I was fourteen. He died. Went against our group."

"Shit."

"Yeah." I say softly, "What about you?"

"Fourteen. Someone was strangling Joel. I shot him." I nod and we make our way into one of the buildings. There's demons outside so we have to take them out before we can get through. I take out my bow and start shooting at them. I take out two and Ellie gets the other demon. When they're all taken out Ellie and I make our way into the Dome building. When we're in it's... a church of some sorts. Not the ones we went to, but I can see its a church, "Do you, uh, do you ever still pray?" Ellie asks me.

"Sometimes. I never stopped believing. Like I said before it's nice to hope for something. To believe in something. And it calms me. Helps guide me when things get dark... It's what I've always known. I don't think I could stop believing if I tried."

"That sounds nice."

"Yeah... it was." Ellie and I stop making conversation as we continue to look for gas. We end up behind a gate where there's a gas tank, but no gas, "We can try the Courthouse. It's just down the street."

"Yeah, okay. Come on let's go I think we got everything from in here." I nod and we start to make our way out of the church and back into the streets. Before I leave the church I look back, May she guide you. I jump out of the church and follow Ellie to the Courthouse. When we get there we hear screeching from the inside, "Well that sounds promising." I tell Ellie and she gives me a conflicted look.

"Yeah. Keep an eye out." I nod and we go through the window to lead us inside. We go straight into cover when we see a clicker a few rows ahead of us, "Follow me." Ellie whispers and I nod. She slowly walks towards the clicker being careful to stay out of sight when the demon clicks. Ellie goes up behind it before grabbing on and plunging her switchblade into its neck. I continue to follow her as we have to take out the demons in the building. I go behind one in of the demons and grab it before stabbing it in the neck with my switchblade. It falls to the ground and I look back at Ellie.

"Think that's all of them?" I ask.

Ellie nods, "Yeah, but let's not wait and find out if there's more." I nod and we start making our way through the Courthouse and down to the lower floors. When we get to the garage we're greeted with more demons, "Look out!" Ellie shouts and I load my bow to start shooting at them. There's so many I start to load with two arrows to take out more. We seem to be doing okay until an infected takes Ellie by surprise.

"Ellie!" I shout. I pull out my pistol to shoot quickly and take out the demon on top of her. Ellie jumps out of the water and starts coughing, "Hey, you okay?"

Ellie nods while still coughing, "Yeah. Let's just get the fuck out of here." I nod and we start looking for the gas tank. When we find it Ellie takes out the gas jug and starts to fill it up, "We got gas!" Ellie looks at me with a cute smile and I return it. When it's all filled up we find a gate to get out of the building. Shimmer greets us when we make it back outside so we jump on her and start making our way back. On our way back Ellie stops Shimmer and I follow her vision to the old shop, "Lets just look in there quickly." Ellie says and I nod at her. When we walk in it's an old music store. I watch Ellie as she looks around the building. I let her explore the shop as I look around for anything useful. My thoughts drift until I hear a familiar tune. Ellie's playing the song she sang at the bonfire. When I go up the stairs I see Ellie softly playing the guitar. I smile softly before heading over and sitting on the floor in front of her.

Take on me, Take me on.
I'll be gone. In a day or two.
In a day or two.

"You remember that night by the bonfire?" Ellie asks me and I nod, "I loved hearing you sing. I swear I couldn't breath." Ellie chuckles breathlessly. I smile and keep my eyes trained on Ellie. She clears her voice, "We should go." I want to say something, but again I don't as I nod my head and follow Ellie out the door and back to the generator.

_______________________________

I will never not put in that music store scene lol. It's by far my favourite game scene.