FJ: This is the new and improved version! Originally this story was called "Michelle" and it centered around my OC (named Michelle). However, as I wrote more of this story, I found I wanted to explore the depths of the other characters in ATU as well as my OC, so I changed the title from "Michelle" to "Here, There, and Everywhere". I also changed the name of my OC. Her name is no longer "Michelle", but now her name is Magil (as in "her name was Magil but she called herself Lil" yaddayadda), also known as Maggie.
Anyway…not much about the story has changed other than that stuff. Have fun reading the new version!
Chapter One: Rain
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The freighter's engine blew it's horn, signifying it's upcoming departure. Any second now, it was going to leave the station. And the girl standing next to the train, trying to look nonchalant, knew that she had to be on it.
This is it, she thought to herself, adjusting the straps on the faded blue backpack that hung from her shoulders - the only luggage she had. If I don't hop onto this train, I'll never get out of here. She spied an open boxcar, near the caboose, and decided that it was her best bet. She reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out the Rat Magazine clipping with the ad for a room to rent in New York City. She put it back in her pocket after skimming it quickly for the umpteenth time, and felt the money that she would use to pay rent, in case the landlady asked for it two weeks in advance or something. It wasn't much money, but it was what she had borrowed from her father. Well…perhaps stole would be a better word. She felt her stomach twist with guilt.
No, she told herself firmly. Don't feel guilty. You're leaving now, and you don't need to feel guilty about this. Besides, God will forgive you.
But would her father? Frankly, she didn't give a damn to what her father did or didn't do, so she, in turn, wouldn't give a damn to what she would or wouldn't do to her father. Even if it meant running away and stealing his money.
The horn of the freighter blasted again, and began pulling out of the station. The girl gripped her backpack straps and began sprinting after it. Luckily, she was a fast runner, but the train was chugging away quickly now. She put on a burst of speed and with one flying leap, grabbed the handle of the open boxcar door and swung herself in. She lay on the wood floor, breathing hard with exaustion, releif, and excitement. Her life was starting anew…right now.
---
"So why'd you call us all in here, Sadie?" Jude asked. He was sitting on the couch in the "whatever room" with one arm around Lucy. Max stood slumped against the wall and JoJo and Sadie stood in front of them all. Prudence and Rita, who had left Mr. Kite's circus long ago and moved into the tenant house, also sat on the couch with Lucy and Jude.
"Well, I thought you guys should know that the two hippies who lived here have moved out, and I put an ad in the paper to rent out the spare rooms," Sadie said.
"Aw, too bad. I always liked them," Rita pouted.
"Well, they started talking about moving to California a while ago," JoJo reminded them. But this was news to Max.
"When did they decide that?" he asked.
"Well, they first started talking about it while you were…" Prudence began, but stopped abruptly. Everyone looked at her, waiting to see what she'd say next. "…Away," she finished lamely. The others nodded quickly and fell silent. No particularly liked to be reminded that Max had been in Vietnam – especially Max. And even though deep down he wished it'd never happened, sometimes he felt annoyed at how his friends pretended like everything was normal. He knew that things could never be normal again, of course, and yet…he still wanted to forget about everything that had happened to him.
"So…how about we get some shut-eye?" JoJo finally broke the silence. It was near eleven at night now.
"Ah…yes, that sounds very good," Jude agreed, getting up from the couch and pulling Lucy along with him.
"Oh yeah, uh, JoJo and I got a gig tomorrow night at the Café Huh, so I'll expect you guys not to wake us up before two," Sadie told everyone. Everyone began to shuffle away toward their respective bedrooms, except for Max who remained slumped against the wall. Lucy looked at him, concerned. She glanced at Jude, and he nodded. Lucy went over to her brother and looked him in the eyes.
"Max?" she asked. "You okay?" He was silent. She reached up to touch his face, but he pulled away, bumping his head on the wall behind him. Jude, Prudence, Sadie, and JoJo laughed. Rita and Lucy just smiled a little. Max, however, scowled. It was odd, because he would have laughed about something like that, usually.
"What?" Jude called from the other side of the room. "What's the matter with you?"
"Are you sure you're okay, Max?" Lucy asked again.
"I'm sick," Max muttered. This time, he did not pull away when Lucy reached out to feel his forehead. She'd taken the statement literally.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"I'm sick of this," Max said, beginning to walk away from his sister. Everyone watched him as he circled the room, their eyes filled with questions. For some reason, that made him even angrier, and his voice rose with every word he said. "I'm sick of being treated like a ghost! I'm sick of you guys pretending like everything is still exactly like it was before I left!"
"Max, that's ridiculous. We're doing no such thing," Lucy tried to explain calmly, but her brother interrupted her fiercely.
"Everything is different now," he growled angrily. "The war changed me. I'm a different person, and I'll never be the same, so you guys just need to get used to it!"
