AN: Just a bit of a drabble that got out of control, a conversation that could have taken place between Cole and Alice toward the end of the book. There are some *SPOILERS!!!* in the course of their conversation, so if you haven't read the book or haven't finished, you might not want to go any further. Though it wasn't my intention to do so, this can be read as Cole/Alice if you cock your head to the side and squint.
Disclaimer: The book, plot, ideas and characters generated herein are the property of A.M. Jenkins and I claim ownership to NOTHING in this story. I'm not making any money off of the utilization of anything with a copyright, this is just for fun.
One thing Cole had forgotten - perhaps repressed - about life in the Building was the fact that there was always someone around precisely when you wanted to be alone. In his case, that someone was usually Alice, if only because Johnny possessed enough tact not to impose on him when he wanted some time by himself. Sitting alone on the edge of the roof forty-five minutes before the sun was set to rise seemed to communicate that message loudly enough to anyone who might wander up for a breath of fresh air, but Alice either didn't notice or didn't care.
Even though her bare feet hardly made a sound as she walked, life on the road taught Cole the importance of never letting someone sneak up on him. Sandor thought him paranoid, Cole felt he was only prepared, but after this latest...call it an 'incident' he wondered if he might not be guilty of suffering a bit of residual paranoia. Ah well, it was probably all in his best interests anyway. Instinctual. And Cole had learned to trust his instincts.
"Hey, stranger," Alice said, not bothering to keep her voice down since the two of them were utterly alone.
Cole didn't reply, in the vain hope that she might get the hint and wander back inside. No such luck, of course. Far from beating a hasty retreat back to her room, Alice pulled up a piece of ledge, swinging her legs to dangle over the street, much as Cole was doing. It was curious, why she had followed him outside in the first place, since it was obvious by the way she was dressed that she fully intended to head off to bed.
Never being one for beating around the bush, Alice gazed at Cole directly over the top of her glasses and asked bluntly, "So, are you okay?"
About what? He longed to ask. The short answer was no and the long answer was...well, no. But the answer he actually gave her. "Yeah, fine. Thanks." A pale hand pounded lightly on his chest and he chanced to give Alice the ghost of a smile. "Right as rain."
"I'm not talking about that," she said, shaking her head. "Not to say...I mean, that was bad. The whole incident." She shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the wind chill. "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy."
Cole snorted ruefully, "Thanks, I find your concern very touching, Alice."
Averting her eyes from him, Alice turned away, looking out over the city and remarking, half to herself,"I don't want anything bad to happen to...anyone."
"Something bad already has happened – a lot of bad already has happened." It wasn't that Cole meant to snap at her, but he hadn't asked to have this conversation, he just wanted to be left alone. Something none of the Building hemes understood. The simple desire to be left alone.
"What, Gordon? Or...well, God, yes, Cole, a lot of bad has happened. That's just the way the world works, but now – I just want everyone to be safe." Clad only in an oversized t-shirt and a pair of men's boxer shorts to sleep in, Alice looked every bit the slightly unkempt American college student that she most decidedly was not. The illusion deepened, however, when she drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them protectively, as though warding off a chill.
Even as the words came out of his mouth, they didn't sound sincere. Cole didn't do comfort and this was as close as he could possibly get without indulging in a whim utterly contrary to his nature and lying. "You've all been safe here."
Alice shook her head, brown hair falling in haphazard curls in front of her eyes. "Lucky, definitely, but not safe. Not entirely. Still..." she paused and looked at her friend doubtfully for a second. Yes, after a few decades of absence, she felt she could call him friend. "Safer than you, maybe."
Cole had the decency to look affronted. "I can take care of myself -"
"Yes, yes, I know," she interrupted, gesturing with her right hand as though waving all of Cole's objections into the night air. "You're a big, strong, capable boy and none of us should worry about you. I know all that, I know you can feed, bathe, find somewhere secure to sleep at night. That doesn't worry me, it's the fact that you've been doing this all alone."
There was an argument to be made about that somewhere. It would be too easy to deflect her words with some half-hearted joke about how he'd had more company than he cared for the past few weeks and, really, with Gordo and Sandor for riding partners, he knew definitely that he preferred going it alone. But that wasn't what she meant. And it wouldn't be entirely true anyway.
"You know, Reagan was still president when you left," she kept talking, either to fill the silence or to make a point, he didn't know and suspected she didn't either. "The Berlin wall was still standing, Michael Jackson was still black, sort of, anyway, and...and you said you'd be back."
"I did come back."
A humorless snort. "Oh yeah, twenty-five years later, give or take a month or two. You know, when most people say, 'I'll be back,' they mean sometime within the next few hours. Not the next few decades.
"You could have sent a letter. Or even just a postcard, it wouldn't have to be much. 'Hurricanes in the Gulf Coast.' 'I voted for Gore.' 'I'm okay.' I'm not asking much, just a word or two. Really, you should get a cell phone, you can just text Johnny if you don't want the rest of us to know. It's the most remarkable thing, it takes no time, just type a few letters and click send. It would be really -"
"No cell phone. And I don't vote." Those were the easiest objections he could make against what she was saying. It seemed as though Alice had a point to make after all, even as she rolled her eyes and let her legs drop back down to dangle over the cracked and dirty sidewalk, so many feet below them.
