SHE KNOWS SHE heard her name.

She's definitely bleeding in more than one place,  her heart is roaring in her ears and somewhere beyond that is the sound of enraged screaming.  Her head pounds and through her eyelids shadows gather for a medieval execution.

It's all background noise to what's at hand now.

The knife still in her side feels as though it sank even deeper with the fall.  Ellie-Marie can feel liquid dripping down her side like a faucet and undoubtedly pooling beneath her in the way that her blankets replicate on the worst nights,  tangling around her arms and legs while she dreams of drowning in blood.  There are a million and one things to worry about at this moment but for now she centers everything around the same easy,  core feeling that guided her last year.

Like daggers her eyes narrow when she finally cracks them open at the weight on her.

And sends Quinn reeling back.

“God-fucking-damn, your family doesn't fucking stay dead!”  She all but laughs.  “Not gonna lie, Riley,  I always find the guys who insult their victims to be kinda petty.  I'll send you off with something good.”

She's tame.  She's gentle.

She's white noise.

Ellie feels an eerie sort of calm close in as Quinn grabs for a shard of broken glass,  holding it up with childlike glee.  It would hurt.  Undoubtedly. 

“It's an honor,”  Quinn hisses.

The hand clutching the glass swings down,  aiming for Ellie's throat like she's not trained for this moment since the day she could walk.  A piece of her could laugh at the idea of ever believing the Sweetheart Survivor was unprepared for her death,  like she hasn't written this story in her head from beginning to end a million little times.

She catches Quinn's wrist in one motion, one hand wrapped tight around her would-be killer.  This would look sick in a horror movie, a voice that isn't entirely her own says.  Death by inheritance.

Her free hand moves by its own accord as she pushes against Quinn's force,  bloodied teeth bared.  She won't speak.  She refuses.  Her best friend died wordless and now, if the credits wanna roll, she'll do the exact same.

“You want a last word, Princess?”  Quinn grits,  leaning forward to force her hand closer.  The tip of the shard graces Ellie's neck and for a moment she's resurfacing to panic,  realizing that her entire family may watch her die before her fingers finally curl.

They won't.

Not in her movie.

“Let me hear ‘em.  Scream for me,  let everyone know-”

“You look like your brother.”

The force with which Ellie yanks the knife from her abdomen makes her bow yet she doesn't stop moving,  a shark after blood as she sinks the knife through Quinn's neck and yanks.

She's never seen a throat torn open before and she doesn't now.

The blood hits her face in a gush,  spills over her like she's Carrie White and doesn't give her the opportunity to prepare.  It's hot and unfamiliar and feels like the sound of Detective Bailey screaming from above,  a pained cry that reminds her of how she sounded in the echoing silence of Mom and Lou.

Her teeth still bared, Ellie moves the knife freely from the open space taken from Quinn's throat,  reeling back to sink it once again into her eye and then finding her shoulder.  She knows better than to assume.

If Quinn had known better,  perhaps they wouldn't be here.

She doesn't give the world a chance to catch up before she's kicking Quinn off her,  the hand once preserving her life now tangling itself into the hair of her attacker.   Everything feels quiet despite how she can hear the hell descending around her.  This is all suddenly simple.

Her gun is only a few feet away.  It doesn't take but a few steps to reach,  dragging Quinn behind her dead or alive.  She’s staggering and she's hurting in ways she's not sure she's ever hurt before yet everything is background noise to the greatest mistakes Quinn Bailey ever could have made.

“Wayne!”  She shouts,  voice hoarse.  His attention from where he'd entered a standoff with Sam is shattered and she can see it,  dozens of feet away,  the despair in his eyes.

Dad would have looked the same if her death had been reported to him.

Iron dances on the end of her lip as she picks her gun from the ground,  yanking Quinn to her knees with such an ease that hell, maybe she is already dead and the rule isn't even needed anymore.

She knows better.

She won't make the same mistake twice.

Her gaze only flickers to Sam for the briefest of seconds.  It's a silent communication no one else has to hear or know anything about.  The bare bones of it all isn’t complicated in the slightest. 

Whoever fucks with their family isn't human.  They will not be dealt with as such.

