Title: just like a dream to me
Fandom: The Last Song/Princess Protection Program: Ronnie Miller/Carter Mason friendship Carter/Rosie, Ronnie/Will
Author: letscall_l
Disclaimer: I do not own or mean to offend.
Warnings: femslash, fluff, het, crossover.
Word Count: 3597
Summary: Things in Ronnie's life are broken down in summer, she just needs to piece them back together.
The boy seems to be following her. Apologising constantly for spilling milkshake on her. He should do to, but after the first five times Ronnie finds it starts to lose its appeal. But she grins and bears it, all for the sake of the turtle eggs she's trying to protect with her makeshift cage. Shopping trolley and all.
He stands observing her work with an amused grin that almost makes her want to storm off. Which she would do if there wasn't an audience in the form of more Aquaruim volunteers scoping out the beach looking for more eggs. Its an army of blue shirts that she can't escape from.
Although one, in the far distance of her eye sight, stands out from the rest. A red cap.
"Who's that?" Ronnie eyes the form in the distance. Its a girl, a little taller than herself, crouching to scan the sandy surfaces.
"That?" Will remarks, sheilding his eyes to look at what Ronnie is pointing out. "Oh you don't wanna know about Carter."
He jokes towards the end of his statement, but it doesn't defeat Ronnie's curiosity as intended; instead he only succeeds in making himself sound more jerk-like than Ronnie previously thought.
"And whys that?" She slaps away the sand on her jeans and straightens her back up. She's staring straight at this 'Carter' now.
"Um," Will scratches his neck and glances at the girl as well, though with more heistence. "Well, because her Dad is kinda military, she hasn't been seen talking to anyone that isn't her cousin and she hates me."
He lists off while Ronnie continues her visual assessment. She can only guess at the girl's style due to the uniform she's wearing. But if the high top chucks and cap are anything to tell by Ronnie can assume she's not really a girly-girl.
The unknown girl smooths the sand she was digging at and stands. When she claps her hands to get rid of the sand between her fingers her eyes catch Ronnie's by chance.
They don't repel, nor do they warm. To Ronnie, she looks curious.
Carter's eyes seem to focus on Will behind her and within a second a rude hand gesture is flipped his way.
"Oh wow." Ronnie smiles at his mistreatment. "I think I'm gonna say hi."
Will splutters at the mention of it.
"What? Are you crazy?"
Ronnie watches Carter's back as she travels further up the beach. She's always liked a challenge.
"Heck no, I think I've just found the only other girl on this island who thinks you're as annoying as I do."
She quickly scampers over the sand dunes to catch up with the girl, smiling to herself secretly.
Will frowns to himself as the water comes up the shore.
"Can I help you?" Carter doesn't blank her like Ronnie had expected when she finally reaches her. Will is still watching her from her previous place on the beach. She doesn't want this to fail miserably.
"Actually I don't need much help with the eggs but," She glances over at Will's clueless form again and Carter catches on. "I was wondering what you can tell me about Volleyball guy over there."
"And why would I do that?" Carter huffs and defensively stands with a hand on her hip. Ronnie's eyes flicker over her dangerously.
"Because if he's going to be following me like he has done for the past few days I think I'll need some kind of emotional blackmail as a back up plan to keep him away."
Carter tugs on her hand and they squat by a potential turtle egg nest. Ronnie thinks she's hit a dead end with the girl until she sees Carter's mysterious smile from under her cap.
"Okay, pretend you're interested in this shit, here's what you need to know about Will..."
Out of all the people she's met in her short time on the island, Carter is definitely the most interesting. And this is compared to Will who is apparently rich, college bound and in love with her.
Ronnie sees her wandering the beach a lot, just before night, alone. Sometimes she can hear her shouting in the air. A small strip of artificial light by the girl's face signalling a phone.
Whenever the girl hangs up her face is always long and darkened. Ronnie knows that look well. After seeing it on her mom's face for years and her dad's face moreso in the past 2 weeks.
Ronnie wants to know who is making Carter so sad.
She thought it was only Will who decided to copy her movement of sleeping on the beach in order to protect the eggs from the racoons.
But when her watch lights up at 11.22pm and she stumbles over Carter, perched in deck chair and shivering, Ronnie has to think again.