"No, you're not, Max!" Lucy yelled. She was angry now, too. "Just because you were drafted doesn't make you any different! It doesn't mean you have to change who you are! You're still the same old Max somewhere inside! You just need time to heal!" As she was saying this, Max tried to walk away, but she wouldn't let him. That made him even angrier, if that was possible.
"You weren't there, Lucy!" he shouted. "You didn't see what I saw! You have no idea what I went through! If you did, then you would be changed beyond repair, too!"
"Max, you're not the only one who's hurting from this war!" Lucy cried. "We felt it here, too! Don't think that we haven't changed along with the rest of the world, because we have! We all have! But we're all coping with these changes the best we can! You're not doing anything! You drive your taxi around the city, moping and feeling sorry for yourself!" Immediately after she said it, Lucy wished she could take it back. She hadn't meant for that sentence to come out sounding so harsh. But before she could open her mouth to apologize, Max lost his temper completely.
"Lucy, you don't even know what the hell you're talking about!" he roared. Lucy jumped back in surprise. "You don't think I want to go back to how things used to be? Of course I do! But I can't! War is something that changes you for the worse! Maybe if you got shipped out to the middle of fucking nowhere, you would understand what I mean!" With that, Max grabbed the keys to the taxi he drove during the day and stomped to the door. "I'm going out. I'll be back later," he practically spat. He left the apartment, letting the door slam shut behind him. The others stood in his wake, staring after him in surprise, as Lucy slumped to the floor. Silent tears slid down her face, but she only stared at the floor.
"I…I didn't really mean to explode at him. I'm just so scared with how he was acting. It's like he's not even Max anymore," she murmured, mostly to herself. Jude came around to Lucy's right side and pulled her into him with one arm.
"Shh…" he soothed her. "It's all right. He knows you're not really angry." Lucy sniffed and Jude gave her another squeeze. "He'll forgive you. He always does."
---
Max stormed down the stairs of the tenent building, angrier than he'd ever been. He hadn't meant to get so angry…especially at his little sister. But he'd been holding in all that anger for quite some time, and Lucy had given him an excuse to vent. When he stepped outside and began to walk to his taxi, though, he found a new reason to be angry.
"Ugh…perfect," he groaned and he hurried to his taxi in order to escape the rain that was falling hard and fast from the night sky. Once inside the cab, he shook off the water, put the keys in the ignition and began to drive to the city limits. He'd wanted to drive to Battery Park and look out at the harbor, but he hated the rain. So instead, he drove as far away as he could get from the city without actually leaving it.
---
It was raining hard by the time the girl reached the edge of the city. She'd jumped from the boxcar as soon as it had crossed the bridge. For the first time since she left New Jersey, she smiled a little. She liked the rain…most of the time. Not when she was walking at night by herself, though. She smiled mostly because of the irony that something she normally liked so much would come up at the most inoppurtune moment. And, in her hurry to pack, she'd forgotten an umbrella. She could really use one about now. Or…she suddenly heard the rumble of an engine and noticed a taxi cab passing by.
Yes! she thought happily. She had enough money in her pocket to pay the driver, so she began to run toward it. "Taxi!" she called.
---
"Taxi!" came a voice. Max turned his head to the right and noticed a girl running toward the taxi.
"Oh no," he groaned. He was not in the mood to chauffer someone to who-knows-where in the middle of the night. So he drove on, ignoring the girl. But then she gained on it and began running alongside the car, shouting, "Hey! Stop!" Damn, she was fast! Max was just about to gun the accelerator, when the girl suddenly put on a burst of speed and threw herself against the side of the cab. She hit the moving vehicle with such force that she bounced back and sprawled on the ground.
"Jesus Christ!" Max cursed, slamming the brakes down. What the hell had that girl been thinking? He waited anxiously to see if she was okay. Mad as he was at the world, he didn't really fancy being the cause of some anonymous girl's death. Luckily for him, she was alive. When she got up, she stumbled over to the taxi, opened the front door and glared at Max. Her brown hair was stringy wet from the rain, and her clothes and face were muddy. Her blue eyes were narrowed, so she also looked pissed, which might have turned Max on, had it been another time and place. But right now, he was angry, and his current mood impaired his judgement. He couldn't see past the dirty clothes and matted hair, and what he did see, he wasn't attracted to.
"You know, the point of taxis is so they can stop when someone calls for them," the girl informed him.
"This cab isn't in service," Max grumbled. "And what the hell were you thinking, running into the car like that? You could have been killed!"
"How else was I going to get you to stop the car?" the girl asked.
"I told you, this cab isn't in service," Max said. He was beginning to like this girl less and less.
"Well, since I'm here and you're here and the taxi's here…" the girl said, climbing into the passenger seat. "I need you to take me to the city." Max rolled his eyes as the girl shut the door.