Ellie locks her eyes back with Bailey.  She doesn't enjoy this.  She doesn't hate it,  either.   What their family requested is what they all got,  from Richie to Quinn to the Master Planner himself.

“Always gotta shoot ‘em in the head.”

With the barrel against Quinn's head the gun is fired off.  She doesn't have to look to know the damage.

Wayne's scream says it all.

Her fist unfurls from now dampened hair.  The body drops,  the same form Amber finally took last year,  and Ellie distantly wonders how badly this blood will stain her mirrors until the truth of the matter sinks into her veins.

Whoever fucks with her family isn't human.  What becomes of them is of their own accord.

In the aftermath of Amber she had stood,  bloodied and bruised and beaten by her own insistence for justice, between two of her girls.  Buffy held Sidney's gun and Tara clutched Mom's,  two guns pointed to one grave.

Ellie-Marie knew Amber wouldn't be getting back up.  She'd made sure of it after her ultimate failure.

That didn't stop her sigh of relief when she saw dual bullets enter her skull.  She'd watched silently as the terror of Amber Freeman came to an abrupt,  violent,  unceremonious end.

She felt guilty for her lack of remorse.  It was easy to accept what she'd always known; of course she'd kill someone for her family.  They matter more than any morality she upholds.  What she had feared was them seeing her in a similar light to the true evil behind it all, soaked in blood down to her glittering heart.  With time and continued company,  it did become easier to bury such a fear.

It's nice to not feel it now.

“ELLIE!”

Her name breaks through the crimson painted haze that's settled around her.

And it hits.

There's pain that blisters through her hip,  bolstering an award for second place- who would have known her original scars would pale in full-scale comparison?-  as she forces herself to turn, one hand pressing against her open wound like she's trying to hold herself together.  She's undoubtedly a mess now,  predictably soaked in blood that has become less hers than it was Quinn's,  but-

“Thank fuck!” 

It's the only warning she gets before there are arms around her.  She recognizes the feeling like sunflowers recognize warmth,  melting into Tara's touch with a choked sound.  Words are useless now,  she thinks.  There's no honest way to claim she is fine or declare that she's painless.  All she can do is sink into the touch she calls home and close her eyes,  reluctant to settle entirely against Tara in fear of staining her with a battle she shouldn't have faced in the first place.

“Thank fuck,”  Tara breathes out again, bowing her head against Ellie's shoulder.  “I thought-I thought I lost you there,  Sunshine.”

She's not feeling very sunshine-y right now.  She's feeling very ouchie,  actually,  but that's a problem for later.

A problem for when she doesn't hear a gun cocking.

It's from above.  Ellie-Marie can practically feel her years of preparation controlling her movements as she pulls from Tara's hold.  She's come this far and she's already taken another life,  she won't let Tara be next.

Neither will Sam.

She sees it the moment Tara does,  the rage click in the eyes of their fearless leader before she surges forward, tackling with a scream that could count as demonic in a world that isn't already plagued with them.  It feels like slow motion,  watching the two fall in a way nearly identical to how Ellie just did.

She can hear Tara scream.  She can hear Rory yelling.  She can hear it all.

But she can't think of anything besides ‘It's about to finally be over’.

Sam lands on top of Bailey the same way Ellie-Marie assumes Quinn landed on her.  His eyes roll to the back of his head and while his chest rises and falls, he's out like a light.

“Sam,”  she finally exhales.  It makes her look up,  bloodied and war torn yet the same girl she's always been,  the same girl Ellie has always admired so fiercely. 

“I'm okay,”  she answers,  somehow knowing it's needed now more than ever.  “I'm okay.  He won't be.”

“You gonna kill him?”  Abi asks, her voice making Ellie's head turn on reflex.  There's a gash in the side of her head and her pupils are blown wide,  but she's up and moving which is so much better than her worst fears.  Sometimes getting up is all she can ask for.

“Not yet,”  Sam answers,  staggering off to her feet.  “Figure he needs a taste of his own medicine.  Is…”  she spares a glance to the pile of blood that used to be Quinn's entirety, grimacing slightly before refocusing.   “Where's Ethan?  Is he down?”

“He was with Buffy,”  Tara answers.