"Fine, no cell phone. Don't join the twenty-first century and don't participate in the democratic process, that hardly matters. You're willingly misunderstanding my point." Odd how a gaze obscured by a few centimeters of glass could be so piercing.
Cole sighed, very slightly, a cool exhale into the balmy summer breeze. "What do you want me to say, Alice? I understand you're angry -"
"I most certainly am not angry," she interrupted emphatically. Off of Cole's slightly bemused look, she averted her gaze to the street and smiled, a very tiny smile that did not crease her cheeks. "Well, I'm not, anyway."
One dark brow rose on his pale forehead. "You've said your bit, let me say mine, won't you?" A small, sheepish nod and she looked at him sidelong and Cole couldn't stay annoyed with her if he wanted to. "I don't see how it makes a difference whether I stay or whether I go. I left. I'm back now, do we have to...talk about this? I'm here now, talking about my being gone seems a little pointless, doesn't it?"
"Not to me," Alice said and she could just be so damned sincere, it was annoying. "Because I don't want you just taking off tomorrow night. I can see it, you'll leave a note saying, 'Went to the store to pick up Tab, be back in a bit' and then it's so long, until Johnny calls you in fifty years because we have another emergency. Or..."
It wasn't like Alice to just leave things hanging like that, especially when she had something on her mind that she was determined to discuss. "Or what?"
She bit her lip and the gesture was so vulnerable, it felt almost intimate. Like Cole should have been embarrassed to have witnessed it. Maybe he had been gone just a little too long when dealing with other people's emotions made him this uncomfortable. "I've been worried. About a lot, after you left, while you were gone, since you got back, especially after what happened on the road with you and that stray. I said before we were lucky. I think...well, you know. The law of averages, our luck has to run out sometime."
Shrugging idly, Cole just stared out at the sky, stars invisible due to the reflection of the city lights. "Whats the worst that could happen? He, or someone like him, throws garlic at us? I think we've seen the stake is pretty ineffective." The sly half-smile he attempted, that usually worked so well on omnis who were the age Alice looked was entirely ineffective on the lady in question.
"Okay, entirely unfunny," she said, frowning deeply at him. "Don't you understand what I'm saying? You're more careful than all of us put together, you think about everything – sorry, to be blunt, but entirely accurate, you're anal. And let's not quibble, you were the one who got stabbed in the chest, six inches and two hours from daylight."
"But nothing happened." It was beyond weird to console someone else for an injury that he had suffered.
"Yeah, well, Sandor decided to be nosy, so we all have him to thank," she said, dismissively. "Listen, though, what if something like that happens again? What if we all have to pick up and move? Who here is really capable of that?"
Dark brows furrowed and Cole looked sharply at Alice, "What is happening around here that no one's telling me?"
"Nothing, that's the problem!" Alice exclaimed passionately. Immediately, her eyes darted around, just in case any omnis had actually followed them. It wouldn't do to alarm them, after all."You've noticed, people are just...staying here and getting sloppy and – God, Frederick is practically a recluse and I don't know why or how that happened. You remember, in the beginning, he was out every night, practically begging everyone, he wanted to go to parties, he wanted to mingle with people, he was utterly sick of dealing with us dullards, and now? He won't leave the Building. It's totally weird and I don't know what to do. If the day comes...if something happens and we have to run, what will we do?"
"About Frederick?"
"About Frederick, about everyone. Bess, the omnis, sure, some of them could just go back to their lives, but what about Helene? We couldn't take her if we had to go, nor could we set her up in a nursing home or something - "
Not in the mood to deal with the particulars involved with moving all the Building residents in some cloak and dagger middle of the night evacuation, Cole felt he needed to cut Alice off before she went into some kind of apoplectic fit. "Alice. We – you don't know that's going to happen. For all we know, this, all this was just a fluke. You can't make yourself sick over hypotheticals."
"No, that's your job," Alice observed without irony. "Can you just...stay someplace where I can see you for a little while?" Alice asked, looking pointedly at Cole over the tops of her thick, plastic frames.
He hesitated for a long moment, unwilling to promise her anything. Promises were so easily broken with him. I love you. I'll never leave you. Those words had passed his lips before, promises made and lost just as easily. They were only words, after all. What power could words have for such as them?
But he had to say something. And soon, the sky was rapidly turning from indigo to cerulean and there was no way they were continuing this conversation inside.
"I'll stick around. As long as I can. As long as you need."
Luckily, Alice knew better than to ask him for a promise. Instead, she smiled at him, dimples prettily creasing her cheeks as she swung her legs over the ledge, bare feet silently landing on the roof. "That's all I ask," she said, extending a hand for Cole to take. "Come on inside with me. If we can drag Mitch away from the television for an hour, I promise not to kick your ass too badly at Mario Kart."
It occurred to Cole, briefly, to ask her if that was what this entire conversation had been about, just trying to coerce him into playing some ridiculous video game, but he knew better than that. Taking the proffered hand, he let himself be led off the roof and back into the building. Well, he'd given his word, whatever that was worth and an hour of video games wouldn't kill him. The merits of being alone were many, but there was something to be said for a bit of mild companionship.
You know. As long as one didn't get too used to it.