Because I should be writing chapters but instead I'm writing worthless, stupid one-shots that suck. Hey, and here's another one! Okay, so I like to make videos to songs, usually with Jackunzel, but I heard the most perfect Jackunzel song on the radio and I had to write a modern AU one-shot based upon it. It's called "Waiting for Superman" by Daughtry and I'm going to make a Jackunzel video to it still because it's such a perfect, beautiful song and I'm going to shut up now because I'm rambling. Also, can you spot the Frozen references? ;p
"One ticket to Burgess."
She sits on the train, a stub that indicates she's on her ride clutched in her hand, her knuckles tinging white with the intensity with which she holds both the paper and an overnight bag.
The train starts with a shrill whistle and a puff of white smoke that curls into the morning air and can be seen from the train cars. A tug that shakes her forward indicates that they're moving, and only then does she let her bag onto the seat next to her.
Rapunzel Corona looks outside the window, and see the passing blurs of pedestrians, cars and buildings, but she only purses her pink lips at them all. Normally she'd study the blurs and want to paint them, but today she isn't her normal self. Today all she does in take out her phone and scroll through text messages she's read over and over, the words from friends repeating in her mind again and again.
Don't think about it.
He'll be fine.
He loves you.
He'll come home.
None of them bring her comfort, and they only worsen a dull ache that's beginning to sprout in her stomach. Rapunzel pockets her phone quietly, and tries to keep her mind away from it.
No one sits near her. Maybe it's the sad, angry look on her pretty face that scares any passengers from occupying the seats next to and in front of her. Or maybe it's because she sat in a loud, noisy part of the train next to the engine that no one wants to continuously hear. Rapunzel likes the noise, though, in a strange way. She wasn't really one for silence. Neither was he.
Another lurch in her stomach occurred at the thought of him. Jackson Overland Frost, her boyfriend of a few years. She calls him Jack, always with a smile, because he'll always give her one in return, one that makes his blue eyes sparkle. Rapunzel will always peck that smile when she gets the chance, and that only makes him laugh and hug her.
She misses that laugh, that smile, that pair of arms that so often encircled her waist. She wants to have him close, and to have him there when she wakes up, or even when she cries.
Rapunzel has been crying a lot since he left.
She's still unsuccessfully trying to keep Jack out of her mind, and so she focuses outside the window again, but there's an expanse of countryside now. Hills and white corrals that enclose horses flash by continuously, with the occasional person walking by. The sight isn't enough to make her smile just yet, but she thinks absentmindedly that it would make an excellent painting subject.
A girlish giggle fills the air, yanking Rapunzel's eyes away from the outside sights. A couple walks by her train compartment, hand in hand. The girl has auburn hair in adorable braids, and blue eyes that twinkle towards the man she is with, a tall man with warm brown eyes and blond hair that smiles down at her. She's so small, she only reaches the man's shoulder, but the man puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her closer, and like that, they leave, laughing and chatting like only people in love can do.
Rapunzel doesn't realize that her eyes are tearing up until she wipes them with a shaky hand. Usually she'd be happy for anyone so in love like that, but today, nothing about love sounds remotely appealing.
Alright, it seems like not thinking about love wasn't going so well. Rapunzel takes out her phone again, sure that a game or a nice mobile book will take control of her mind until the train gets to her stop.
Her mind still isn't in there, though. After re-reading the same sentence of a book over and over, and it still not registering in her mind, she decides to play a game full of noises and colorful explosions, one that Jack always used to love to play with her. He would literally sit on the brown couch, his head over Rapunzel's phone, so focused on the game that Rapunzel would kiss his cheek, laugh, and sit next to him so that his concentration would finally break and he'd kiss her.
Okay, so this wasn't successful either. Rapunzel lets her phone drop onto her lap and sinks down into the seat, and lets her thoughts wander back to the window, where the scenery changes to a small town. Shingled houses straight out of a novel wink back at her inquisitive eyes, and perfectly mowed lawns flash by.
A flourish of a skirt and a wave of hair come into Rapunzel's edge of vision, and Rapunzel is distracted yet again.
