Circles
Summary: Weiss drives Sydney home from work, and two hours later, she finally realizes that they had been going in circles. Set season three, at the end of the episode where Vaughn wakes up after being stabbed by Syd. I can't remember what it's called.
"Are you okay?" Weiss asked in concern as Sydney caught up to him again, still without her jacket. "What happened to your jacket?"
"Oh, I kind of caught Vaughn and Lauren at the wrong moment," she replied nonchalantly, trying not to sound as upset as she felt. "I can get it tomorrow."
Weiss raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. "Hey," he suddenly asked. "What happened to the blue sports car I saw you in the other day? Not everybody's dad buy them twenty thousand dollar cars, you know."
She shook her head as she got into his car, as amused by her dad's behavior as Weiss was. "It was...a welcome-back present. He was excited. Yes, believe it or not, he does have emotions."
He grinned, starting the engines. "We all were, Syd, but not everyone shows excitement by splurging what's like half my savings."
Sydney knew that his savings were far more than that, but chose not to pick him up on it. "As for why I need a lift, I ran down to the bus stop today instead of driving. It was a little spontaneous, now that you think about it."
"Well, spontaneous is good for you sometimes," Weiss replied. "Then again, spontaneous is what started me dating the worst possible girl in freshman year."
"Here we go again," Syd said with a grin, rolling her eyes mockingly. She loved Weiss for being able to cheer her up even when she was feeling her worst. It was a dorky kind of amusement, but a fulfilling one all the same.
Weiss launched into his story about the freshman girlfriend, and Sydney tried to drown out everything else. She could no longer drown herself in work when she had emotional problems – nowadays, her work had turned into emotional chaos. She relied instead on the emotional stability her remaining friends provided. It was comfort, though outside her normal comfort zone.
"What about you Syd, don't you have any embarrassing high school dating experiences?"
Sydney jerked out of the comfortable daze she'd gotten herself into. "Me? No, not really. I didn't date much during high school, to tell you the truth. I don't really have good luck with guys."
"Oh, c'mon," Weiss prodded. "That kind of looks, and you're trying to tell me that you didn't date much?"
"Oh, there was one. Or maybe three." She smiled. "None of them really made an impression, though."
"Okay, am I the only one who makes a fool of himself around the opposite sex? There's gotta be something."
Syd tilted her head, considering. "Well, there was this one guy who was my boyfriend one day and married to someone else the next." It was intended as a joke, but only came out bitter.
It took Weiss no time to figure out what she was getting at, and why she sounded heartbroken. "I'm so sorry, Sydney. You know that's not what I meant."
"Yeah, I do. It's okay. I'm just...I need to stop feeling sorry for myself. I need to sort this out." Maybe if she kept trying to solve problems, they would actually disappear in time.
Their conversation continued, ranging from work to home life to more high school crushes. It was Sydney's first yawn that brought to her attention just how tired she was, and how late it must be.
"Weiss?" she asked, slightly hesitant to break the content stream of conversation. "It's been two hours. I came to work on the bus and it only took half an hour. Are we going around in circles?"
Weiss looked insulted that she would even ask. "Of course not. There's a lot of traffic, that's all. I've lived in that house for seven years, you think I wouldn't know how to get there?"
Traffic at night on a Tuesday seemed a little unreasonable to Sydney, but she didn't voice that concern aloud. She was certain Weiss knew the way home. And surely enough, Weiss had deposited her in front of her house only five minutes later.
"Syd?" he asked, a little uncertain. She turned to face him, curiosity written all over her face.
"When I said there was traffic, I lied. We actually were going around in circles. I just...we were having a really nice conversation. And..."
"I know, Weiss. I know." She smiled, and in that moment a perfect understanding came between them. Leaning in, Sydney pecked his cheek gently. "Good night."
"Good night." He watched her disappearing back with a sense of nostalgia, for whatever reason. "This definitely goes down as a bad experience with the opposite sex."