A/N: I have had this on my computer for probably a year now. I wrote this at the same time I wrote the first chapter of 'The Friend'. 'The Friend' won out being posted first and then being worked on. This was supposed to be posted at the same time, but I thought both stories would be better if worked on separately. One story fully focused on at a time. I am not 100% happy with it, but figured I would post it just to see how people felt about it. This most likely will not be updated for a very long time because 'The Friend' is still being written and has a companion piece planned. Like I said, I mainly just want to see how people react to this idea. I will most likely come back to it, one day.
Hope you enjoy it!
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Chapter 1
It was that time of year again when all of the forensic pathologists met up for a yearly conference and talked shop. This year it was being held in Toronto, which both pleased and disappointed Holly. It allowed for a quick escape and the comfort of sleeping in her own bed. At the same time it was Toronto. She had lived there for three years. All the magic that the city once held when she first moved there from Vancouver had long diminished. Holly did not take vacations. These conferences were the closets she got to a vacation. So really she wouldn't have minded if it was held somewhere in the states, like Florida. Where she could go hiking in warm weather or maybe even swim outside. Instead she was stuck in Toronto, where the seasons were transitioning into Fall. The air was crisp and Holly often found herself in need of a light jacket that she often forgot to bring.
The conference did not hold much more interest than the location it was being held at. There were a few new techniques for analyzing tissue samples and gadgets for scanning bones that had drawn the pathologist's attention. Those topics only made-up the first half of the day though. The afternoons and evenings were reserved for dinners and social events to mingle and talk with others pathologists. It was the same people that were there every year. People drawn to the profession were not always the most socially adept people. Holly often found herself bored or creeped out by her colleagues. After five days of presentations and strange social interactions, Holly had enough. Any interest in the techniques and gadgets significantly dampened by the presence of her colleagues. That's why Holly had snuck out halfway through the social happy hour that was taking place in the conference center's main ballroom. All the other rooms were full of people having lengthy discussions, and since Holly didn't feel like spending the rest of the night in the ladies bathroom, she found herself on the roof. She planned on spending the next few hours until her boss would allow her to leave there.
For once she didn't mind the slight chill of the fall air that easily slipped through the thin material of her dress pants and shirt. The roof gave her a new view of the city. Allowing her to take in the beauty of the city's silhouette, outlined by the low hanging sun. All of the buildings seemed to shine as if made of jewels. She took in the neighborhood below, which was fairly quant. The neighborhood was made of brimstones full of well-dressed executives and small families just starting to blossom.
Next she scanned the actual roof, taking in all the architectural details. It was an old building that at one time might have been a church, but had long ago been converted into a conference center for the local hotel. Holly had an appreciation for art. She found the works people could craft from their imaginations amazing. She could only create things from clues already given to her to piece together. So she let her eyes roam over the stone edges, the stone statues at the corners, the remaining panes of stain glass, and… Holly squinted and adjusted her glasses, not believing her eyes. A burly man with a ski mask was moving a chisel around the edge of a pane of stain glass depicting an archangel, trying to carefully remove it. He even had a thick padded blanket at his feet to wrap it in once it was free.
So that was actually happening. Holly was witnessing a crime right in front of her. Instead of using the fully charged cell phone in her pocket to call the cops or go back inside to get someone to help her, she did the one thing she was taught never to do. She made her presence very well known.
"Hey! What are you doing?"
Holly's voice was surprisingly strong, minus the knots her stomach was quickly tying its self into. At first she wasn't even sure the man heard her and was about to speak up again, even taking a step forward. That's when he turned. He spared one moment to make sure the window he was working on wouldn't fall and break and then he was quickly approaching Holly. His face was contorted in anger.
Holly made her second mistake of the night. She froze for a good ten seconds. Which gave the robber just enough time to close the distance between them to a mere three feet. Then instead of turning to the door she used to get on the roof, Holly ran to the other end of the roof, past the door. She miscalculated how fast the man chasing her was and completely lost all sense of direction, trapping herself in a corner. What was probably once a bell tower was on one side of her and an air conditioning unit that went up to her waist was on the other side. Holly quickly placed her hands on the top of the air conditioning unit, ready to hoist herself over it, when big strong hands grabbed her by the arms and thrust her into the brink wall of the tower.
Holly let out a grunt at the force. Her arms were held tightly against her back as the man leaned into her, pinning her to the wall. The muscles of her arms were screaming out in pain. All of the adrenaline coursing through her veins came out in erratic breaths, not being used for any physical exertion. Holly could feel her blood rushing through her body.