Ellie feels her blood go cold

Buffy isn't here.

It seems that Tara realizes it the same time she does.  Without any request needed she's dropping Ellie's wrist.  She knows what must be done.

She's gotta find her.

“We’ll be okay,”  Tara murmurs,  nudging Ellie into motion.   “Go.  Go find her,  we've got it from here.”

It's all the urging Ellie needs.  

WHEN SHE'D FOUND Buffy last year,  she was in the kitchen corner.

It's by a bloodthirsty miracle that Ellie-Marie hadn't seen her beforehand.  Her sister was curled in the corner,  bloodied and bruised and broken in ways that couldn't be fixed with hospital stays or surgeries.  It'd made her angry enough to stomp on Amber's ankle one last time for good measure,  content on focusing on her sister afterwards.  Buffy is the elder one but they could play pretend then,  let Ellie play big sister as she curled in her arms.   There's a safety between them that no one could replicate without sisters themselves.  No words had to be said,  just the comfort of what was held and nearly lost between them both.

Ellie prays to whatever the fuck is looking out for her that the same can be said now.

She doesn't bother with calling for Buffy.  There's a plan unfolding back behind her in the crowd she left behind,  a group understanding that came soon after Rory had managed to climb down from the balcony.  Bailey apparently hit his head far worse than Ellie did- that,  or his age is taking the toll she wishes it had long before now- because he's still out while they flutter about.  It's dead silent now and it feels worse than the yelling or fights,  an emptiness awaiting each of them until it's said and done.  Kirby's breathing near the entryway but hasn't yet come to.  Bella…

She can't do that right now.

Each step burns a little more as Ellie slowly makes her way around the casings,  peering about in a dangerously desperate way.  “Buffy?”  She whispers.   “Buffy?”

Nothing.

She dares another step.  The side of the stage is blocked by exhibits that Ellie cares not to examine when there are bigger troubles at hand,  barely catching a glimpse of Rebekah before she's pushing her way further back.

And covering her mouth to withhold the scream.

A miracle of miracles is that Julie hasn't come looking.  It isn't out of lack of desire,  Ellie knows- she can't move.  Not well.  Abi had helped her away from where Bailey lays now,  steered her away from direct view with the same fretful hope that Ellie has.

For once she's grateful for her aunt’s injuries.

“Buffy,”  she squeaks out,  forcing her voice to remain small.  Her sister lies in a pool of blood so deep that it's dizzying, wide eyes shut like she's dozing rather than-

No.

No,  she's not thinking like that.  She won't.  She's not leaving here if Buffy doesn't,  so either her sister needs to wake up or Bailey needs to change his mind about his next victim.

Ethan lies a few feet away.  Ellie doesn't care.  

He shouldn't still have enough of a body to see.

She's on her knees without thinking twice,  ducked as low as she can as she crawls to her sister.  She can feel the blood that they don't share staining her clothes and sinking beneath her nails,  a terrible reminder of what she's already lived.

Anika is dead.  Bella is dead.  Wes is dead.  Rebekah is dead.  Tatum is dead.

What a sick fucking tradition.

It's not gonna continue now.

Urgently she presses crimson fingers to her sister's neck.  There's no way she's doing this alone.  She's not leaving here if she's not with Buffy,  she just isn't.  She won't lose her the way her entire family has lost everyone else.  She won't and she'd love to see life fucking try to argue that.

“Buffy,”  she pleads.  Distantly she can hear the sound of a phone ringing,  a groan she knows means danger.  Bailey's stirring.

She doesn't have long.

“Buffy,”  she repeats, moving her shaking fingers to her sister's wrist.  She's gotta be alive.  She has to be.  Blood may be everywhere but that doesn't matter,  Ellie's type O,  she can give her sister whatever the hell she needs as long as she's here to receive it.

Then she feels it.

A faint, slow rhythm falls just below her fingers.  If it weren't for the fear amping up in her chest she'd make a joke about how it aligns so perfectly with Bailey’s footsteps crunching on glass,  his taunts the furthest thing from relevancy in Ellie's mind.  Sam's got this.  Her family's got this.

Buffy needs her now.

