Not sure what my deal is, but I am mildly obsessed with this couple. The amount of fanfiction/fanvideos that I have found for them is minimal and so I've resigned myself to writing them myself. I don't know exactly how long it will be yet, in the past it's seemed that I'm incapable of writing anything shorter than a Harry Potter novel, but I hope some of you will be coming along for the ride.

The chapters will most be alternating POV and many other characters will be featured throughout the story. I've already uploaded a few chapters over on AO3 so I'll upload daily on here until I'm caught up with that one, then probably slow down to every two or three days. I hope some of you enjoy reading this and I would appreciate any and all feedback!

Wick

Coincidences were the strangest part of life. Kyle Wick had never been one to put a lot of stock in fate. Certain events played out that left him scratching his head, sometimes quirked him to the dubious side of things, but never had he been fully swayed.

So even though the odds of seeing the same person over and over in Newark, Delaware might not be astronomically high, he didn't question it too much. There were just certain people who stood out in a person's mind. See them once and they won't be forgotten, regardless of interaction. And perhaps 90% of these people consisted of pretty girls, but that wasn't what was important here.

All he knew was that this particular pretty girl kept popping up. She was nothing short of gorgeous, but his interactions had remained less than regular. So her recurrence raised a few questions and a fair bit of hope.

The first time he remembered seeing her was in his neighbourhood. She was all long strides and swinging ponytail as she ran past his house for the first time. He appreciated her speed and focus; she barely even spared him a glance. For the next three years he saw her periodically running past him, out his car window, and so often right in front of him. Shortly after her first appearance she is joined by a floppy haired boy who trudged along behind her, red faced and seeming rather unenthused on the experience as a whole. She would turn around and run backwards, egging him on.

Wick ran too, somewhat inspired by the pretty girl with the long legs that she didn't bother covering up until it was mid-December, but he was never as fast as her. Odds were he could run circles around the floppy haired boy, though.

The summer before his last semester at university is when she starts running alone again. Aside from her lack of partner, nothing seems different. On a particularly cold day in November, Wick is out for his own run when she darts past him, her feet carrying her faster than a leaf through the wind. In his experience there were only two things that could get someone to run that fast: fear and anger.

He did his best to keep up with her that day.

She was gone before he so much as gained an inch on her.

After that she's gone. He blames the bitter cold at first, Delaware hadn't seen such a cold winter since his sophomore year of high school, but then spring comes and the trees bud and flip-flops become acceptable footwear again, and she is still nowhere to be seen.

The next time he does see her is after he's finished college, July has just come and gone in the span of a blink when he lands his first job at the local hospital. It's nothing spectacular, but he's getting paid. He gets to work on grounding and static controls in surgical rooms and precision temperatures for special cases. His favourite was working with ultra-pure gas flows.

The running girl has long since been forgotten when he's working the graveyard shift at the hospital in September, eyes heavy and muscles tired. He was on his way back from the lab after working in a room requiring negative pressure. The cry that he hears feels like it shakes the foundation of the building itself. A desperate, mourning 'no' that shatters the hearts of anyone unfortunate enough to hear it. The noise pierces the air and seals it shut with fervent agony.

His feet set off running in the direction of the cry before he thinks twice about it. That was not the sound that came from someone who was okay. He runs right into the surgical waiting room, stopping just short of the doorway to see her.

The running girl doubled over in someone's arms as they try to hold her up. She crumples to the floor, the boy going down with her. A blond stands away from the two of them, scratches across her face and her left arm cradled against her body. The guilt is clear on her face as the boy on the floor looks to her. She hangs her head and walks away, right past Wick without so much as a glance. A few others are in the waiting room too, though none of them make a move one way or the other.

Seeing that she's not crying alone, Wick forces himself to turn and walk away. He was familiar with the emotions that brought about that sort of tormented cry; they weren't the kind seeking the comfort of strangers.

The sound reverberates in his mind all night, blocking out all the extraneous sounds of a late night hospital. He sits in the lab and stares off into space, trying to forget the atrocious cry and quivering face. So when seven AM finally announces itself Wick finds himself taking the stairs back to the second floor and walking straight to the surgical waiting area.

Sure enough the running girl is still there. Another dark haired girl sits there with her, though she's passed out, her feet thrown over the arm rest of a chair and her head lolling against the wall.

The runner stares off into the void, eyes fixated on the blank wall and hands resting in her lap. This is the first time he notices the brace on her knee. Its extensive and not like something he's seen before. Though it doesn't matter, he realises this is why the running girl no longer runs.

He walks up to her and offers what he has; a cup of ice water and a small box of tissues may not be much, but they were something. Her eyes take a moment to shift off the wall and onto his hands before slowly panning up to his face. He sees no recognition, not that he expected any, but it's as though she barely see him at all. The blank stare is almost as worrying as the redness of her eyes. It wouldn't be a surprise if she'd burst some blood vessels. "You should drink something," he says, his voice gruff with sleep. "Crying dehydrates you more than you think." He wished he didn't know this information through first-hand experience.

He stretches his offering to her just a little bit further before she reaches out to take the cup and tissues, her eyes watching him wearily the whole time. And then that's it. She doesn't say anything and he doesn't know what else he has to offer. So he does his best to give her a weak smile before turning and walking away, knowing very well that when she thinks back to what is probably the worst day of her life he won't be remembered in the slightest.

The kindnesses that take place during tragedy are appreciated, but not necessarily recalled. The fog hangs over each memory, sadness taking the place of any other moment.

Her loss shouldn't get to him like it does, but he drives back to his apartment and has to fight away the demons of loneliness that haunt him through each hallway before he collapses into bed and falls asleep. Each dream opens with a jog and is punctuated with a desperate "No."

Kyle Wick no longer remembers the running girl just because she's pretty.

It's a damn shame.