"Did you call the cops?" A gruff voice asked. Holly felt the man's hot breath against her neck. It made her skin crawl.
"No." She meekly choked out.
He shifted his weight off of her only to push her roughly back into the wall again. Her glasses went askew and the brick bit into her skin.
"Don't lie to me!"
"I'm not! I swear!" She franticly replied.
She felt his weight shift off her again. Holly squinted her eyes closed, preparing her for another harsher shove into the wall, but in never came. Instead there was a thumping noise and a soft, clearly feminine, snarky voice.
"God, guys can be so stupid sometimes. Did she have a phone? No. No cops then. Sometimes they just make it so easy."
The voice was followed by rustling and the sound of munching. Holly slowly opened one eye and then the other, realizing no one was holding her arms. There was a dark blurry shape before her where the munching sounds were coming from. She pushed her glasses back into place and tentively turned to the person. Holly took in the woman before her. The woman was perched, her legs crossed Indian style, on the air conditioning unit. She was dressed in head to toe black, casually eating cheese puffs from a lunchbox that had a few drops of blood on it. Most of the woman's face was obscured by a large pair of sunglasses that laid flat against her face and disappeared under a black beanie that covered the woman's hair and ears. The only other part of the woman, besides her neck and lower face, visible was a sliver of pale skin that peeked out between the woman's black hoody and leather gloves as she placed cheese puffs past soft plump pink lips.
Holly found her eyes tracing over the woman's sharp jaw line and strong cheekbones. She wasn't sure what was underneath the other woman's glasses or hat, but if the hidden features matched that exquisite jawline Holly was sure she'd be completely taken with the stranger. Holly found herself very obviously staring at the woman's lips. She had the strangest longing to remove the orange cheese dust that was accumulating on them with her mouth. Holly never ate processed food. She even despised it, making her longing truly strange.
The woman in black must have noticed Holly's rather thorough examination of her lips because she took the bag of cheese puffs from the blood splattered lunchbox. She took a second to look at the bag of the processed cheesy snack in her hand, contemplating, before sighing and reluctantly pointing the open end of the bag towards Holly.
"Want one?"
Holly just stared at the bag before her, her surroundings and previous situation coming back to her. For the first time Holly's eyes wondered to the unconscious man that laid on the ground between them, slightly in shock.
"You okay Doc?"
Holly's eyes refocused to the face of the conscious stranger before her, her brows furrowing at the woman's question. The woman before her cocked a perfectly shaped eyebrow at her confusion.
Instead of asking the obvious question of 'What happened', Holly asked, "How did you know I was a doctor?"
The woman smirked, "Well I figured you were with all the nerds at the conference… And I found this." The woman placed the bag of cheese puffs in her lap and held up Holly's badge for the conference. Holly instinctively reached to the bottom of her shirt, where it had been clipped, to confirm it was in fact hers, even though it clearly had her name written on it with a picture of her in the corner.
"Oh, thanks." Holly grabbed the badge from the woman's hand, even though it wasn't offered.
The woman didn't seem to mind, continuing to eat her snack as Holly clipped the badge back to the bottom of her shirt.
"Is that sanitary?" Holly asked, eyeing the lunch box splattered in blood that had once held the cheese puffs the other woman was shoveling into her mouth.
"What?"
"Well bodily fluids are not sanitary. He could have any number of viruses or illnesses that could be transferred through blood. Which is splattered all over the side of your lunchbox. If it's not sealed correctly, you could contract a number of things. Such as-"
Holly was about to list a bunch of diseases and their symptoms when the woman stopped her.
"Woah! Don't hurt yourself nerd. It's completely sanitary. It's weighted at the bottom to be used as a weapon, but has just enough space for snacks and has a vacuum seal. So no worries Doc completely safe. It wouldn't be cool if it wasn't functional." She shrugged, looking at Holly like it was the most obvious thing.
"Cheese puff?" This time Holly tentatively took one. She looked it over as if it was an alien species before popping the unnaturally orange snack in her mouth and slowly chewed. The woman laughed at her reaction to the snack.
"So… um, what happened?" Holly glanced down at the unconscious man.
"Well I was just hanging out being me. You know, awesome. I saw Butch Cassidy here," She kicked the man who was laying on the ground in the shoulder. "with you shoved up against the wall. So I hit him in the back of the head with my lunch box. Here we are." Holly was almost positive the woman winked at her, but couldn't see anything beyond the dark lenses of her sunglasses.
"So you just hang out on the top of roofs?" She fired back, clearly amused.
The woman shrugged as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "Sometimes. When I feel like it."
Holly's signature lopsided smile found its self making a home on her face.