“Fifi,” Ellie begs, feeling her chin crumple the same way it always does.  Amber would call her a crybaby in that same taunt of youth,  but only one of them got beat to shit and it wasn't Ellie.

She has a goddamn right to cry.  Amber can't tell her anything about sadness.  No one can.

“Fifi,  please,”  her voice lowers into a barely there whisper as she hears Bailey grow closer and closer,  leaning down until she hovers over her sister's form.  “Fifi,  I need you.  Ellie needs you,  ‘kay?  Please.  Please,  I promise I'll do anything if you just wake up.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry about everything,  please just wake up,  please,  I promise I'll make it better just please wake up please.”

A labored breath is drawn.

The theater curtains open.  Bailey disappears.  He's still on the phone with Tara, Ellie knows.  She can't care about what happens beyond this.

“Fifi,”  she urges.  “Come on.  You can do it.  We're gonna get help,  okay?  We're gonna get help.  I promise it's gonna be okay you just have to-”

Screaming.

It's nauseating at first, the gurgling that comes with Bailey's pleas for his life.  It echoes through the entire theater and shifts Ellie's blood to ice,  glancing up momentarily to see if anything is unfolding in her line of view.

Nothing is.

So it doesn't matter.

What does matter is that she can be louder now,  shaking her sister gently as she coaxes her awake.  “I’m hurt.  I'm hurt,  Fifi,  I can't lose you.  I can't.  I'm not- I'm hurting, please don't go,  please.”

She knows Buffy better than she knows herself.

As if operating on demand Buffy opens her eyes just barely,  peering up through wet lashes distantly.  “Bek…?”

“No,” she would be.  If that's what would make her sister happy right now then Ellie would find some miracle way to become someone she isn't,  but for now she's gotta lure her back to reality.  Her voice wavers as she cups the back of Buffy's head,  pulling her closer to her lap.  “Elsie.  It's Ellie, Fifi.  You're gonna be okay.”

“I’m gon’...fuck,”  Buffy hisses,  head jarring back as she tries to sit up.  “I'm fuckin’... I feel dead.  Am I- you're not dead,  right?”

Granted,  Ellie also feels pretty fucking dead,  but she's not gonna voice that now.  She's not bleeding out as badly as she could be.  That's a win.

“I'm not dead,”  she assures.  The room has once again gone eerily silent, each of them waiting in a shared bated breath.  “Neither are you.  We're gonna get you outta here,  ‘kay?”

“‘Kay,”  Buffy agrees with an ease she typically never does,  looking down to her feet almost drunkenly.  “I'm not standing.”

“You wanna stand?”

“Think it'd get me outta here,  yeah.”

The remark is so uniquely her sister that Ellie-Marie can't help her returned giggle, hooking one arm under Buffy's arms and going to lift.  It's gonna be okay.

It's gonna be okay.

Then the door slams open,  and for a moment she's terrified all over again.

“ONE OVER HERE!”

Her scream is louder than she thinks she's ever been as she notices the paramedics and officers filing in.  She's on her feet long before Buffy can even begin forming the question,  supporting the weight of her sister with an ease that comes like breathing to Ellie.  She's not heavy,  she's her sister.

“C'mon Fifi,”  she urges, shifting until she's practically carrying Buffy on her side.  “We're gonna get you outta here.  I promised you,  remember?”

“Ellie…?”  Buffy slurs.  She's already fading back into unconsciousness,  a sign Ellie doesn't want to think too much about as she guides her closer to the officers.

“I'm fine,”  she assures.  It's partially true; her fear feels nauseating enough that she does feel fine,  absent to the pain radiating distantly through her side.  The paramedic grimaces once Ellie is close enough for them to take Buffy,  shaking her head as her sister is loaded onto the gurney.

She's gonna be fine.

Her weight is a sudden absence that makes Ellie feel hyper-aware,  head spinning as she clutches her hand to her hip.  While she's bleeding slower it's still not looking great,  but that's not her main concern.

A weak cough takes that priority immediately.

Her head whips away from where she's watching Chad get wheeled out behind Buffy,  attentive to what no one else has seemed to hear.  Her feet stumble blindly as she pushes herself back to where it began.

Bella.

Her best friend isn't gone yet.

