Title: Fire and Ice and Home Town Thoughts
Author: MelWil
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own her. I make no money.
Archive: Just let me know where.
Feedback: Is kalos - lina_wilson@hotmail.com
Summary: "Back home the water was freezing."
Author's note: So I get this CD from Christine, and I owe her a number of stories. This story belongs to track 12, 'Home' by Halogen.

~*~

She was alone, the only one on the wide stretch of beach. Just her, the sand and an ocean slapping against it, over and over again. Just her, the sand, an ocean and a sun dropping slowly out of view. Fire spreading across the sky.

It was chilly and she'd removed the heavy blanket she kept in the car. She wrapped it around her and it pulled on her shoulders.

Back home the water would be freezing. The pools that were scattered around the city would be blocks of ice. She'd gone ice skating on them once. Sam showed up at her door, ice skates in hand and a smile on his face.

Sam had a Californian smile, she decided.

Her car was parked sideways in the parking lot. It wasn't really her car, just a rental she'd picked up at the airport. Her car was back home with most of her belongings. She needed to have it all shipped across the country. Maybe Donna (was Donna still in D.C?) could organise that for her, save her a cross country trip. She'd trust Donna.

She'd collected the car in L.A. and just driven north. Watched the sun make its downward sweep as she wove her way up the old highway. She told herself that she was doing this because she wanted to see her parents. She knew that she was doing this to forget about what she'd left behind.

This was a road her family travelled all the time when she was a kid. They would pile the car high with luggage and toys and stuff for the beach. She would scramble into the backseat, bouncing impatiently as Michael was strapped into his booster seat. Then they would make their way down the highway, singing all the old songs her parents knew. It would be holidays and they couldn't wait for the beach and the tours of old Hollywood homes.

There wasn't as much smog in L.A. when she was a kid.

There wasn't a voice inside her telling her that California wasn't really her home anymore. Telling her that her place was back on the other side of the country, where the noble and the corrupt ruled side by side. A place where she would face an unruly mob nine times out of ten and think that it was perfectly normal. A place where her closest friends remained, even if they weren't really talking to her at the moment.

She wasn't sure at what point she had lost her home.