"Do you have a name? Or should I just think of you as the woman who likes cheese puffs."
The woman shoved a few more cheese puffs into her mouth. She talked around them. "Oooh so you're going to be thinking about me now?" Holly sputtered slightly. The woman quickly put her out of her misery. "You can just call me 'Lunchbox'." The woman smirked.
Holly nervously adjusted her glasses, her face heating up at the comment. "Is that your official name?"
"For the moment. It's kind of a new thing." The woman continued to eat cheese puffs in between questions.
"So are you some sort of superhero?"
"I thought that was kind of obvious, nerd."
"Oh, well you're not dressed in costume."
The hero scoffed, "Doc, I have the best costume. No one is ever looking for a superhero dressed like an everyday person. It's stealthy."
"You also look like a robber."
"Please, Holly, no one dressed like me robs anything during the daylight. It's common sense." She paused and looked down at the unconscious man. "Well except Cassidy here."
Holly's brows furrowed in question, "How did you know my name?"
"Geesh for a doctor you're a little slow. I saw your badge."
She blushed slightly at the woman's comment. "Oh, yeah." She adjusted her glasses again. "So when is he going to wake up?"
Lunchbox poked the man with the toe of her combat boot, he moaned slightly, but didn't move. She shrugged, "We have a few minutes."
They stayed in silence for a few seconds, the only sound breaking the silence was the munching of cheese puffs. Then Lunchbox shifted herself forward a little. Holly wasn't sure what the etiquette was. Should she leave now? Did she stay until this Lunchbox woman did? If she was being honest, she liked the other woman's company. She didn't want to leave. There was something captivating about the woman in black. She certainly was stunning, Holly couldn't keep her eyes off of her and she could feel eyes taking her in as well, even though she couldn't see them. It was getting awkward though and Holly really felt the need to curl up in her bed with a glass of wine and a nice nature documentary, after the events of the last half hour.
Before she could decide on what she was going to do, Lunchbox piped up again.
"So do you believe me?"
"What?"
"Do you believe I'm a superhero of sorts?"
"Um… Sure?" Holly put her hands in her back pants pockets before sparing a glance at the still unconscious man between them. "You certainly are affective."
"I'm completely official. I even have a tag line."
Holly looked skeptically at the woman.
Lunchbox cleared her throat, karate chopping the air and kicking the man at her feet as she spoke. "I'll take you out for lunch."
"Are you asking me out?" Holly smirked.
The other woman's eyebrows shot up to her hair line and her cheeks flushed a light pink. If Holly could see her eyes, she was sure they would be blown wide. She was quick to compose herself.
"You wish!" She looked away, searching her snack bag for more cheese puffs that she could shove in her mouth. Obviously not finding any, the woman pouted adorably before crumpling up the bag and tossing it on the ground. It got stuck in the crook of the robbers arm, like a teddy bear. Lunchbox didn't seem to notice, securing the lid of her lunch box and hoping off the top of the air conditioning unit.
"Well it's been fun nerd, but I'm out of cheese puffs and you probably have nerdy things to do. So Iet's get down from here and we can go our separate ways."
The woman walked off towards a ladder hanging off the side of the roof. She paused after a few minutes, noting the doctor wasn't following her. She turned back from where she walked from, Holly was staring at the unconscious thief on the ground.
"Don't worry about him. There are cameras up here and I'll call the cops and tip them off on where they can find him as soon as we are far enough away. He'll be spending the next few days in a nice comfy jail cell." Lunchbox smiled, proud of herself, but Holly still wouldn't move.
"You littered."
The woman clad in black took a step forward, not quite believing what Holly just said.
"What?"
"You littered, which is a crime. If you are a superhero you wouldn't break the law. You wouldn't litter."
"You're not serious are you?" Holly certainly looked serious though. Her face set and her eyes challenging the stranger.
She huffed before stalking back towards Holly and picking up the bag, crumbling it up and shoving it in the front pocket of her black skinny jeans. The whole time she was mumbling something about 'it being the last time she helped anyone… Especially not cute doctors… Ungrateful people.' Once she was done, she stopped in front of Holly.
"Happy?"
She gave the woman a lopsided smile and a kiss on the cheek. "Yes."
She couldn't help but giggle as she walked away, red quickly covering the other woman's cheeks, who seemed momentarily frozen in place. She seemed to quickly snap out of it with the shake of her head and quickly caught up to Holly. They each went down the ladder. On the ground, they said awkward goodbyes and headed off in separate directions. Holly couldn't help but throw one last glance at the woman who had saved her, but when she did the woman was already gone.