"Where in the city?" he sighed, giving up. The girl paused.
"I'm not sure," she said. "I'll let you know when I'm ready to get out." Max gritted his teeth to keep his temper in check.
"I really don't have that kind of time," he growled. After a thought, he added the word "ma'am" at the end of the sentence.
"Well then, sir," the girl replied. "I'll try not to take long." She buckled the seatbelt.
"Most people like the backseat," Max told her. The girl glanced sideways at him.
"You mind?" she asked. What could Max say to that? He just huffed and began to drive. He noticed that she was wincing and rubbing her left arm, where she'd run into the taxi. Max sighed.
"You okay?" he asked. Annoyed or not, he felt somewhat responsible that she'd gotten hurt…even if it had been her really stupid idea to throw herself into the cab like that in the first place.
"Yeah," she replied, even though she could feel a bruise spreading from her shoulder to her elbow. It was then that Max noticed, for the first time, the girl's backpack. He took in her bedraggled appearance again, and it suddenly became clear to him that the girl must be running away. He'd attempted it as a teenager himself, and if there was one thing that Max knew runaways hated, it was to be questioned.
"What's in the bag?" he asked. She looked out the window, watching the raindrops run down the pane, and gripped her shoulder straps.
"Uh..nothing," she replied hesitantly. Oh yeah. She was definetely running away. "Just some old stuff…you know." Max gave a small nod.
"Where're you from?" he tried a new question. Her face blanched.
"Nowhere," she answered in a small voice.
"Ah. And before nowhere?" Max asked, using the same tactic that Jude had used on the night they first met Prudence. But the girl didn't answer, so Max was silent until he thought up a new question.
"Got a name?" The girl paused for a long while.
"Nancy," she finally answered. Max had a feeling that she wasn't telling the truth, so he decided to play along.
"I'm George," he falsley introduced himself. 'Nancy' nodded and continued to silently stare out the window. "So, 'Nancy'," Max continued. "Who are you running from?"
"Um…what?" 'Nancy' said, trying to sound nonchalant…and failing miserably.
"Come on," Max said. "It's so obvious you're running away. You in trouble with the police?" She shook her head, confused.
"No…nothing like that," she said.
"So you're just running away from home?" Max asked. 'Nancy' was silent, but Max could tell from the look on her face that he was right. "It's all right, I'm not going to turn you in or anything. I tried running away from home when I was your age, too. Didn't really work, though…"
"How do you know how old I am?" 'Nancy' demanded.
"I don't," Max admitted. "But…well, look at you." His eyes left the road for a moment to graze over 'Nancy's' small, frail body. "You look like you're sixteen."
"I'm nineteen!" she denied hotly.
"Could have fooled me," Max said. Of course, she might have been lying again.
"And what about you?" 'Nancy' inquired. "How old are you, like, thirty-six?" Max would have laughed, but he never laughed anymore. He attempted a smile, however.
"It's the mustache," he told her. "It makes me looke older than twenty-three." He glanced back at her for a moment. "If you're nineteen, you should be a freshman in college. Where do you go?" 'Nancy' snorted.
"You kidding? I'm not smart enough for college," she said. Her eyes never left the window as she spoke. "If you're twenty-three, you should have graduated last year. Where did you go?"
"I went to Princeton, but I didn't graduate," he said. "I was Ivy League material, though." 'Nancy' whirled her head around to look at Max.
"You went to Princeton?" she exclaimed incredulously.
"Yeah…what, you didn't think I looked smart enough for Princeton?"
"No, no, I just…wasn't expecting that," 'Nancy' stammered. She looked like she wanted to ask something else as well, and she hesitated before doing so. "Uh…why didn't you graduate, if you don't mind me asking?"
"I dropped out around Thanksgiving of my sophomore year," Max answered.
"How come?"
"Eh…college wasn't really for me," he replied. There was a short silence.
"Do you ever regret dropping out?" she asked. Max chewed on that for a bit.
"Sometimes," he finally replied, bracing himself for the question he knew she would ask next.
"Why?" There it was. Max sighed.
"Because if I hadn't dropped out, Uncle Sam would never have come after me." 'Nancy' looked at him with a hint of repsect.
"You were drafted?" she asked. Max nodded. There was silence as 'Nancy' played with the straps on her backpack.
"My father is a World War II vet," she murmured finally. "He doesn't really like to talk about it, though."
"I don't like talking about Vietnam, either," Max admitted. 'Nancy' looked sideways at him yet again.
"Then why'd you bring it up?" she asked. Max thought about that as he changed lanes.
"Because," he said. "I figured maybe if I was truthful with you, I'd get some honesty in return." 'Nancy' looked at him for a moment. "For example," Max began. "My name's not really George."
"My name's not really Nancy," the girl replied softly, avoiding Max's eyes.
