A/N: Hey guys, so this is a miniseries of Abby and Ellie's relationship from my previous story Unlikely Companions so I would recommend reading that first so you can understand how they got there, but it's not mandatory! Please enjoy!

Ellie's Birthday

Ellie awoke in the middle of the night being shaken awake by Abby. The two had arrived at the fireflies a little over two months prior and had found the adjustment slightly difficult. They had been used to being on their own that it was difficult not having to constantly look over their shoulders.

"Abby, five more minutes." She mumbled, trying to push Abby away. Her tired mind thought it was morning already since Abby usually woke her up.

"Ellie, wake up!" Abby says urgency in her tone as she lightly smacked Ellie on the cheek.

"Hey! What the hell, dude!?" She asks, sitting up abruptly.

"Come with me. I have a birthday present for you."

"Abs, my birthday isn't until tomorrow, can this wait?" She asks, looking at her with tired green eyes.

"No. It's today. May 30th, right?"

Ellie looked over at the clock on her bedside table to see that it read 12:01 AM. Of course, Abby would wake her up as soon as it was midnight.

"Well, that's nice but this can't wait until a more normal hour?" She asks, just wanting to get back to sleep.

"No because there's no time during the day between the patrols and standing watch. Now follow me and be quiet." The blonde says, taking Ellie's hand and pulling her out of bed.

"Abs calm down. Would you let me get some shoes on?" She asks, trying her best not to sound annoyed as she put her black and white converse on, finally following Abby out of the tent. Just like in the QZ's, they still had a curfew to abide by and they'd be in trouble if they were caught after dark.

"We can go out the west entrance. Guards are never really posted there." Abby says as they jogged down the dark hallways, Abby pushing Ellie down another hallway as two more guards passed by.

"Okay, following you." She says, sighing as Abby grabbed her hand and started walking downstairs.

The two girls went down the stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible as they finally made their way out the west entrance into the warm spring night, starting to jog down the empty streets.

"Okay, I'm going to guess what it is." She says, staying close behind her girlfriend, "is it a dinosaur?"

"No, it's not a dinosaur." Abby says, rolling her eyes as she led her down a side alley.

"Is it a spaceship?"

"How the hell would I pull that off?" Abby asks, looking back at her incredulously, the street dark except for the moonlight illuminating everything.

"You're right. That's a long shot." She says, slowing to a walk alongside her.

"Why do you have to guess? Why can't you just wait?" Abby asks, looking back at her briefly.

"You know I'm impatient."

"Yeah, it's both the thing I love and the thing I hate about you."

"Yeah, well you'll learn to deal with it," she says, following Abby down another side street, "seriously though. Where are you bringing me?"

"I told you, it's a surprise."

"Is it two new fingers to replace the ones I lost?" Ellie asks, trying not to laugh at the grimace that Abby made as they walked by a convenience store.

"Oh yeah I cut new ones off a corpse for you." Abby says, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Nice." She says, chuckling at her girlfriend's comeback, "Is it a puppy?"

Abby sighed, "how would I have hidden a puppy from you?"

Ellie didn't say anything as Abby lead her out onto the main street again, trying to keep an eye out for any infected that could be in the area as they came to the end of the street that was blocked by an RV.

"Here, let me boost you up." Abby says, leaning against the white and brown RV with her hands clasped together, allowing for Ellie to put her foot into Abby's hands, Abby boosting her up to the top of the vehicle.

"Okay, come on Abby." Ellie says, holding her hand out, using all her strength to pull Abby up, "how far are we going?" She asks as they jumped down.

"It's just around the corner."

The two started jogging down the street, rounding the corner where the Indiana State Museum stood, and Ellie's eyes almost bugged out of her head. She loved museums and everything about them, especially the Dinosaurs and space sections.

"Oh my God, I love museums!" She exclaims, trying to contain her excitement as she jogged up to the entrance.

"Calm down, babe." Abby chuckles, following her inside the dark building.

The chestnut-haired girl looked around in awe, going to the gift shop area and taking one of the grabbers with a dinosaur head on it.

"Hey, Abby, roar." She says, pulling the switch as the mouth opened.

"You're such a dork."

"Yeah, but you love me." She says, putting the green dinosaur grabber back on the shelf, moving on to the exhibits, "yes, it has dinosaurs!" She exclaims, reading the information board in front of a skeleton.

Abby smiled as she watched Ellie look around the other exhibits. It made her feel fuzzy as she saw how Ellie ran to the different exhibits like an excited child despite now being twenty years old, chuckling when she saw Ellie try and climb the T-Rex.

"Hey, follow me! The real present is upstairs!" Abby calls, gesturing for her girlfriend to follow her up the spiral staircase and Ellie followed her, coming to the space part of the museum.

"Oh my God!"

"Hey, hold your excitement. That's not the surprise."

Ellie looked at her in confusion, following Abby to a pair of double doors on the other side of the room, wondering what Abby could possibly have in store for her. She hadn't expected any birthday presents for her birthday if she was being completely honest, simply happy to have Abby and a place to call home.

"Alright, close your eyes."

"Is this necessary?"

"Come on. Do it or you won't get the surprise." Abby says, stopping with her hand on the handle. Ellie chuckled and closed her eyes, wanting to humor Abby, who opened one of the doors and grabbed Ellie's hand with her free one, "okay don't open them until I say."

"aye aye, captain." She says, trying not to trip over her own two feet as they walked across the carpeted floor.

