thecapitol | open

WHO| Ellie and OPEN
WHAT| Ellie's sticking her nose into everything.
WHEN| From the end of the mini-arena up until now.
WHERE| All over the capitol
WARNINGS| Swearing. Lots of swearing.

The Mini arena was hard on her. Despite it only being a day long, despite everyone trying to distract her, it was still hard on her. She sneaked away from her own room in the middle of the night and broke into Joel's - empty while he was fighting for his life - and curled up into his blankets and watched the reruns of everything she'd missed. She was still there in the morning when the arena ended.

When the family members came, Ellie spent a few brief seconds hoping beyond hope that she'd finally meet her mom. Riley had come back from the dead, so why not her family? But in the end, no one had come for her, and Ellie's heart had fallen and she'd left. Tess being brought for Joel was good, but it also meant that he was preoccupied. That was fine. He deserved time with Tess, and Tess deserved time with her, and she'd leave them to it.

She started avoiding her other friends. It wasn't that she didn't want to see them, but they all seemed to all have their own stuff going on, and she didn't want to get in the way. It was stupid, to be disappointed that her mom wasn't there, but she was. So she did what she did best, and got into trouble.

Stole a scone from a bakery, or tried to, and flipped the owner off when she nearly got caught. Spent an entire 24 hour stint in the arcade. Went to the top of the tallest building the Capitol just so she could scream off the roof.

And if she ran into anyone, well, they would probably just end up getting dragged along.

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"Howard's getting out." She said it almost hollowly, like she didn't believe it. "He's actually getting out." There was a long pause before she leaned in again to press her forehead to his shoulder.

"... You think they'd actually let us?" She asked finally, her voice incredibly quiet.

"I don't know, but if they'll let us try, I think we should."

He needed to get her out of this - away from these Capitol assholes, out of this city. Maybe there's somewhere quiet, away from all the cameras that they can live. No infected, no Capitol to dress up like a performing monkey for, just the two of them. Safe.

She wet her lips, looking away. It was a good idea, a nice one, but there was something weird, dark and wiggling, deep in her gut and she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"... Yeah. Yeah, I... That would be really great, Joel. Can we get everyone else out too?"

And there was the rub. Joel, for his part, would be happy as a clam if he could just get him and Ellie out and away and living somewhere safe and quiet. He'd give just about anything - anyone - for it.

But Ellie, she wanted more than that. She wanted her friends, maybe not even just her friends, either, but people she didn't even know, she wanted to save them. Felt obligated to them, in a way Joel just didn't anymore.

"I think -" He paused, sighed, and started again. "I think we gotta take this one step at a time, yeah? First of all, we can't petition for other people - we can only do it for ourselves."

"Yeah, but they can petition for themselves, right?" She said, not exactly about to let this lie. She could hear the wary tone in Joel's voice, and her's only grew stronger as a result.

"Maybe if we all worked together and gave them a really good reason to let us go--"

He watched her carefully, almost sadly. "They can all petition if they want," he said after a moment.

But they're never gonna let more than a few out, he left unsaid. But it was true. It would be like asking the Capitol to just stop the death matches. They never would. If it wasn't them, it would be someone else. Would Ellie stand for that? Joel didn't care, as long as he could get her out.

Her brows furrowed slightly, trying to fight off the annoyance she could feel building. Joel hadn't exactly said it, but she could hear it.

"Then we should get Riley out first," She said firmly.

Riley. He nodded, though of course he didn't really like the idea - he didn't like Riley much at all, she was reckless and thoughtless and liable to get Ellie killed.

She had, of course, gotten Ellie bitten - oh, he didn't know that for sure - but he strongly suspected it was something like that.

"Okay, so we'll all three petition together," he conceded.

The concession was enough to stem the tide of annoyance, and she relaxed slightly, resting against his shoulder.

"Yeah. Okay. The three of us together," She said, most more quietly this time. Venus, she knew, wouldn't want to petition out. Hawkeye, though--

She knew better than to bring him up with Joel.

"... I just... Wish they could see how much better things could be, if they didn't fuck with us all the time."

There was a lot he could say to that. That she knew enough about people by now to know that most of them weren't worth the air they breathed. That the ones in power were usually the ones who wanted to abuse it. That the people in charge didn't actually care about making things better, that they just wanted to keep their power.

That was all most people cared about - power. Whether that was power over their little scrap of territory, like the hunters, or power over everyone in the Quarantine Zones, like the military, or power over life and death, like the Capitol. It was always about power.

But he didn't say any of that. He just sat back, his hand on Ellie's shoulder, reminding himself she was there. With him. Breathing. "It'd be nice," he just said, because there was no point telling her what she already knew.

She knew. Knowing, however, didn't mean understanding. She knew what the world was. But unlike Joel, she still had a vision of what it could be. What it should be. Not like Marlene or Riley, not herself fixing things, just... A world where people stopped fighting over petty shit and got along and made something better.

She believed it had existed, before she was born. She'd seen the buildings that world had created, had seen the empty shells of cities that once must have been beautiful. She thought that people like Tess and Joel had seen it, but had been broken by losing it - that the Infection had destroyed everything.

Sure, people were shit, but that was because of what had happened. Take the infection away, and...

And you ended up with Panem, somehow. How had that even fucking happened?

"So what do we need to do?" She asked quietly.

Maybe Joel was broken. Or maybe the infection just opened his eyes to the way the world really was, the whole time. It was kind of a moot point, anyway. He didn't care.

He only cared about Ellie.

"Uh, I'll figure it out. Howard said somethin' about an application, and an interview. We'll probably have to answer some questions."

"An interview, huh." She snorted. "Well there must be some way we can convince them, if Howard did," She said quietly.

She fell silent for a minute and then sighed, curling up against him. "I just... I don't want to keep watching everyone die, Joel."

"You won't," he said immediately, because that's what he was supposed to say. Because he had to make sure she had hope, at least.

Even if what he meant by her not having to watch it anymore was more along the lines of moving away. Away from all this, all the screens and the technology that forced it down their throats 24/7.

She nodded, mutely, pressing herself closer and falling silent, just leaning against him.

"Okay," She said quietly.

"Let's do it."

Joel sighs with some measure of relief. He knows the odds of them actually managing to petition out are pretty goddamn low - if anyone could do it for any reason, there would be no Tributes left - but at least convincing her to try it is something.

It's something.

If they can just get away from the Capitol, away from the cameras and the crazy Tribute groupies and the oppressive regime - maybe they can find somewhere nice and quiet to live in peace. No infection, no arenas, just the two of them. Like a family.

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