Her legs carry her back to her dad's house as fast as she can, while looking over her shoulder to make sure Carter hasn't disappeared. She's been doing that a lot lately. Not that Ronnie has tried to find her. In between Blaze and Will, Ronnie has barely had a chance to glimpse upon Carter in the town. If she's honest Ronnie is glad to see her cold and on the beach, because its giving her the excuse to speak to her.
Ronnie's arms juggle a set of blankets and a chair. Somewhere in her bundle is a flashlight as well. By the time she reaches Carter, the girl is sleepily opening her eyes and gazing up at the offered blanket with a look of adoration.
"Thanks."
"Did think it'd get this cold huh?" Ronnie smirks while setting up her own chair. Will isn't going to miss her for one night.
Carter shakes her head furiously and wraps the blanket around her tighter. Ronnie's chair seems closer to Carter than she remembers placing.
There's a pocket book in her hands now, about turtles, that Ronnie itches to read but Carter's forlorn face keeps her on edge. There's a wistfulness that Ronnie wants to read more than the mating habits of the creatures they're trying to save. A secret hidden in the head and the body of the mysterious Aquaruim girl.
"I'm sorry." Carter's voice is almost swallowed by the rushing shore waters. Ronnie dives in to catch it.
"For what?" She asks.
A wisp of Carter's hair floats in the breeze. The pause stretches between them comfortably and Ronnie feels at ease for the first time since she's arrived.
"Dodging you I guess. I haven't really seen you." Carter half apologizes. Now Ronnie understands why she couldn't keep up with her, especially if the girl didn't want her to.
"Its alright." Ronnie bites her lip. They stare out at the fading orange of the horizon. "Just don't bail in the morning 'kay?"
Carter's lip curls into a smirk that even Ronnie finds magnificent.
"Not that kinda girl."
They have a pattern in place by the next week. Sometimes Will joins them but Carter spends those nights glaring at him through the corner of her eyes. Ronnie has asked them both about it but can't get more than the vague reference to 'asshole' and 'volleball incident' out of either of them.
There are many nights she will remember when the summer dies and she's transported back to her delinquent life in New York; one will be the last night, and another will be a seemingly unimportant date during her fourth week, when she slept on the beach with Carter only to be shaken roughly awake.
"Ron, Ronnie. Wake up." A hushed whisper stirs her in sync with the hands shifting at her hips and shoulders.
When her eyes manage to pull images with the dusky morning light available she sees Carter.
The girl is minus her cap and her hair has seen better days, Ronnie has witnessed these, but her eyes are wild with amazement and Ronnie, for a seconds, thinks its aimed at her.
"They're hatching! The eggs are hatching!"
Carter releases her hold on her body to grab a torch, while Ronnie struggles to untangle herself from her blanket to race towards the nest.
Its breathtaking. Tiny shelled turtles pad their way accross the soft sand and out of the protective barriers they'd set up to stop them being killed. Carter shines a light on the ground and Ronnie watches with a hand over her mouth in awe as the turtles follow the beacon - and to the tide that will be their home.
Emotion surfaces in her head, her heart and chest. Feeling unsteady on her feet Ronnie's body sways and leans onto Carter. There's an awkward moment of surprise and immobility that seizes Carter when Ronnie first touches her that makes her want to will herself to move. But Carter is warm and Ronnie is weak.
The turtle moment becomes too much for either of them though, when Carter slides her arm around Ronnie's small back and supports her.
They stay like that standing, then sitting, until the last of the turtles have started their journey and the sun has risen to the sky.
Ronnie doesn't call Carter on the tears she sees her shed. Its not her place.
As much as it wasn't her place a few nights ago, when Carter silently sobbed in the face of the fleeing turtles, it feels like it is now.
Carter is the only one apart from herself in the small town diner. An empty milkshake glass, that reminds Ronnie bitterly of Will's first encounter with her and then a warmth when thinking of Will, sits in front of Carter.
Without a warning Ronnie advances on the cracked red leather of the booths, that look like they were new in about the 1950s, and reached her hands across the table to Carter's.
Carter doesn't look shocked to see her. Instead there's a flood of relief that Ronnie doesn't think she's ever witnessed before, and a hidden letter on Carter's side of the table.
It takes another milkshake and Ronnie boldly wiping a tear from Carter's face before she gets anything in return.
