NO LIGHT. ✹ E.W.

xiii.

It's unlike her, to wake before you do every morning. Usually Ellie wakes to the sound of you rummaging through the closet for your jacket or shuffling in the bathroom because you drank too much water before bed. It's just your normal thing, you wake up before her. She lays in bed for a good minute listening to you scurry around doing whatever it is you're doing before calling your name in her sleep filled voice.

Today she wakes before you. It's early, very early from the lack of sunlight. A rosy color rests on the edge of the tree lines over the gates, swirling with dark blues and purples. It's still another hour, or more, before you'd be up and going off with Dean for supplies or fiddling around with one of Joel's old guitars.

Her eyes, tired and heavy with bags, shift down to stare at your sleeping form. The smallest of smiles tugs onto the corner of her lips at the sight. Your arm is strewn carelessly over the pillow beneath your head, the other is gently resting on the white sheets, missing the fabric of her shirt you clutched moments prior.

She reaches a hand out, hesitates for a slight second, brushes a strand of sweaty hair away from your forehead. The home still lingers with the scent of cut wood, coffee beans and the smell of pine. Joel. There's aromas mixing that remind her of you, and of her, but in certain sections of the house she just smells him. Maybe it's all in her head, you've never seemed to notice the scent.

The bedspreads smell of lavender and spices, of you. It's the only safe space she can find from the looming memories. She allows herself a spare moment of inhaling your scent, letting it linger in her senses, replenishing them.

She slides the covers away from herself, just as quietly sliding away from the bed and towards the door. Sully raises his head to stare at her in the murky darkness of the room, earning a low chuckle from her in response.

"Don't you steal my spot now," she warns him, feigning a frown at the drowsy dog. She knows that the second she leaves the room he'll be sprawling out next to you in the bed, completely overtaking her side. Ellie's almost sure he has a vendetta out for her. A very silent one that they engage in whenever you're not around to see it.

You'd scold her for arguing with your "sweet boy."

She makes her way downstairs as quietly as possible, intending on making herself something to drink and possibly waiting in the living room until you wake up. Tommy was supposed to come by later in the day, said he had something important to talk to Ellie about. At least that's what he'd told you the previous night on your way in from the trading building.

Some stragglers had passed through, exchanging goods and firearms. From what you'd seen when delivering some requested items one of them talked closely with Tommy, it made you uneasy. He'd never quite put Seattle behind him. Always checking with passerby survivors about the woman with the braid. It strained your relationship with him, a man you'd once thought of as a strong influential co-captain to Maria. Hell, it had strained Maria and Tommy's relationship.