Joel smiles kindly at your words. "Pretty area. Our patrols usually venture that far but if you got others with you, we could go bring them here?" His words sound sincere but you keep your guard up. "I'm sure they'd like that, but I'd rather stick around here for a bit, ya know?" Joel smiles in response, his arm reaches to refill your tea cup. "Well. I'm tuckered out for the night, we've been having a bit of a city-wide party all day. How bout' in the morning Ellie here takes you around town". Ellie glares at him, still not buying your story, it'll take a bit more to win her over. "Sounds great!" You pipe up and with that Ellie leads you out of the house not before sharing a few hushed words with Joel. The man nods along but says nothing. "Alrighty then, guess I'll see you two in the morning". Joel waves as you and Ellie turn down the road.
The walk home is silent and so too is the night at Ellie's place. You remained propped up on the sofa while Ellie took the bed, refusing to fall asleep, you both waited restlessly through the night. By sunrise, Ellie was up standing over you, shaking you awake from a deep slumber. Damn, you knew better but the extra sleep sure felt amazing.
"Layout of the town is pretty simple, 4 main towers, 2 gates, and a shit load of guards and patrols. Gonna jot that down for your boys back home?" Ellie's jab hardly registers in your still groggy brain as the both of you walk along pastures of livestock, crops, and all sorts of small shops. "Not going back, remember?" Ellie doesn't answer. "Hey, so how'd you get that shrink ray in the first place? Did someone accidentally shrink themselves?" Her tone flips, she even seems unnaturally cheery now. "Well yes actually that someone was me! I was alone though, exploring an abandoned lab so there was no one around to believe me. I was about to take it home when I saw lights coming from one of your outposts and sorta hitched a ride". Ellie laughs, her hand resting on your shoulder, guiding you away from the main road and down a smaller street back toward her house. "You were on my comic, weren't you? That was Craig and Austin, those guys are hilarious together but only when they're drunk!" You let out a nervous chuckle. A little bit of honesty and here she was starting to believe you! "Sounds like a great community, we never really had something like that, it was always just trying to survive the day". You arrive back at her home and plant yourselves on Ellie's couch. "Well if it's any help, me and Joel have spent most of our lives like that too, took a lot of time for us to open up here. Listen, sorry for being such a dick earlier, if you wanna stay, I'd be happy to introduce you to my friends". Your heart pounds, and the line between infiltration and growing friendship is starting to blur fast. "I'd like that Ellie".
The next two weeks were like the first days of boot camp all over again. Long hours of manual labor intertwined with late nights with Ellie, Dina, and Jesse. You loved every second of it and sometimes forget about Joel altogether. You never bothered to move out of Ellie's house and she never seemed to mind your presence there. You would use the shrink-ray occasionally to paint Ellie's fingernails or to let her test it out on herself.
The tension between you two grew each day until it finally hit a breaking point after a long day of patrols. You knew early on that Ellie had a crush on you but between Dina and your past with Owen, you refused to let anything blossom. That was until tonight, Ellie had gotten into a pretty intense fight with Joel not long ago and sat curled on her bed, her face flush with dried tears. Quietly, you sit beside her and wrap your arms around her shoulders. Ellie smiled and leaned into you, the rest of the night was silent but you never did leave her bed.
The next morning Ellie looks over you, in her hands is the shrink-ray, fully charged. "Abby, I need you to do something for me"...