"Sorry if we're bothering you," a young woman says quickly, an accent tinging her voice, one Rapunzel can't place. A man she's with murmurs something about the bathroom and leaves with a shoulder squeeze to the young woman's arm.
Rapunzel examines the woman. Red curls, that are bushy around her round face, and a healthy build with pale skin, freckles that dot the fair complexion, and blue eyes that smile.
"You're not bothering me," Rapunzel lies, because the woman is rather nice to even ask.
The woman smiles, and stretches her hand out across the aisles. "I'm Merida." She can't be much older than Rapunzel is, and Rapunzel accepts her hand with a quick shake.
"Rapunzel," Rapunzel says. Merida pulls back and smiles, smoothing the green skirt that swishes around her knees.
Rapunzel gives a quick nod and looks back down at the phone in her lap, not feeling up to chatter today. She takes out a pair of white earphones, and her eyes slightly water at them, because they were Jack's, and he had given them to her.
"Something to remember me by," he had said, a small smile playing on his lips. Rapunzel had only grasped them in her hand and kissed him, tears streaking her face.
Maybe the memory is making her cry, because Merida is giving her a sympathetic look. But Rapunzel doesn't need any more of those. She plugs the earphones in, starts a song, and leans back to stare outside of the window.
Daughtry's crooning is just what she needs. More memories of Jack, one of him taking her to a concert, floods her head. The long-passed thoughts, when Jack yelled and hugged her close, even though they were cramped among hundreds of screaming fans, their body heat and sweaty bodies pressing themselves closer to the couple in their embrace.
"She's been locked up inside her apartment a hundred days..." Chris Daughtry speaks to her on a personal level, his voice comforting to her ears.
Rapunzel leans against the window, tears beginning to flow again, and she vaguely registers that her cheeks are wet. From the corner of her eye, Merida's clearing her throat like she wants to say something, but clamps her mouth shut and smooths her skirt down again.
"She says, yeah he's still coming, just a little bit late. He got stuck at the laundromat washing his cape."
Rapunzel wishes that this song wasn't meant for them. But it was. Jack had sent her this as a ringtone, and a jokey text message that this song was for her accompanied it.
"And she smiles.. Oh, the way she smiles..."
Rapunzel sighs and wipes at her tears, her fingers slightly shaking still, and the song continues, the lyrics still speaking to her and tearing her heart apart.
"She's talking to angels, counting the stars, making a wish on a passing car..."
Merida finally speaks up. "Are you all right there, lassie?" she asks, concern tinting her voice carefully.
Rapunzel sits upright slowly, and forces a smile. "Of course, I just-" she exhales with a shudder. "I'm fine."
"You've been crying," Merida says slowly. "Please, just tell me what's wrong. It might make you feel better." Rapunzel shakes her head firmly. Merida seems like a nice girl, but she can't spill about her innermost secrets to someone she's only just met.
"I-I can't," she shudders, and she's crumpling under her thoughts.
"Please," Merida says, and the care that's evident in her voice makes Rapunzel want to spill everything, and Rapunzel looks into her eyes hesitantly.
"You're going to think I'm crazy."
"I won't," Merida says, and Rapunzel wants so badly to believe her that she cracks.
"My boyfriend's been deported," Rapunzel admits, and Daughtry's still playing. "He's- in the army."
"She's dancing with strangers, falling apart... Waiting for Superman to pick her up..."
"Oh," Merida says simply, and the sympathy's leaking into her words. Like they always do when someone finds out that Jack's part of the army. They pat her hand, tell her words that they shouldn't, act as if they understand what she's going through, when they don't.
"I'm sorry," Rapunzel tries not to start crying again. "But I miss him. I wish that he'd just come home."
"I'm not going to say anything that I have no clue about," Merida says simply, and Rapunzel is in shock. There's no false words, no fake concern. It's actual concern. "But he's helping serve our country. Do you love him?"
"I love him," Rapunzel's voice wavers, "Too much. He loves me, too. He told me before he left."
