A/N: Written for the Reviews Lounge, Too 'Outside the Box' challenge. This takes place pre-miniseries, and might be slightly AU/OOC. OCs will be (briefly) mentioned in this fic as well.
Virginia's life was quiet. She lived with her father in an apartment Virginia helped pay for with the money she made at her waitressing job. The waitressing job wasn't her first choice of jobs but the hours were flexible and the money was decent. Virginia considered herself lucky that never really ran into a bad customer while waitressing so her job wasn't as bad as most people thought it would be.
The only doubts about her job, when Virginia sat down and thought about it, was from her grandmother, who would always say something like: "Oh Virginia, darling, you're still young! Why don't you do something fun once in a while?", which always seemed to mean 'go do something better with your life than being a waitress, after all you have a college degree!" But she got to bike home while taking in the sights of the woods by her house, which was an especially beautiful sight in the spring when the flowers bloomed in an explosion of different colors.
She was proud to say she had a vibrant social life as well, and Virginia always bragged about her friends when she visited Grandmother. Even if she didn't party all night or drink or do drugs at said parties with friends (or with anyone, for that matter), she was glad she had a few friends that she really liked and trusted with anything
It was a routine of hers to work in the day and to come home to her father in the night. Sometimes the time between work and home was broken up by the chattering voices of her friends. And sometimes, the quiet of Virginia's life wasn't enough. There was a part of her that wanted something more to her life than work and occasional socializing and home, although she was completely unaware of how to deal with it.
"Hey, Dad!" Virginia greeted her father, who was relaxing on their aging couch after a long day's work, when she entered her apartment room. "Hey," Tony echoed, staring at the television intently.
"I'm bored," Virginia whined, taking a seat on the couch.
"Do something about that," Tony replied, still intently glued to the television.
"But what?"
"Be creative, get outside and do something you've never done before."
Her father's words echoed in her ears for the rest of the next day, and it bothered her somewhat.
"Excuse me, waitress, you haven't taken our order yet!" A customer, a young man with dark hair, said with the slightest hint of impatience. His voice awoke her from her trance.
"I'm sorry, sir. What would you like to order?" She asked, faking cheeriness. As the young man ordered for both himself and the girl he was with (presumably his girlfriend, a pretty woman who wore very little makeup). Virginia noticed that the girl looked utterly bored throughout the whole time they ate lunch. Virginia walked back into the restaurant, checking on the customers she had to serve on the way. One pair, a man with golden brown hair, seemed to be animatedly chatting with his friend, a second man with bright blue eyes. She stopped to stealthily eavesdrop, a hard thing to do when you were a waitress in a somewhat busy restaurant.
"….just one more player and we'd have a team!" The blue eyed man exclaimed.
"A team for what?" She blurted out, forgetting that she was an eavesdropper and not actually a part of the conversation. The blue eyed man stared at her steadily.
"Baseball!" The brunette explained.
"But you don't seem like the sporty type, miss waitress," blue-eyes said.
"I do play sports," Virginia explained, the tiniest bit defensive. She told a half-truth about playing sports, since she played soccer and baseball when she was in middle school and a bit in high school. She has since forgotten why she stopped playing sports.
"I'm Andrew, by the way, and this is my friend Daniel" the brunette said, "and I'd like to know if you want to join in our baseball practice at the batting cages tomorrow."
"Andrew, what in god's name is wrong with you? Why would you ask a random waitress to practice with us?" hissed Daniel.
"She's been working at the restaurant for years and I've been eating here just as long as she's been working here. She's like family!" Andrew said.
"….Do you know her name?" Daniel questioned flatly.
"Yeah, she's Virginia," Andrew said confidently. Virginia was impressed that he knew her name, since he was someone whose table she never served. Daniel sighed.
"Tomorrow at five fifteen is our practice. Let me write down the address for you."
She drives idly around the parking lot where the batting cages were located. Luckily, Virginia knew exactly where she was going since the batting cages were next door to the arcade she went to as a child. She parked her bike which wasn't an easy feat by any means. It took her nearly ten minutes to realize that the parking lot, where cars normally parked, wouldn't accommodate her bike. Virginia was forced to lock her bike up to the nearest bike rack, which was a bit of a ways away from the parking lot.
She waited patiently at the entrance of the batting cages, completely unsure what to expect. Five, ten, fifteen minutes ticked by quicker than Virginia expected. She completely dismissed waiting any longer and waltzed into the entrance. (It wasn't until later that she realized that she went to the wrong indoor batting cage.) Virginia admitted that batting cages, especially an indoor one like this one, were slightly creepy. There were about twenty or so cages within her sight; there was more netting and chain link fences than she had ever seen in her life. It took her almost thirty five minutes to wait for the person ahead of her to get out of the batting cage that she wanted, get all of her materials ready (a bat, and safety gear) and actually start at a slow pace. Truthfully, balls being pitched at her from a machine that could go up to ninety miles an hour freaked her out just a bit but the experience was totally worth it.
A/N: My knowledge of batting cages are minimal but I hope that doesn't detract from the story. The title of this story comes from the Death Cab for Cutie song of the same name and I don't own it. The title kind of has nothing to do with the story itself but at least it sounds pretty.