"Okay, open them."

Ellie opened her eyes, struggling to adjust to the darkness. She was confused, having never seen a place like this before but she felt like she knew what it was, but the name didn't come to her. The ceiling of the room was in the shape of a large dome and the walls looked almost black.

"What is this place?"

"Sit down and I'll show you." Abby says, taking Ellie's hand and sitting her down in the cushioned seating, "okay, I'll be back. Sit here and stay okay? Don't touch any of the switches on the walls!"

"I love when you're bossy." She says, looking up at her.

"Flattery won't make me tell you what it is. Now stay."

Ellie sighed as she sat back against the red velvety chair, watching Abby leave. She didn't know what Abby had in store for her, but she was still excited all the same. She hadn't been in a museum in years, not since her sixteenth birthday when Joel took her to the museum and gave her that cassette tape of blast off. Ellie couldn't help but get up anyway, looking around the large room as she tried to think of the name for this place; she had read about something like this in one of her books, but everything was escaping her. Ellie jumped when the lights turned on, hurting her eyes at the sudden change in brightness.

"Jesus Christ!" She says, blinking her eyes rapidly at the sudden change in brightness, quickly sitting back down when she heard Abby coming up the stairs.

"Okay, you ready for this?" Abby asks, closing the door behind her.

"Would you stop being weird and just tell me what it is?" She chuckles, looking back at Abby, who dimmed the lights and turned on another switch before going to sit down beside Ellie.

It wasn't long before the entire solar system appeared, spinning around the room. Ellie stared in awe, the name of the place finally coming to her.

"I read about this in my books. It's a planetarium." She says, green eyes wide as she got up and went to the middle of the room, "there's Venus, Neptune, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, Mercury, Uranus and Earth," she adds, listing off the planets as they circled around the room.

"Where's Pluto?" Abby asks, noticing the smallest planet wasn't there.

"Pluto isn't a planet anymore."

"What? Since when?"

Ellie chuckled, "since 2006 so a good thirty or so years."

"What? No way. It's totally still a planet!" Abby says, going over to stand in the middle of the room as they stared at the different planets.

"No, it's not! It's too small and that's why they decided it's not!"

"I still say that it's a planet."

Ellie rolled her eyes as she took her backpack off and started digging through her books, looking for her space book about the solar system and planets to prove to Abby that Pluto was not, in fact, a planet anymore. Ellie took the book out and turned the page to Pluto, pointing at a section of text.

"See? The IAU downgraded Pluto to a dwarf planet because it didn't meet the criteria to define a full-sized planet." She explains, giving Abby the book.

"We can agree to disagree." Abby says, shrugging as Ellie rolled her eyes before lightly punching her shoulder and laughing, "so you like it?" She asks, folding her hands in front of her like a high school girl asking her crush out.

"Like it? I love it!" She says, spinning around slightly, "you did all of this for me?"

"Yeah. Darren told me that you'd take my shift so I could plan."

"Wait, so he made me take your patrol for this?"

"Yeah, sorry," Abby says sheepishly, rubbing her neck, "anyway, I found this here and after playing around with a generator and some buttons I discovered what it was."

Ellie looked around again and then back at Abby, feeling happy tears prick at her eyes.

"Thank you. I love it." She says, going over to Abby and grabbing her face in her hands, pulling her in for a kiss.

Abby kissed back, pulling away after a moment and pulling Ellie down to sit beside her.

"I'll have to say I wasn't expecting this at two in the morning."

Abby smiled, "sorry I didn't know how I would pull this off during the day when we have other work to do."

"True. It seems like whenever we have time alone during the day someone is asking for our help." She says, green eyes staring into Abby's blue ones.

"Yeah, but it's nice getting alone time after curfew too. Feels more private that way."

Ellie nodded, staring around at the stars and planets that were floating around the room.

"Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, anything." Abby says, looking over at her.

"If someone told you years ago that you would end up with me, what would you have said?"

Abby snorted, "honestly? I would have called them crazy and then punched them. What about you?"

"I probably would have stabbed them."

The two laughed, glad that they had almost the same thoughts about their relationship and how crazy it was for them to end up together.

"So, does Lev know you brought me here?"

"Yeah, he's covering for us if people ask questions."

Ellie nodded, looking around the room again as she put her head on Abby's shoulder. Abby stroked Ellie's hair, the two talking for the rest of the night, oblivious to the time until they saw the sun peaking through the small window of the double doors.

"Shit, everyone's going to be awake soon!"

Ellie and Abby immediately scrambled to get up, needing to get back to the hospital for their patrol shift. They weren't sure what the punishment would be for missing patrol, they only knew that it wasn't good.

"It's okay, Lev will cover for us until we get there!" Abby says as they made their way out of the museum.

Abby took the lead, leading Ellie through the side alley's as the sun was rising.

"Come on! Just a little further!" Abby calls, breathing heavily as they ran through the deserted streets. Ellie followed her, finally making it to the west entrance of the hospital, going up the stairs. The halls had light shining through them barely as they snuck through the halls, avoiding all the guards walking around before making a mad dash to the sleeping quarters.

"Woo, we made it." She says, going to take her shoes off to get ready for the day.

"Alright, see you in a few." Abby says, turning to leave the dimly lit room.

"Hey, Abby?"

Abby turned to look at her, "yeah?"

"Thanks for the great birthday so far. It's great and I love you."

Abby smiled, "I love you too, El."

A/N: Let me know what y'all think! Please review!