"So your cousin? She's gone back to Costa Moona?" Ronnie recaps with a curious raise of her brow.
Carter shakes her head but it doesn't give away any sort of confirmation.
"Rosie isn't really-" Ronnie doesn't find out what Rosie 'isn't' because Carter changes the sentence pace. "-Costa Luna, its a small country in Europe and its really far away and I-I-I..."
Carter scrunches her eyes and tears fall down her cheeks. Her chest heaves two, three beats before she calms again. Ronnie waits, feeling the pain of her sort-of-friend rumble in her own chest. Its an uncomfortable ache.
"You're scared you won't see her again?" Ronnie edges her friend's hinted concern. The flash of fright in Carter's eyes is all she needs to know.
"I'm terrified..." Carter admits.
"Oh Cart-" Ronnie wishes she was more of the kind of girl that could easily give out comfort. That she isn't so guarded and cold, especially when all Carter seems to want is someone to wrap their arms around her strongly and tell her everything will be alright.
Ronnie wishes she was more like her mom.
"She wrote to you right?" Ronnie's skin prickles. Her body wants to comfort while her mind keeps her seated.
Carter nods and looks at the letter.
"She's kind -kind of a big," She breathes in heavily. "Big deal over there."
Ronnie doesn't know what that means, or if she ever will, but Carter seems to accept it as a vaild reason for her cousin, or Rosie, to have left her. Ronnie wants to blame this girl for choosing her country over Carter, but millions do that everyday. Millions go to war, go to work, leave their partners over arguments - Rosie is just one person, it shouldn't mean much in the big picture.
Carter's hand is open.
Ronnie somehow fills it with hers, despite how weird the contact feels.
It shouldn't mean anything that Rosie left, she's just one person.
"Thankyou." Carter whispers with glassy eyes. Ronnie smiles.
But she's Carter's person.
That night Ronnie somehow gets access to her phone's internet. Of course she has to sit on her window ledge with the phone at arms length to keep the signal.
But what she learns is worth it.
"What are you doing?" Jonah, her little brother squeaks from his bed. Ronnie casts him a 'be quiet' look.
When he silences Ronnie looks back at her screen.
'Costa Luna.' Ronnie muses. 'Rosie, Rosalinda...'
Carter's cousin was a lot more interesting than her friend gave way.
The shoulders and sleeves of her shirt have blotchy tear drop stains from the amount of times Carter has buried her head into them. Though Ronnie is guilty of staining Carter's too.
"A princess? Thats not something you keep out of conversation!" Ronnie tosses sand at Carter's feet in jest. The sun shines on their glistening skin and sea water from where Ronnie tackled Carter into the ocean moments ago.
"I didn't know how to bring it up in a way you'd believe me!" Carter defends. And in all honesty Ronnie mentally agrees. She would have told Carter to stop being silly and tell her the truth.
Not now though. Not when she's stared in the face of the girl Carter cried over and wishes was with her now.
"Thats just huge. A princess?" She asks again, still not quite believing.
Carter nods with a pride in her posture.
"She's not officially queen yet, she's been crowned but she's not eighteen until..." Carter stops.
"What?" Ronnie pushes. Carter shakes her head, like she did in a memory before.
Longing lies in her eyes. Ronnie has looked into a mirror day after day to compare it to other looks, she holds the same in her too.
"There are so many things people don't know." Carter trails deeply. She means just them. She means the island. She means the world.
"Maybe if there weren't so many secrets, people wouldn't leave all the time."
This time Ronnie knows that Carter is referring to her own life. To her family and to Rosie. But Ronnie can apply it to herself to. All the evidence anyone would need is the thick layer of dust on her piano in NYC. She suddenly wants to play.
"I have a secret." Ronnie bumps her shoulder against Carter's. The girl grins and nods for her to go on.
Ronnie bashfully blushes. Its an inappropriate reaction because she's been so scared of admiting it since she talked to her dad in the burnt out church. She's still so scared.
"I think my dad's sick." Ronnie confesses, meloncholy rises in her face. "And I don't think he's getting better."
Only the waves break their silence. Carter draws a line in the sand with her finger, much like the line drawn between herself and Will the first time they slept on the beach. Except this time, the line doesn't seperate them; it brings them together.
"I have a secret too." Carter whispers to her tear lined cheek.
