The silence is suffocating in the theatre, Ellie is perched on the edge of the stage, unmoving. Unable to. She feels like a bird, trapped in a cage, succumbing to the pain, the confinement of grief, that's slowly growing ever closer, more and more claustrophobic to the point where she might just let herself drown.

Nothing can pull her back. Not travelling and searching for Abby, especially with the excruciating knowledge that His murderer is near, somewhere out of Ellie's grasp. Taunting. Dina's pregnant, Jesse is gone, she can't find Tommy, and then there's you. She worries, she stresses and if it's not that, she mourns. It's neverending. Never escaping.

"If i ever were to lose you.." the lyrics slip from her lips like second nature. Soft and quiet with the weak strum of chords and strings, each echoing the tone and reverb of Joel's voice. It's getting harder and harder to remember it. What she has left of him is a song she'd never brought herself to sing for him. Despite how he'd done the same those five years ago.

She didn't think it was that big of a deal. Just an old man singing a tune about what must've been his painful life, the struggle seeping through each word. But now she finally understands, and she wishes she didn't. Regurgitating the verses like a Northern mockingbird, only, her own desperation to be heard, to be in company, to see his eyes once more and feel his forgiveness, stains the words, chokes them as if it'll be able to bring him back.

It wont. She knows that. She can't even bring herself to acknowledge the next few lines without a stifled sob. Unable to face what she's become. This isn't her. She's lost herself and always losing everyone around her. It's only a matter of time before it's her friends. Or who she considers family. Or you next, and she can't bare it.

"Id surely..." A quiet breath, and she glances to the guitar held in shaky fingers, ruined in a red she'll never be able to wash away, and before she can force herself to continue, the saviour of familiar footsteps echoes behind her, a figure appearing from behind crimson curtains.