Hey Capers! This little story is going to be a 9 Chapter story of a Pre-Series AU! All bets are off people! Sit back and enjoy the show.
I do not own The Cape.
Premonition of Love- Chapter One: The Chase
For Vince Faraday and his friends- Marty, Susan, Bobby, and Donna, Palm City's club Kozmo was the place to be. The group of friends gathered in the same booth every night to keep their minds off of the stress they all led in their daily lives. Vince's mood lifted considerably while he was there, but he never really was fond of the crowded population. Until now, that was.
The cop had his own personal reasons for why he didn't like to bother himself with anyone else in Kozmo. Either they were way too drunk, or way too boring. Going into the club, Vince never suspected anything more than a usual visit with his friends. However, after a recent dream he had, Vince was more than ready to watch the club's crowd much closer.
It started out as a regular trip to Kozmo. Vince and his other friends met in their booth as they always did. The club itself was bouncing with voices and music; like always, it was rather hard to talk in a normal tone. At the table, Vince's friends try to speak with him, but it really didn't go over well. He was too busy staring ahead at the dance floor.
"Vince," Marty called. No answer. "Vince!" he called again, only much louder.
The sandy brown haired cop looked back at the table, then back at the dance floor only to jolt his head back to Marty. "What?"
"Man what are you staring at?" Marty asked, casually looking across the room to see what caught his best friend's attention. He noticed very quickly that it was a girl who couldn't be more than 20. She had long curly brown hair and, from the looks of it, she was staring at Vince just about as much as Vince was staring at her.
"You think I should go talk to her?" Vince asked.
"Why not?" Marty said, taking a swig of the beer in front of him.
Vince took a look back at his table of friends. They each had a drink of their own in front of them. Marty had Susan, and Bobby and Donna had a thing going on every now and then; so mostly it was just Vince by himself. Without another word, he got up from the booth and headed into the crowd.
The crowd was full of throngs of dancers. As he stared ahead at the girl in question, he had to push his way through the people on the dance floor. However, the closer he got to the brunette, the further away she appeared. When he got to the very back of the room, it was as though she just vanished. Vince pushed the back door open and stepped outside. The cool October air wrapped around him and squeezed tightly. A sudden shiver traveled up his spine as he padded down the alleyway leading to and from Kozmo. There was no pretty brunette, nor was there any sign that she had been there. Just a dark alleyway.
When Vince woke up that morning, he had never been so freaked out in his life. He didn't know why, but he felt like he was losing the most important thing in his life. It was settled then and there, the next time they go to the club, he wouldn't repeat his steps.
He went through the work day not worrying at all about the dream. Vince was actually looking forward to going out with his four friends that night. It wasn't until he was driving to Kozmo, that he remembered his dream. However, he did his best to bury it deep down.
Vince walked into the club just as he did every other night. He grabbed a beer from the bar and walked straight to their booth. Kozmo was a normally dim lit club, the only thing that really shined was the spot lights on the dance floor. He sat down with a plop and looked across the booth to see Susan staring back at him with her eyebrows arched.
The sound of the crowd roared over all of their voices. Vince raised his pitch a few notches as he spoke. "What?"
"You look happy to be here," Susan added sarcastically.
"No, I just had a pretty freaky dream about this place last night," Vince said as his eyes trailed over to the dance floor. As if he was kicked, he felt his stomach divot promptly. About in the same spot he saw her before, was that pretty brunette in his dream. This time she was surrounded by Palm City's local smuggler Dominic Raoul, and his long term girlfriend Dana Thompson. The brunette looked different from Dana and Dominic, it were as though she was a queen surrounded by peasants; Vince thought his jaw would drop to the floor.
"Vince," came from his left.
The sandy haired cop broke out of his trance and looked next to him. It was Donna who spoke that time.
"Are you going to talk to her?" Donna asked, her eyes meeting the mysterious girl.
"I- I don't know," was all Vince could choke out.
Donna hit him lightly on the arm. "Go on. We'll keep your seat warm for you," she smiled back at him a bit.
Vince looked back at the girl on the dance floor. His heart skipped a beat as he watched her laugh at Dana. He then returned his eyes to the booth where his four friends stared back at him. "You think I should go guys?"
They chorused their replies with positive yeses around the board.
Vince didn't reply at first. He lifted his bottle of beer and chugged at it. When he placed it back down on the table, he nodded and met with each of his friends' eyes, a hopeful look was in place. "Wish me luck?"
The four of his friends watched as Vince scooted himself out of the booth and rose to his feet. He passed by the clusters of people as they laughed and carried on with their night. Some of them gave him dirty looks as he passed, others gave him looks with sultry smiles; either way, Vince paid no attention to it. The moment he approached the brunette, he grew anxious. He was expecting her to disappear, or to walk away without giving him a word in inch-wise. Only, it wasn't his imagination. She was real, and was staring back at him with wide brown eyes.
"Hi," Vince started.
The brunette raised an eyebrow. "Hello."
Suddenly Vince realized this was a very bad idea. He went to walk away when the girl called out to him. "What's your name?"
The cop stopped in his tracks and cleared his throat quite awkwardly. "Vince Faraday," he started, offering a handshake.
She smiled a bit and shook his hand gently. "Jamie Fleming," the brunette added.
Jamie's and Vince's hands stayed interlocked for a little bit longer than a normal handshake. Before they could separate, Dominic stepped up to his friend and gave the new comer a glare.
