Ellie wants it to be worth it (the_cure) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-04-13 14:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, dani moonstar (mirage), ellie |
Hey. Did you hear about the guy who got hit in the head with a can of soda?
Who: Ellie and Dani Moonstar
What: Picking up a stray for the ranch
When: Yesterday
Where: outside a McDonalds near Baxter's Bakery
Status: complete
Rating: PG-13 for language
Ellie never knew her mother. And if her father stayed around for very long she wouldn't know his face, either. Her earliest memory is, in fact, of being alone.
She remembers a small room, and the smell of dust and mothballs. The rough, coarse wool of her blanket, and the sound of wind battering at the shutters and rain pounding at the window. She remembers a shadow in the hallway, and muffled voices. The door opening with a creek. And then it slamming shut. Neighbors found her two days later, abandoned.
Storms still bothered her, sometimes. Today, for instance, the rain is pouring and thunder crashing in her ears. Ellie stared out the window of the mcdonalds, hoping the rain stopped before she got kicked out. But that hope didn't last long. Sure enough, Ellie found herself standing on the curb soaking wet while hugging her backpack tight against her chest. She also had a large trombone case strapped to her back. Not that there was an actual trombone in there.
"Fuck." She glanced back at the door, then out towards the street. "Okay, Ellie. Just need to find some place that's dry. " Or a job, a job would be nice. But what would she put on her resume? 'Won a shooting contest once and not half bad at math.'
Yeah that'll go over well.
Kids like Ellie were exactly the kind of kids that Dani kept her eye out for when she was out and about in the city. Not that she usually drove around the city looking for them, or anything. It wasn’t written in the employee handbook for Urdnot Ranch that someone should drive around recruiting aimless teenagers. But Wrex had been good at picking up strays that way, and Dani recalled all the times the X-men had done it, too. Looking out for kids in need was almost like an instinct or a calling to her now.
So Ellie’s forlorn figure caught her eye as she drove past the McDonalds, on her way to Baxter’s. She tried to avoid the fast food place if she could, but it was a place teens often hung out at and offered some pretty cheap burgers. Only it wasn’t exactly the time of day for school to be out.
That thought rankled around in her mind, and she picked up an extra coffee at the bakery, along with some freshly baked cinnamon rolls. If the girl was still sitting out in the rain on her way back, she decided, she was going to invite her into the car and feed her. That was the least she could do.
Hopefully it wouldn’t come across as creepy stalker.
Sure enough, it was still raining and the kid was still there when she passed on her return journey, and she pulled into the parking lot. Dani brought her truck to a stop alongside the curb and rolled her window down, “You’ve been sitting out here a while. You want a hot coffee and some cinnamon rolls? I promise I’m not going to pull any crap with you.”
Not that Ellie needed help, or wanted help. She was an adult! Legally, anyway. Cut off from the system by an uncaring world, and more than willing to take off from her guardians. This wasn't the first time, but it would be the last time. She doubted they'd bother to look for her now that she wasn't an extra meal ticket for welfare.
Ellie's hand tightened around the knife in her coat pocket as she stared at the woman in the beat up pickup. "Yeah?" She sounded suspicious, yet hopeful.
Dani turned the car off and held up both of her hands, then opened her truck door so Ellie could see inside. Sure, there might be a concealed weapon somewhere on her, too, but there wasn’t anything scary inside the truck, no guns or anything, and the coffee and cinnamon rolls were on the seat next to her.
“Yeah. My name is Dani Moonstar. I work for a youth outreach center called Urdnot Ranch. You can even give them a call if you want. I’m friends with some of the local police, too. You look cold and wet and I spotted you on the way to the bakery. I thought I’d grab some extras just in case. I’ll even drink out of your cup first if it’ll put you at ease.” She held up the coffee she’d bought for the girl, readying herself to take a sip out of it so that she could prove it wasn’t poisoned or drugged.
Ellie studied her for a moment, then climbed into the truck, careful to not smush anything that might be delicious. It wasn't like Dani was some big person who could overpower her. Sure, she looked tough, but Ellie was tougher. Swear to god.
"Nah." She took the coffee and drank eagerly from it. It wasn't that cold out there but the rain just made things worse. "I'm Ellie."
“Look out, you might burn your mouth off,” Dani cautioned. Not that Baxters brewed their coffee to ‘searing pits of hell’ level, but it was still pretty warm. She shut her car door and rolled the window up so they wouldn’t get rained on, then grabbed up her own coffee, and took a long drink off of it, “Nice to meet you, Ellie. Here, have a cinnamon roll.”
