A/N: I couldn't get this out of my head until I wrote it down. Blame it on a late night and too much coffee. No beta, so all the mistakes are mine.
Summary: For the first time she wishes she could go back to before, then none of this would matter.
Spoilers: Through "Friday Night"
Disclaimer: Not mine.
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They walk in silence and it is awkward. It was never like this before.
But things are different now.
He knows all her secrets, or at least he used to. She is the one person he could be himself around; or at least she used to be.
They are still the same people, but not really.
Everything changes.
For the first time she wishes she could go back to before, then none of this would matter.
But it does matter, because everything is different now.
The city fades behind them as they wonder further into the inter sanctum. It's colder here. She vaguely remembers summers when the chill against her skin was welcome. But it's November, not August and the cold is the wet, heavy kind that works it's way into your bones. Now it sends tendrils of discomfort into her fingers, soon that pain will spread.
Shadows pool around an intricately woven maze of iron works and piping. They walk side by side until the passages become too narrow. As the monotone darkness of their surroundings fades from gray to not quite black he leads her instinctively through the labyrinth. Almost as if by memory.
Not everything changes. The sewers are still the sewers.
The ground is almost dry. They sit anyway, leaning against the convex curve of a cement pipe. Their initials are still there, in blue permanent marker that seems luminous in the gloom; like spheres thrown into the night sky. The childlike quality of their handwriting born of another time; decades or eons ago.
Before.
Cold from the concrete is seeping through her leather jacket and she wonders how he's not shivering, seeing how he's still wearing the dress clothes from his date. His shoes are ruined, muddy and soaked.
They buried his mother the last time she saw him in a tie. Maybe he's too numb to remember to be cold.
"What are we doing here?" The damp was starting to work its way into her brain, like an ice-cream headache that refused to dissipate.
"I had to get out of there before Mrs. G. started getting all motherly. You'd rather be home?"
She shoots him a look that says even if they are rhetorical, don't ask stupid questions and leans her head back, closing her eyes. The world swims for a moment and she thinks that she can feel the pre-dawn precipitation forming droplets like tears on her cheeks.
He'll speak eventually. Or not. She can wait either way.
His hands twitch. He wants to be twisting wire or breaking plastic bits. She reaches into the depths of her coat and hands him two coffee stirrers and the flier from the movies. He folds and tears, bends and reforms. He is calmer now.
They've been sitting for what could be an hour but feels more like days. She adjusts her legs because her left foot is starting to fall asleep. The sensation of pins and needles keeping her more alert that she would like to be. There is a distant, constant sound. Drops of water striking metal. An angry, accusatory plink.
"She doesn't understand. Jane." He's concentrating on folding a tiny scrap of paper into a minute triangle.
"She thinks she does, that's all that matters. You're never going to be able to explain it. "
She doesn't open her eyes. She has a fleeting thought about them flash freezing in their sockets if she opened her eyes right now. She has another about if that's even possible.
He nudges her arm and she looks at him. No ice crystals form.
"She loves you, you know." He has transformed the junk from her pocket into an intricate, epic paper boat. With a tiny red straw mast. He offers it to her and she knows this means he loves her too.
"Yeah."
She is watching the constellations make their path across they sky. She remembers him naming them for her from this very spot.
Not everything changes.
The stars are constant. At least until they burn out.
Death is constant. At least until you start to forget.
"Think we should all ditch school Monday? You know, as a memorial." Her stiff fingers stroke the bow of the tiny nautical treasure.
"Think Luke would skip class?"
She only shrugs. Artists train themselves to see the details others don't pick up on.
Blackness fades to a rich purple, like a bruise across the horizon. She stands and wills the sinew in her bones not to snap. Morning is approaching bringing a blaring sunrise.
They retrace their steps in silence. But it is no longer strange.
She can't remember the last time they were here. Can't remember why they simply stopped. She remembers feeling like this was the only place that brought her peace. But that wasn't true anymore.
Everything changes.
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fin.