"Lil' Jamie, who's this geezer?" he retorted.
The brunette's eyes flickered back to Vince. "Dom, this is Vince Faraday. Vince, this is Dominic Raoul."
"Oh I know who he is," the cop started. "It's nice to finally put a face to the name," Vince added as he offered a handshake.
The smuggler took his hand and shook vigorously with a playful grin on his face.
"We've been bettin' on how long it took you to come o'er 'ere."
Vince gave him a confused look. "What are you talking about?"
Dominic smirked. "You think we didn't see ya eyeballin' lil' Jamie?" he finished the statement with a laugh.
The brunette put a hand over the smuggler's shoulder and gave him a pleading glare.
Vince tried to appear strong. He couldn't deny that he was staring. "Well with a pretty girl like that, how could you not?"
The smuggler stepped up closer, to the point where they were chest to chest. The two scowled back at each other; Jamie was quite afraid that Dominic would start something.
About the time she was stepping closer to break them up, Dana came up to the group and immediately felt the tension. The blonde turned to Jamie and whispered to her. "What's going on?"
"Your boyfriend is trying to scare this guy away," Jamie started, folding her arms against her chest.
Dana rolled her eyes and stepped over to her boyfriend. She tapped Dominic on the shoulder and glared at him until he frowned back at her. The blonde pulled the smuggler closer to her by the collar of his shirt and whispered into his ear.
Obviously to the others, whatever she said made him rethink his decision. Before he was dragged off by Dana, he scowled at Vince once more. "This isn't over, my son. You think about hurtin' my little sis and you've got another thing comin'."
Vince didn't reply, he just watched with a frown as Dana dragged Dominic away to the bar. Jamie smiled back at her blonde friend as she stalked away with her boyfriend in tow.
This left Vince alone with Jamie. She stepped closer to him and took his hand, tugging at it lightly. The cop followed the brunette as she led him into an empty booth. They sat down across from one another as Jamie began with, "I'm so sorry about that. I've known them both for a pretty long time, they've always tried to try to protect me, especially Dominic."
"Nah, it's alright. I'd be protective over you too," Vince started with a smirk.
The brunette smirked back at him. "Not so fast Mr. Faraday. You can't just win me over like this."
"Well, who says I'm trying to win you over?" the cop asked with a grin tugging at his features.
"You're not very subtle Vince," Jamie said as she patted his hand a bit.
"Okay so, how can I win you over?" Vince asked in a playful tone.
"Well," the brunette began. "You can start by buying me a drink," she smirked.
Vince chuckled. "Fine. What do you want?"
"There's no way I'm drinking a beer as I'm hanging out with a guy I barely know. For all I know, you could try to move on me," Jamie said in a joking tone. Getting a laugh from Vince, she continued with, "I'll have a coke."
"Alright, I'll be back," Vince said as he went to get up.
"You think I'm going to sit here while you get me a drink?" Jamie started skeptively. "I know a bit about getting drugged at bars like this."
"Come on then," Vince offered her a hand and a smile.
They walked to the bar holding hands. The two of them received several glances from people they walked by. Including Vince's friends; Bobby gave the cop a thumbs up as they walked by, whereas the other three just smiled.
At the bar, Vince ordered his own drink as well as a drink for his friend. As he handed a glass of coke over to Jamie, she smiled and took it willingly.
They picked a booth closer to the bar and sat down in the same fashion as they did before.
Jamie and Vince sat for a short time just analyzing each other silently. It was like the whole world moved on around them, but they were frozen in time.
"So, Jamie?" Vince asked, breaking the silence. "You say your last name is Fleming? Are you related to the Fleming that owns ARK Corporation?"
The brunette nodded and brought the glass of coke to her lips. She lightly took a sip of it and placed it back on the table. "I'm his daughter," she paused. "He's not that bad of a guy. He is rather cautious about who my friends are though."
"Does he have anything against cops?" Vince asked.
Jamie laughed. "Not that I know of."
"Then hopefully we'll get along fine," the sandy haired cop spoke.
The brunette nodded to which her phone began to go off. Vince watched as a strike of fear flashes across her face as she stared at her phone. "Everything alright?" he asked in a concerned tone.
Jamie jerked her head back to look at Vince. "Everything's fine. I just have to go."
"Do you have a ride?" the cop asked.
Jamie gave him a smile. "Yes I do," she paused and reached for her purse that was dangling off her shoulder. The brunette grabbed a notepad, a sparkly pink pen and threw it at Vince.
He grabbed the pen, took one look at it, and looked back up at Jamie. "A pink pen, really?"
The brunette gave him a look and sighed. "It writes in blue, just calm down and write your number on this paper."
The cop took his eyes off of Jamie long enough to write his number down. With a grin, he handed her the notepad and pen. "So does that mean we'll talk again someday?"
"Well, it's likely," Jamie took his hand and wrote her number on the backside of it. "Don't be a stranger, okay?" she said with a bright smile.
Vince took his hand back and smiled at his friend. "I won't, you either."
Jamie gave him one last glance, with the hint of a smile, before she turned around and swayed away.
Vince had to smack himself back into reality as he caught himself looking at the brunette walking away. He smiled as he looked down at her writing. She provided her name, the number, and she even had a heart at the end.
He only knew Jamie for a short period of time, and now he wanted to know her all the more.
First chapter done. How was it?