While Rae was preparing them a meal in the kitchen, Elliot claimed the task of checking out the guard towers that were closest or had the best view of the river. They weren’t the only people in the colony who saw the appeal of spending quality couple time in the guard towers and that fact was proved by the number of times Elliot was disappointed when he heard voices in every tower he went to. There was one he had yet to check, which would decide whether he would have to bribe the occupants to give him and his girlfriend one night alone in the tower, or to scrap the idea completely. Considering how much they both needed this date night, scrapping the idea wasn’t an option.
Things had felt strained lately, like he was treading on broken glass, trying not to trigger any panic from his girlfriend, while at the same time maintaining their ‘don’t bottle things up’ philosophy. Sometimes that was a challenge because he didn’t want to force Rae to talk about anything if she didn’t want to. The nightmares were the worst, though. He would’ve gladly taken those away from her and dealt with them himself, if he’d been given the choice. But he wasn’t and all he could do was hold her at night whenever the nightmares came. In time, they would subside. He hoped.
Elliot had spent so much time over the past few days trying to keep things as normal as possible for Rae, that he hadn’t really socialized much with anyone else. Mimi had taken on many of Rae’s roles while she recovered, and Elliot knew enough that his brother’s wrist was healing just fine, but as far as Evan and the others went, Elliot had been unintentionally neglecting them.
Tonight wasn’t the night to worry about those kinds of things, though. Tonight, again selfishly, was another night he was spending with his girlfriend. Hopefully in one of those guard towers. Tower 2 had a broken window, but apart from birds nesting inside and the occasional bee’s nest (which Hernandez generally took care of), it was still a comfortable place to hang out. Elliot made his way up the stairs, hopeful this time because he didn’t hear any voices coming from above (although that didn’t really mean anything).
What he found when he reached the top wasn’t what he’d been expecting at all…
“Evan…?” His brows drew down when he saw his friend sprawled on the floor, eyes closed, and his phone laying a few feet out of immediate reach. Elliot crossed the small space and knelt beside Evan, lifting the man’s wrist to check for a pulse. Upon finding one, he let out a small breath of relief. It didn’t look as though he’d been attacked, despite the nearby table being toppled over.
Whatever had happened, Elliot intended to find out… as soon as he got his friend to the medical ward. Which meant he had to get Evan to the infirmary. Not a daunting task, given his friend’s smaller size, but neither was it the easiest, considering how many stairs he had to travel. Taking a breath, Elliot lifted Evan over his shoulders in the fireman’s carry and set his destination to the infirmary.