"I know," Max said. The girl looked at him.
"How could you tell?" she asked.
"Next time you want to lie about your name, don't hesitate before you say it," Max told her. The girl nodded shamefacedly. "Now, let's try this again," Max continued. They came to a red light, so he stopped the car and stuck out his hand. "I'm Max Carrigan," he introduced himself. After only the slightest hesitation, the girl gave him a small smile and took his hand.
"Magil," she said. Max glanced at her, confusedly.
"…Magil?"
"It's a family name. Everyone calls me Maggie, though" she told him. Max changed his opinion about her from earlier. He was in a somewhat better mood, and could therefore see past her dirty appearance. Max decided that when clean, Maggie could be very pretty-beautiful, even-especially when she smiled.
"So, no last name then?" he asked.
"Hey, be glad you got my real first name," she told him, smirking.
"Are you really nineteen?" Max asked her.
"Yes, actually. I was telling the truth about that," Maggie said. "You really twenty-three?"
"Yes, ma'am," Max replied as the light turned green. They rode in silence for a while as the rain continued to pelt the roof of the car. "God, I hate the rain," Max complained.
"I like it, usually," Maggie spoke up, looking out the window again. "I just don't like it at night. It makes everything seem foreboding and spooky, but during the day, it's….well, it just seems happier."
"Rain sucks, no matter what time of day or night it is," Max disagreed. Maggie grinned.
"That's what a lot of people think," she said. She began to sing then.
"If the rain comes, they run and hide their heads
They might as well be dead
If the rain comes, if the rain comes."
"Pretty much," Max agreed.
"When the sun shines, they slip into the shade
And sip their lemonade
When the sun shines, when the sun shines," Maggie continued. Max drove on as he contemplated what Maggie was singing.
"Ra-ain, I don't mind
Shi-ine, the weather's fine."
"People like sunny days better than rainy days," Max said. "Sunny days don't get people wet."
"But there are so many beautiful things about rain, too!" Maggie argued. "It brings life!"
"Are you a hippie?" Max couldn't help asking. Maggie made a face.
"Hardly," she replied, but she continued to sing.
"I can show you that when it starts to rain
Everything's the same
I can show you, I can show you."
Max sang along in harmony."When the rain comes down, when the rain comes down. "
"Hey, stop the car for a second," Maggie said suddenly.
"You ready to get out?" Max asked hopefully. He pulled over to the curb and parked.
"No, not yet," Maggie said, letting herself out of the car. She appeared on Max's side soon after and pulled him out into the rain.
"What are you doing?" he asked, getting annoyed again.
"Showing you that everything's the same when it rains!" she told him.
"How is standing here showing me that?" Max was confused.
"Can you hear me when it rains and shines?
It's just a state of mind
Can you hear me, can you hear me?" Maggie sang, pulling Max along the sidewalk, splashing into puddles. Max didn't splash, but he did sing harmony again.
"When it rains and shines, when it rains and shines."
"Hey," Maggie stopped suddenly and spotted a phone booth a few feet away. "Let me make a call really quick. Go wait in the taxi, okay?"
"…Yeah, sure," Max said, glad to get out of the rain. Maggie left his side and hurried toward the phone booth, making sure her bag was still securely on her shoulders and the magazine article still securely in her pocket. Once inside the booth, she pulled out some coins to make the call. A sleepy voice answered the phone.
"Hello?" it said, and yawned.
"Um, hi," Maggie said quietly. "I'm really sorry to be calling so late, but I'm calling about the room for rent?" After a couple minutes of conversation, Maggie hung up the phone. The woman who'd answered the phone-Sadie-had OK'd Maggie's request to live with them, and Maggie had told her that she'd be arriving shortly. However, when she went back outside to tell Max where she wanted to go, he and the cab were gone. Maggie stood there in the rain, stranded all alone in a city she didn't know.
"That bastard," she muttered, as she made her way back to the phone to tell Sadie that she'd be coming later than expected.
---
Max felt a little bad about leaving Maggie alone, but at least he didn't have to deal with her and her "when it rains and shines" crap anymore. She had opened his eyes a little, though, and for some reason, he was now in a better mood. Talking to her-annoying as it may have been-cleared his mind, somehow. He guessed listening to someone else talk for a while had helped him calm down. Now, he drove back to the tenant house to apologize to his sister.
And he thanked God that he was rid of Maggie.
FJ: All right, that's the end of the first revised chapter. Oh, and in case you guys are wondering about the song, here's how I think:
Basically, in "Across The Universe", people broke out in song every couple minutes, and they all treated it as if it was a normal thing. Okay, there's an explanation, just in case you were confused about Maggie's random little song about rain.
Anyway…I hope you liked the first chapter! Tell me what you thought of it in review form, and I'll see you at the next update!