"Haha, fuck you too."

She points at him accusingly, but already a smile is starting to creep up on her. It's in her eyes, the very edges of her mouth. Ellie doesn't miss people the way the rest of the world does. She accepts that they will leave her as another natural, inevitable thing, whether it's death or something worse.

So Ellie has never spoken of Sherlock since he left, and she will seamlessly accept that he's back.

"You're a tool. A toolbox."

She no longer bothers to hide the smile, but it suddenly turns sly. "Does John know you're back yet?"

Shaking her head, she turns away from him with a grin, starting to lead him down the street. Back towards John's place, likely.

Her backpack is older than the rest of her clothes -- and her clothes are six months old, tops. No time to fray. Bloodstained anyway. The backpack has been repaired with duct tape on the straps. Water damage. There are buttons pinned to it, rusted. An American flag mostly rubbed away. Uncle Sam military promo. A universal hazard sign. Flight wings are embroidered into the top -- it's an American military castoff. A small keychain that looks like a purple fanged monster.

"You've got a new bracelet," she points out, holding up her own. It's a grey-green color.

"I forget which god that is."

"Odin," she repeats, turning over the idea in her mind. Odin is not a particularly widespread House, but she's grown to appreciate the people in it. They're clever, and usually ruthless in a fight. From what she knows.

"Fire or ice?" she asks, as they move past the building. The person inside seems to still at their passing, and Ellie watches them too, at least until she can see them moving away from the window.

She's careful. Very careful, as if she expects a threat. It's an ingrained behavior, the type that doesn't come with training. It comes with life experience. Apparently, she trusts Sherlock with her back.

A chill wriggles down the back of her neck, but whether it's an answer or just a nervous reaction, Ellie doesn't know. She rubs her skin, looks back over her shoulder at him and catches the tail end of a familiar thought process.

She forgets sometimes. Forgets other people don't have this reality, haven't lived this war. Sherlock wasn't here for the last battle.

Ellie rubs her nose and shakes her head, leading on.

"No. Snow damage. It was a blizzard, and then a lot of fairies, and then she started catapulting these giant fucking ice golems over the walls. Some of them crashed into buildings, tore shit apart. ... the other stuff was us trying to fight them."

Shielding her eyes, Ellie points back towards the far walls, out of sight.

"She had them over there. A team and I, we went out and distracted the fucking things while another team went and found the catapults. It was kinda bloody, but we've had worse battles. Alfheim, for one."

Alfheim had been a goddamn slaughter, and she'd been on the front lines.

The city shows many signs of being rebuilt, from multiple disasters. The repairs are anywhere from hasty to professional.

Sherlock's quiet. Normally, he is only quiet when he's thinking too hard, and Ellie can't exactly blame him. It's a lot to take in, a lot he's been absent for.

"It's daylight, John's probably at the clinic," Ellie offered. "I mean, he probably slept there." It wouldn't be unusual for him, not lately. Seems he has little reason to go home sometimes. "Probably not eating."

Come to think of it-

As they pass the bare, sagging trees damaged by the winter storm, Ellie turns her head towards them. It's the only indication that she's doing anything, willing any of them to life again, but certain plant life begins to go green again as she passes it. Trees, mostly -- fruit trees in particular.

They pass an apple tree. It's blown nearly to matchsticks in the front of someone's yard, damaged by the ice and what looks like the impact of something the size of a car. It's buckled, dying. As they come up on it, the bark knits, the tree springs into leaf, bright red apples dotting the branches.

Like something out of a fairy tale.

One is almost low enough for Ellie to reach. She stops under it, reaches up a hand, jumps as high as she can. Her fingertips barely tickle the underside of it. Her sneakers slap down on the sidewalk, and she whispers a curse.

Ellie takes the apple from him, pulls a face, but it's not long before a smile gets back to tugging at the corner of her mouth. She stops and turns to walk backwards, polishing the apple on the front of her shirt -- long-sleeved, even in this heat.

"I come in, tell him I found a stray on the street and he followed me home."

The tiny smile turns into a grin, and she tosses him the apple.

"You give him that and try really hard not to look punchable." Even her smile says she knows that it'll be an ultimately useless effort, if John's of a mind.

"Maybe not this time," Ellie agrees reluctantly, shrugging her shoulders before she sweeps back around, picks up the pace. She's short, but fast.

"But he did miss you."

She says it like it's a given.

Nearly there, Ellie turns off to lead them into the clinic itself, making her way past the front desk as if she does this all the time, heading to the back where they're most likely to find John.

She knocks on the door.

Ellie grins at them, pleased to find that John's more happy than upset. It's nice when she's wrong. She rocks in place a moment, shakes her head.

"Totally hopeless," she sighs, then jabs a thumb at the doorway, idly tottering towards it.

"I'm just gonna leave you dudes to do... dude things."

She frames them with her hands, puts a hand on the doorknob. Seems to suddenly remember something, and abruptly gets serious.

"Hey, uh, Sherlock? Ask John to show you the MRI. I wanna know what you think."