[center][h2]Ellen Taylor[/h2][/center]

The rest of the drive was easier. Not easy by any means, but easier. When they got out of the town and the urgency passed, Ellen called out that she had the bright yellow medical kit in her bag in the trunk they could use for Hans, and perhaps Ciara as well. After another hour, they pulled over to the side of the road. Ellen’s skin was still somewhat covered in this strange...blubber-like gray skin, and her arm was beginning to ache. Grandma helped her get the sludge off of her--especially necessary as her arm had begun to ache again, and she grabbed clean clothes from her bag, changing into them. Ellen’s arm was set, and though it still ached, she was capable of driving. 

Those capable of driving switched off for the rest of the journey, and a few strange portals later, they arrived at Goodnight. Hans and Ciara had gone off for medical attention right away. Ellen was checked out, but with mostly bruises at that point, she was given a sling for her arm and sent on her way. Ellen wandered towards one of the larger groups just as a man hopped up onto a box and introduced himself and the Underground.

A shower sounded delightful, but the line after Rory’s announcement grew seemingly exponentially, so Ellen went to check on Hans and Ciara. Ciara was asleep, and Ellen sat with her for a few minutes before deciding that she needed to stay a bit more active for a while. She didn’t like being alone with her thoughts. Hans was getting his bandages changed, and Ellen hung around for a bit, trying to stay out of the way. She didn’t know how to thank him for coming to their rescue without sounding...like a damsel in distress. After a few minutes, she settled on something half-decent. 

“Thank you for coming back for us.” Ellen said. “I’m sorry that you got shot,” She wasn’t [b]great[/b] at taking responsibility for her actions, but she did feel badly that her recklessness got Hans hurt--and nearly got them all killed. 

Hans shrugged painfully, grimacing slightly with the movement.

“I have been shot before, successfully and unsuccessfully. What is important is that we completed our mission.”

He reached for a glass of water and brought it to his lips, draining it in one before leaning back on the beach chair they were using as a hospital bed.

“You were very reckless and irresponsible. Even now you have not fully realised how close you came to death, or worse, with the Federal Occult Enforcement agency. Without your impulsive actions I would not have been shot by that agent, nor would I have been forced to engage her with bullets from her comrades still in my stomach, and we certainly would have escaped much faster.”

He paused, before nodding.

“Because I would have stayed behind to hold off the FOE, almost certainly to be killed in action or captured and executed later, while the others fled the FOE and quite likely left Ciara behind. Your actions put yourself in danger and attracted the attention of the enemy - but without them the operation would have failed, and instead we extracted all three of our targets, and killed an enemy as well.”

Hans smiled - a thin, serious, proud smile.

“Ellen, you were outstanding.”

As Hans called her reckless and irresponsible, Ellen’s face reddened. Though she knew she was not the best at making plans before she did stuff, hearing from someone else made her uncomfortable. It didn’t make her feel particularly good to hear him say they would have escaped faster and he wouldn’t have gotten shot or forced to fight her while shot. 

Then Hans continued, saying that he would likely be dead, and they wouldn’t have gotten Ciara, either. She glanced in the direction of the makeshift bed where Ciara was resting. A large smile appeared, erasing all of the earlier guilt as Hans called her outstanding. “Thanks, Hans.” She said. 

“But you know what they say… Arbeit ist die beste Jacke.” Ellen repeated the German phrase meaning the best way to keep herself warm was to be useful. “Maybe next time, you can give me some orders so I don’t get us in [b]too[/b] much more trouble.” Ellen chuckled, wanting Hans to know that she was absolutely up for doing this again. She didn’t want to hide out. She wanted to seize whatever control she could over their situation and DO something.  

Hans paused for a moment, his brows furrowing slightly.

“Ja, you would make a good soldier, all you need is training and discipline, I think. Where are you really from?” He asked suddenly, directly. 


Ellen frowned slightly at the mention of needing discipline, mostly in jest, but the jovial expression fell completely as he asked where she was from. She knew why. Americans didn’t speak German. They barely spoke English. She had only given an expression, and could have perhaps played it off as having had some grandparent who was German and used the expression still. But she didn’t want to lie to Hans. Besides, the FOE could apparently find her no matter what she said her name was, no matter where she claimed to be her heritage.

“Born and raised in Italia, Romano specifically.” Ellen said. She didn’t think it was necessary to then elaborate that she had traveled a fair bit growing up, and learned multiple languages in school. German was actually one of her weaker languages--she was just conversational, and would have had to sound out written things to be sure of their meaning. 