She pulled a small cardboard container out of the bag and handed it to Ellie. The cinnamon rolls were individually packaged like that, mainly so that the warm icing wouldn’t get all over everything.
"Don't care, so good." She drank more slowly after that, not because Dani had told her to. Of course. Then she looked at the cinnamon roll like it was the nectar of the gods. "I haven't had one of these since I was thirteen..."
“They’re not too expensive at Baxter’s. It’s rare when you get a small business like that that can pull in the numbers it needs to stay afloat without raising their prices up. But she manages it.” Dani pointed down the street a ways, towards the location of the bakery, just in case Ellie wanted to visit the place herself someday.
She opened up her own cinnamon roll and pulled off a piece, then got down to brass tacks, “So. Is there somewhere I can drive you to?”
It was still probably way out of Ellie's price range. She just nodded her head while Dani talked, and stuffed her face with the delicious delicious sweetness of baked goods. She took a little too long to chew before answering, and darted her eyes underneath her hoodie.
"Uhm. Yeah. Sure."
Dani eyed her a bit while pulling off another piece of roll to eat, and thought a bit while she chewed. She pretty good at reading people, especially shifty-eyed kids that were up to something. Ellie seemed like the no-bullshit kind of kid, too. The kind that thought they should be adults already and that no one knew anything about the world as well as they did.
There were at least thirty of those at the Ranch already. She started up her truck, driving with one hand while her other hand continued to pick off pieces of delicious baked goods to eat, "Do you have a place to go to that you actually live in, or would you be making up a location off the top of your head in the hopes I don't notice?"
"Fifth and J street," Ellie said, making up what she hoped was a real intersection. And even if they couldn't find it, well it would make the ride last long enough to get warm and fill her belly. A win-win proposition, until she got kicked out.
Of course, there was no Fifth and J Street, at least none that Dani was aware of. The streets probably existed by themselves, but they sure as hell didn’t intersect. There was no way for Ellie to know that, either, and Dani just nodded, and started driving.
Towards the ranch. The kid could scream about being kidnapped if she caught on, but Dani was figuring for now she’d try and figure Ellie’s story out. Assuming she could get a straight answer out of her.
She took a long sip off of her coffee as she drove, “It’s a little early in the day for school to be out. Are you in college or something?”
Or she could try to stab Dani. That was an option, and one she'd done in the past. She side-eyed Dani, hard, and then shrugged a shoulder. "Still looking for one, but I'm not in High School any more."
Her plan was to get her GED, and she figured that wouldn't be hard. No one was going to come get her now, thank god!
Stabbing was an option, sure, but Dani was willing to trust her gut on this one. It was pretty clear Ellie was on the run from something - even if that something was just life - and she was going to help if she could. She shrugged a shoulder as she drove, and tossed her empty cinnamon roll container in the trash, “Sometimes when you’re done with High School you just want to take a break and travel around. I never got that chance when I was younger, my grandfather was pretty stern about my education. He was a stubborn, ornery little cuss, Black Eagle was.”
She continued to take the surface streets. It was a long drive out to Trabuco Canyon that way, but that gave Ellie plenty of time to realise she wasn’t getting dropped off at a random street corner, too.
"Yeah. That's pretty much it," Ellie agreed. She tilted her head. Black Eagle? Well that made sense. Moonstar, and all. "Hey. Did you hear about the guy who got hit in the head with a can of soda? He was lucky it was a soft drink."
Meanwhile, she was starting to get the impression that something was off. "...where are you taking me?"
Dani snerked, then chuckled a bit, “Have you heard this one? Two guys walk into a bar…”
A pause, then, “... The third one ducked.”
It was a horrible, horrible joke. One she’d picked up in college years ago. She kept her eyes on the road, though, even as Ellie asked where they were going, and calmly replied, “How do you know I’m not taking you to Fifth and J Street?”
"That's a good one! And I know 'cause we're heading out of town and in most cities those streets are downtown."
Shit. That just totally gave her away and she knew it. Ellie smacked her forehead. "FUCK!"
"Yeaaah," Dani nodded, slowly. Her smirk was a little more evident, and she took another long sip of her coffee as she turned towards her usual route to the ranch. Driving was always relaxing - more so now that Squee had been trained to stop crawling up her pant leg while she was in transit.