Another memory. Jack's earphones clutched in her hands, she pulled away from their kiss and Jack wiped at the tears that stain her cheeks.
"I love you," he had whispered, and knocked his forehead against hers.
"I love you too," Rapunzel had choked out in response, and let him kiss her again.
"If he loves you, he'll come back," Merida says firmly. "He will." Rapunzel's yanked out of her thoughts, and smiles. She smiles for the first time in forever, and then she laughs. A laugh that she hadn't even heard in a long, long time.
"Thank you," Rapunzel says gratefully, and she starts crying, happy tears this time. "Thank you."
"Save her now, before it's too late tonight... She's waiting for Superman."
The man Merida was with comes back, and gives Merida a kiss on her cheek before sitting next to her.
"Sorry I took so long, sweetheart," he says, intertwining his fingers with her and gives her such an adoring look that Rapunzel smiles because it's sweet. She had thought that seeing love was out of the question today, but for some reason, seeing Merida with a man she obviously loves makes Rapunzel keep smiling.
"It's fine, Hiccup," Merida says happily, and gives Rapunzel her own smile, to which Rapunzel notices that her music has stopped playing.
She's waiting for Superman...
Rapunzel leaves the train with Merida's number and a promise of contact. When it lurches past, with a rumble and an exhale of smoke, Rapunzel feels nervous as she sits on the bench at the train station. She's already missing the loud engine by the silence that's filling her ears.
He won't come. The thought makes Rapunzel color red. What if Jack couldn't even make it? He hadn't even said that it'd be definite, him showing up. A hastily scribbled letter was the only thing that she'd received, and it was a request for her to go to the Burgess train station for a night together before he had to return.
Someone passes by, but it's not him. Rapunzel is getting anxious. Another train pulls up, and the station is suddenly crowded with people getting off the train. Rapunzel pushes herself back on the bench, but keeps her eyes on lookout. A familiar head of hair, bleached so pale it looks white, stands out. Rapunzel's heart flips. It has to be him. Sure enough, Jack's face comes into view from amidst the crowd of people.
He has bags under his eyes, and his usually pale skin seems whiter that is normally is. The army green uniform stretches out smoothly over Jack's frame, and the bag slung over his shoulder looks heavy. However, when he sees her, the smile Rapunzel loves graces his face.
Rapunzel's standing and she's running before she can stop herself. Jack drops his bag and hugs her fiercely, his head burrows into the crook of her shoulder and neck and Rapunzel's arms squeeze his torso so hard she's sure that she's leaving bruises.
"I missed you," Jack mutters against her skin, hugging her close.
"I missed you," Rapunzel echoes the comment, and she's crying again, more tears of happiness. The tears trickle down her nose and drip on the green of Jack's shoulder, and she doesn't think she's ever seen something more beautiful.
Jack pulls away and kisses her long and hard, and Rapunzel only closes her eyes when he's about to pull away because she wants to remember him like this. The way his strong fingers grip her chin like a vice, and the way his eyes are closed so peacefully.
"How long can you stay?" Rapunzel pants when his lips leave hers, and she keeps her arms around him.
"About a week," Jack says, apology already written into his words, but Rapunzel doesn't care. He's here, with her, and that's all she needs.
"You're staying with me at my apartment," Rapunzel insists, and she picks up Jack's extremely heavy bag, smiling when Jack presses kisses to her mouth and nose.
"I love you," Jack says then, and wraps his arm around her.
"I love you too," Rapunzel smiles up at him.
It's finished. Rapunzel pushes the canvas away from herself and her mouth perks itself into a smile. The painting gave her quite the worry for a long time, but it's finally finished.
She hangs it on her bare wall. On a blurry train station background, a familiar face she's desperately in love with stares back. Jack Frost, army suit and all, with that smile she loves and the twinkle in his eyes she'd finally managed to capture look back at her in swirls of green, brown, blue and white.
Rapunzel smiles and takes a photo of it, so that Jack can see it when her recieves her next letter. On the back of the photo, she writes, I've found my Superman.