“Bee,”  she breathes out,  a laugh hinging on the end like a song of sweet relief.  Her knees hit the floor with a force that makes her abdomen scream out as she crawls closer to Bella,  only pausing once her hand graces something familiar.

Beads.

Her friendship bracelet.  Bella never took it off,  Ellie realizes now.  It'd fallen only inches away from where her hand lies,  outstretched like a final outreach for some sympathy that her so-called family never extended.

She knew Bella wasn't like that.  Not deep down.

Her work is quick.  Lifting Bella's head she pulls the cloak off her body,  each move swift and tender in a way she distantly thinks Bella never received otherwise.  Once the cloak is off Ellie-Marie is pressing it to as many wounds as she can,  looking up to make sure the paramedics haven't left yet.

“THERE'S ANOTHER ONE!”  She calls.  “OVER HERE!”

The attention catches quick enough for another gurney to be pushed over.  Bella's still wheezing as Ellie helps lift her up,  explaining in a rush that she won't allow debate on later.

“She was their sister,”  she explains,  pulling the cloak to cover her own wound now.  No use in the paramedics noticing when there are much bigger fish to fry.   “And Wayne Bailey's youngest child.  They tried to kill her ‘cause she-she wasn't like them.  Make sure she makes it out,  she's a good person.  I promise,  she's not-she's better than they were.”

Ellie-Marie isn't quite sure who she's pleading with.  This is their job, good person or not, but she needs everyone to know.

She's gonna make sure everyone knows.  Bella isn't the same as her family.  She isn't,  and Ellie won't let her be thought of that way.

Rory walks out at her own insistence,  her limp slight as she makes her way through the door with Abi at her side.  Julie exits on a gurney,  followed swiftly by Sam.

Ellie still has the cloak clutched to her hip when she makes her way back to her aunt.  There's a finality here that makes her oddly nostalgic,  a loss that she's not going to fully come back from because she didn't know it to begin with.  Her back is to the wall as she looks over Tatum's photographs, a mirror from the past staring at her now.  A piece of her heart feels as though it owes its very rhythm to her fallen aunt.

“Shouldn't you get that looked at?”

Tara's voice pulls Ellie from her thoughts the same way she always manages,  lips curving against herself as she looks towards her girl.

“Depends,”  she returns.  “Have you gotten your back looked at yet?”

“Touché,”  Tara grins.  Ellie can't help but admire the way she finds a way to smile now, worn out as it may be as she strides closer.  

In front of her.

Because her heart beats to the sound of dangerous romanticism Ellie-Marie feels it spike now,  eyes wide with silent questions as Tara looks up at her.  There's a quality to her expression that she's never seen,  not even last year,  not even in the apartment.  Words don't begin to describe it and distantly Ellie can't help but wonder if she's at fault.  

“Are you okay?”  She breathes out, trying to ignore how dizzy Tara being this close makes her.  It's gotta be the blood loss because otherwise her mind is playing a trick on her and-

Soft.

Velvet.  A little chapped and salty with what Ellie knows is either blood or tears-she’s betting blood,  considering she's still soaked in it-but velvet all the same.  Tara's lips are gentle as they press against Ellie's in a way that feels like a breath of fresh air,  one hand coming to cup the back of Ellie's head like she's made of something delicate.

It lasts much shorter than she'd like it to.

Tara pulls away with a soft exhale, breath fanning over Ellie's face in that gentle wave of citrus and iron.  “I'm okay now that you are.”

It's insane that she can speak right now,  actually.  Ellie absolutely can't.

“And for the record,”  Tara continues,  her other hand coming to cup Ellie's bloodied cheek.  She wants to protest,  wants to remind her that the blood she's drenched in isn't her own,  but her mind can't even begin to form words.  “I like you,  too.”

Another step closer and Ellie's back is to the wall,  one hand clutching the cloak while the other wraps loosely around Tara's waist.  Her lips taste like strawberry chapstick and feel like the sweetest new beginning Ellie could dare to imagine, moving in tandem with the woman she loves more than she once believed possible like this is the way it was always meant to be.

In the room of memories and legacies she's been trained to fight,  Ellie doesn't feel like a scared little ghost anymore.