There's beauty everywhere, and the children of the apocalypse still find it effortlessly. Ellie was a little thing in a gutted mall, picking up Halloween masks to scare her best friend, hopping around rooftops like playgrounds. Her childhood games of hunting each other with waterguns had just... ended up meaning the difference between life and death more than once.

"It was the only thing that made me sad about New York," Ellie admits, stretching her legs out, taking her attention from the fires back to Stephen's face.

He's got a face made for more serious stuff, intense eyes, severe cheekbones. He looks both a wizard and a doctor. But when he smiles like this, he looks like- just some guy. A person, just trying to make it through.

"I'd give a couple more fingers to go to space," Ellie says with a laugh. "You're so lucky. Is the sunset as beautiful as they say?"

Ellie pauses. "Or was it, y'know. A work thing."