"I'm taking you to the Ranch, because I have a gut feeling that you don't actually have anywhere to go. But you're not a prisoner, I can't force you to stay there, and we can give you bus fare tomorrow if you want. Just stay the night. You'll get a hot dinner and a bed to sleep in and access to a shower and a phone if you need to make a call. We can wash your clothes up too after this rain. Maybe get you an umbrella or something. Plus… we have a Playstation or three. You’ll have to fight the other people for a turn but I think you can take them."
"A ranch. Like the bunny ranch? Because that's totally not my fucking thing on a whole bunch of levels." Ellie dropped f-bombs like they were candy. "...wait. Playstation?" She perked up at that. If there was one thing she was good at, it was video games.
She patted her trombone case thoughtfully. "...what kinda games?"
“A Community Outreach Ranch. The one I mentioned before. Though we do have some bunnies on the farm? Just not the kind that you pay money to sleep with,” Dani corrected, trying not to laugh. She suddenly had a picture in her head of Wrex as a pimp, and it was hysterical. But Wrex would never have put something like that together, he was too nice a guy for that.
“Uhm… We’ve got the newest Soul Calibur, Tomb Raider, a bunch of other action RPG’s like that. Some kind of zombie survival game, that Injustice game, more fighting games like that. Oh yeah, and the Final Fantasies. The thirteens and the new Ten Remaster. But we make the kids hand in tickets to play those ones, since they usually take a few hours. Oh yeah, and that new shooter game set up in the clouds. I forget the name.”
About once every two weeks, Dani grabbed one of the kids and went to gamestop. They had more games than they knew what to do with, but she was waiting until there were more games out on the PS4 before they got into the newer console.
"Shit that's awesome! Lara is so hot. For a girl, if you like that sorta thing. But I'll so kick everyone's ass at Injustice." She cracked her knuckles. "And Soul Calibur is great because swords!"
Okay so it sounded like an okay place. "What's the catch."
"I do like that sorta thing. I live with Commander Shepard," Dani replied, laughing a bit. She pulled up to a stop light and took that moment to glance over at Ellie.
"No catch. Except maybe if you have nowhere to be you decide to stay. We could use a pair of hands at the Ranch while you figure school out, for instance. Free room and board. And some pocket change. Maybe it keeps you off the streets for a while, and that's a win/win from where I'm sitting."
“No really. Lunch isn’t fucking free.” She waved her hand like she was still trying to process that. “I mean what do you do at the ranch? Is it like cowboys and shit? I road a horse a couple of times but not really and it really hurt my ass….”
"Kids at the Ranch take classes, get their GED, help out in the garden or with the livestock, help us take care of the grounds, that kind of thing. It's not really FREE free. You'd work for it and you'd get paid some. We have a store we run and a library with a little coffee area, there's plenty of places to help out and pitch in." Dani pulled into the driveway of the ranch. It was a particularly long driveway, with pasture and athletic fields on either side.
A dog ran up alongside the car and then jumped into the back as Dani drove, and she laughed a bit, "That's Ho'nene, my dog. But no, lunch isn't entirely free. Mostly you'll work hard and play hard, but you get a safe place to stay. Plus, money. That you can use to buy more cinnamon rolls with, if you want. Or a new hoodie without holes in it."
“....” Ellie twisted around to peer out the back window at the dog. They’d outpaced the rain, and she wiped the fog off the back window with a sleeve to peer at Ho’nene. “She’s really gorgeous!” The girl’s butt knocked into the trombone case and opened one latch. The lid popped open briefly, but long enough to show a worn rifle.
"Thanks. She's my baby... been with me for years. Outlasted two boyfriends and even some of my favorite pairs of shoes." Dani was proud to have Ho'nene as part of her family. The dog had finally forgiven her for her absence over those many months. She thought Obi-wan's absence would be an issue, though. The dog had gotten used to having him around again.
Maybe having an enthusiastic person like Ellie around would help. Especially one who had the balls to carry a rifle in a trombone case.
Of course, she couldn't let that just lay around the ranch, "We'll have to lock your trombone up in the office safe, though. But you can take it with you when you go."
Ellie darted her eyes, and pushed her hoodie off. She had brunette hair in a messy braid, and it looked like she desperately needed a shower. “Can I get that shit in writing?”
"You can definitely get that shit in writing. Me and my girlfriend run the ranch and we both know better than to get between someone and their... trombone. Though I might want to see you prove to me that you know how to play it. We'll issue you a ticket and you can turn it in when you go to claim it. Promise."
Dani parked next to the ranch house, and hopped out of the car, "Come on. We'll get that taken care of and then I can show you to a guest room for now.