Ronnie can feel it in her chest, what Carter will say, but it doesn't stop the heavy impact. Or make it mean any less.
"I love you." Carter's voice cracks and her tears match hers.
Ronnie remembers that night too. Not just because Carter told her she was loved. Not just because a pause after Carter also said that she loved Rosie too.
But because everything was content. Everything was whole and complete and so untouched, apart from the brief and for the greatest part, forgettable kiss of their sandy lips.
In that conversation's world, Ronnie was okay.
Carter doesn't disappear from her life entirely. There's a letter beside her bed in the morning after which tells her exactly what Ronnie wants.
Carter's gone to Costa Luna. And she doesn't know when she's coming back.
Ronnie is happy for her.
In hindsight, it was the first crack.
Its at her dad's funeral that everything is forced back together. Like pieces to a puzzle that are broken and chipped.
Ronnie sees Will, fresh in a suit and dazzling her with all the summer love she remembers in a single glance. He's at university now, but back for the ceremony.
She remembers him and how he took care of Jonah while she spent hours and hours pacing and crying at her father's bedside. Willing the cancer to leave his body, willing it to fade and die without taking the man with it. Wishing she had been a better daughter. Wishing it hadn't taken all summer for her to play his piano and see him smile.
Seeing Will reminds her of that.
The rows and rows of people; friends, family, church members that knew her father, watch her in a glowing awe as she plays his final song. The song he wrote for her. The music rises and falls like the sea she is now so intune to. The stained glass window that her father started and her brother finished embraces her in a golden spotlight that pulls her through her grief.
And in that moment of musical clarity Carter appears.
The door parts for her body, swaying in a dress - a dress that looks at home on the tomboy's body, which surprises Ronnie in itself; and then it parts for another.
And then Ronnie realizes, as she plays her father's farewell that she's looking at the Queen of Costa Luna, who bows her head and prays for her in the back row of her dad's church.
Its then that she cries.
Will kisses her after the funeral and asks her to be with him.
She knows there is only on answer she can give.
Ronnie packs with a gentleness that Carter tries in vain to imitate. The boxes are full with her dad's old books, his pictures and glass.
The Queen of Costa Luna, or Rosie as she'd formally greeted Ronnie with a hug, sits at the piano. Ronnie had almost died inside at the thought of anyone but her dad playing the keys that Rosie now so beautifully entertains, but Carter's hand on her neck soothed her.
Carter didn't offer to help her strip the beach house. She's just turned up mid-morning with a wry smile and hopeful embrace that Ronnie hadn't the strength or will to turn them away.
They manage most of the breakdown of items in a short time. Ronnie pauses every now and then to take in what they're doing. To watch Carter send Rosie a look. To see Rosie accept it.
The burnt sky threatens to consume the daylight when they can finally stop. Boxes and straps are secured in the car Ronnie is driving to New York alone.
Addresses are pushed into her palms.
"If you're ever in New York, you'll come find me right?" Ronnie smartly confronts Carter before she locks the house for what will be the last time.
Carter snorts in good nature.
"I'm sure what Carter means is that she will most definitely." Rosie interjects. Her voice is calm yet persuasive. And although Carter was joking, her face eases into acceptance and Ronnie knows it won't be the last tims she sees them.
"Both of you." Ronnie purses her lips.
At this the sun seems to beam from Rosie's face. Carter then caves and all of the emotions they'd ever repressed; from the first meeting when all Ronnie wanted was to annoy Will, to the time on the beach when Carter had kissed her in comfort - flooded as Carter pulled Ronnie into her arms.
Neither of them really express how much the simple embrace shattered everything that had built again, for the better; but they feel it.
Ronnie knows that when she starts the engine on her car and begins her drive, and when Carter and Rosie board the plane back to Costa Luna everything will heal and recover for them.
Decisions will have been the right ones and memories will serve to keep them above the waters that sometimes drag them under.
Guility Ronnie whispers that she loves her under her breath. Carter knows, and Rosie hears but Ronnie isn't about to change her mind.
She isn't going to break things like she did in the past.
Carter's hands don't linger like the romanace novels say they would, they don't hesitate to tangle themselves in Rosie's as they say goodbye.
Their tones harmonize and Ronnie waves at their retreating backs even though they can't see.
New York awaits while summer dies inside her.
And Ronnie feels like a blaze of glory.
fin