Ellen debated whether to tell him more, to explain a bit of her history, and why she was in the states, but she ultimately decided against it. She looked down at the half of a tattoo on her wrist. She hadn’t told anyone before about her past, and the details were...difficult to bring up. 

Hans looked down the bed, towards his legs, face coloured with thought.

“I fought in Kosovo. I was young and silly, and I believed in fighting what I thought of as injustice, so I went abroad and volunteered. I was still in the Bundeswehr, so I should not have done it like that, but it is what I did.” He paused, nodding slightly, remembering the sights. “I am one of the lucky ones. I took leave and was very careful, so I was not discovered by my homeland. NATO were sympathetic to the Kosovar cause, but I had not been authorised to fight. Now that I am fighting over here as well, I will likely be tried and imprisoned if I ever return to Germany.”

He looked up again, to Ellen. His face was softer now, less guarded. He was quite handsome - in a sort of older, mature, weathered kind of way. Hans had the kind of face that looked like he’d seen enough for two or more lifetimes, but through which you could still see a trace of the boy he’d been - just the subtle hint of what he’d looked like when he’d been younger.

Slowly, with great deliberation, and a cringe of pain as he moved wrong, Hans reached over and took a firm hold of Ellen’s hand.

“I am also running from Home. It is a bad feeling, whatever you run from.” He squeezed her hand.

Ellen reached out her good hand to take Hans’, not wanting him to strain himself too much to reach out. "I'm sorry to hear that you can't go back." And really, she couldn't go back either. 

For a long time she had told herself that maybe eventually she would return home and see her parents again. Maybe they would rebuild a relationship and they would be able to look at her without seeing her sister. But that option was gone now. "I guess none of us can go back, really." She sighed, and looked around the room. "But that just means we need to keep looking forward."

“Get some rest. You deserve a break after saving my sorry ass.” Ellen grinned and released the man’s hand, then got up and left the man alone to rest. He was a good man, and it sucked that he was dragged into all of this. She knew on some level he had chosen this fight, but that didn’t make it any easier. The more people she saw--the ones who were hurt, scared, or still in shock--the more she hated the FOE. Why couldn’t an organization have come out to help people learn about their abilities? Why did different have to always mean bad or wrong? 

These people didn’t deserve to be persecuted. 

Ellen went back to the shower line. She talked with a few people about their journeys here. She mostly listened as some focused on the trauma of having to leave their homes suddenly, or pack up only what they could fit in a bag before leaving. Others focused on being pursued by the FOE, or a Bootlegger being lost in an exchange of fire. There were hints dropped here and there by the survivors that the group had not saved nearly as many as they wanted to, that they had lost loyal members of the Violet Underground, but the talk was mostly rumor countered by personal vignettes. 

When asked, Ellen talked a little about her own path, saying that her pickup was easy, but they got into a fight with some woman from the FOE when they were picking up someone else. She didn’t want to make herself sound quite as reckless as she was, and glazed over trying to get away, and then holding off long enough for their bootlegger to come and engage with the FOE agent to get them free. 

Many of the people talked about what sort of magic they had discovered since their awakening. Some seemed to be sparked by the conversation into actually putting a name/label on what they had recently discovered. Ellen could recall a few things she had done in her fight. She had developed a second skin to protect herself from the bitter cold. [i](Hence why she was still waiting in the damn line for the shower)...[/i] She had made the ground slippery, but where had she gotten the water from? Perhaps she condensed it from the air, or melted it from the snow. Hmm… she would have to think on that more.

Eventually, Ellen showered, then she found and collapsed into her makeshift bed. She didn’t care how uncomfortable it was, and fell asleep rather quickly. Her sleep was fitful, memories of her fight with the FOE agent, trying to protect Ciara, but Ciara transformed into her sister, Chiara, and no matter what she did, Ellen couldn’t stop her sister from being injured by the agents.

In the morning, Ellen spotted some girl applying makeup in the bathroom, and while she admired the girl’s resolve, she couldn’t bring herself to do the same. She looked in the mirror as she washed her hands, deciding that she probably needed to brush her hair. Well, she was pretty sure she needed to. Her contacts were still in the case, and she hadn’t thought to put on her glasses before wandering to the bathroom. She dressed, put on her glasses, then she put back on the sling, even though it made other things annoying and difficult. She wanted to be back at full capacity as soon as possible, and that meant resting up while she could.

Once dressed, and with her sight restored, Ellen went on a hunt for coffee.