Part Two

Prompt #3: Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can't see.
~ The Polar Express

"You," Elizabeth accused, shuddered, winced.

When she had heard her doorbell ring moments before, she had been excited. Maybe it was the UPS man running late with a package for her. Perhaps it was a warm-hearted, festive caroler looking to spread their holiday cheer. And it could have even been one of her friends dropping by to share a mug of eggnog and a couple of sugar cookies. So, in her rush to let in her guest – whoever they might be, Elizabeth had eagerly left her task of folding laundry, rushing to the living room where her front door was located.

For someone who was perpetually single and childless, her home was quite large, but it was a family heirloom, a house which had been passed down from generation to generation over the years. When her Grandmother, Audrey, had passed away earlier in the year, she had been surprised to find out that she had inherited the Hardy home. Surprise, though, had quickly bled into appreciation and intimidation, two things that did not blend well together – appreciation because her grandmother had thought so highly of her and because it really was a beautiful, historic house and intimidation because she was going to be responsible for protecting and preserving something that was so important to her entire family.

It was lonely, though – living alone in the legendary Hardy residence. At least while she was still in California, being by herself had not seemed as pathetic. There, instead of a house meant for a family, she had resided in a small, one bedroom apartment, and, there, instead of being surrounded on all sides by boisterous, loving families, her neighbors had been other working singles, people who were just as lonely as she was, and, because of that fact, they, in a way, had somewhat alleviated one another's loneliness.

But craving company or not, the man standing before her was the very last person Elizabeth wanted to see. In fact, she would have preferred her guest to be a door-to-door salesman, a Jehovah's Witness, or even her boss – people no one ever wanted to come around knocking. But, instead, she got stuck with Mr. Personality – the rudest, most conceited, most spiteful guy she had ever met (and she had lived through having to greet all of her sister Sarah's dates in high school), and she didn't even know who the jerk was... not that she really wanted to be on a first name basis with the guy.

"If you're here because you haven't reached your insult quota for the day, thanks but no thanks. You can take your one-man asshole show somewhere else, buddy."

"Just... shut up," he ordered her in response.

"Excuse me," Elizabeth challenged in return, widening her stance, narrowing her gaze, and fisting her hands upon her hips. "Where the hell do you get off, coming to my home and telling me to be quiet... except, wait! You couldn't even be that polite. No, you had to tell me shut up."

The stranger ground hit teeth together. She hoped it was because he had a hemorrhoid and was in pain, but she was pretty sure it was because she pushed his buttons just as much as he pounded on hers. "Look, this is the last place I want to be..."

"Well, that makes two of us, because it's the last place I want you to be right now, too, so why don't you just turn around, go back to your precious motorcycle, and drive away, preferably on the wrong side of the road, and forget that you know where I live." Her own words triggered a scary thought for Elizabeth. "Wait a second! Just how exactly do you know where I live?"

The jerk shrugged, rolling his eyes... as though she were asking him a stupid question with an obvious answer. "I got your license plate number last night so that I could track you down if there was anything wrong with my bike."

She frowned, not because his answer didn't make sense or because it was creepy but because it was logical. However, she certainly wasn't going to admit that to the man standing across from her, still blocking her doorway and letting all the warm air skip right on outside. "How resourceful of you, but do you think that you could manage to close the door? Sheesh, were you born in a barn?"

As he did what he was told – a shocking feat in and of itself, the stranger replied, "I don't remember where I was born, but I assume it was in a hospital like everyone else. Why?"

Slack jawed, wide eyed, Elizabeth starred at him. Talk about literal! But he wasn't joking. In fact, he was perfectly serious in his response. Finally, she said, "never mind, there, Rain Man."

Her verbal sparring partner tossed his arms up in the arm. "You make absolutely no sense whatsoever!"

"Of course I don't. I'm not a mint."

"Uh," the jerk groaned, stomping closer to her, but, for every step that he took in her direction, Elizabeth also took a step backwards. Eventually, though, she ran out of room, and she ended up with her back to a wall and his looming figure crowding her, the couch to his right and the tree to his left. Once they were stationary once again, he complained, "this – trying to talk to you – is pointless, so here." And, with that, he shoved a piece of paper into her fisted hand, prying open her fingers and depositing what appeared to be a check into her grasp before she even realized that he was touching her. "Take this."

"What is it?"

"It's a blank check. For your car. Fix it."

She could have asked him where his sudden concern had come from (and she still planned to), and she could have argued with his autocratic manner (and she definitely would later), but, first, Elizabeth had to focus on just a single word of his three sentence statement. "Did you just say blank?"

"Yes."

Exploding, she yelled, "are you stupid? Have you never seen the movie Blank Check. I mean, sure, it's a kid's movie, and it's certainly no shining example of cinematic achievement, but, still! Hello, no one gives a stranger a blank check."

"Do you want the money or not," he returned, ignoring all her charges against his intelligence and common sense.

Immediately, she replied, "no, I don't want your charity." Lifting her hand up and shoving the check against his leather covered chest, she waited... and waited... and waited some more for the guy to take the scrap of paper back from her, and, when he wouldn't, she just allowed it to flutter to the floor, instantaneously forgotten in their battle of wills.

"But you were complaining about how much it was going to cost you to fix your car."

"Yeah, and so would anyone else in my position, but that does not mean that I was jockeying for a handout... especially from someone like you."

The stranger bristled. Though he didn't seem insulted, he did seem suddenly wary of her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you treated me like crap last night. I was scared, and upset, and you came up and, first, accused me of being drunk, and then, when you realized that I was perfectly sober, you told me that I was crazy. And let's not forget your Pièce de résistance: you left me out in the middle of the nowhere at night with a busted car, a mysterious jaywalker who could have been a mass murder for all you knew, and no cell phone."

"I never saw anybody, and how the hell was I supposed to know you didn't have a cell phone?"

"That's the part you focus on," Elizabeth screamed back at him. Shaking she was so livid, she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Once she felt as though she had a handle once more upon her temper, she looked back up at the guy before her. "Why are you here?"

He answered her question like she was a child with severe learning disabilities. "To give you the check."

"Why, though," she persisted.

Shuffling his boot clad feet, pinching the bridge of his nose, and avoiding her eyes, he mumbled, "because my best friend told me to."

Elizabeth couldn't help it; she laughed. "You – the biggest asshole I have ever met in my entire life – came here because someone told you to? Oh, that's priceless."

"Hey, you have no idea what that woman is like," he said in response, raising his own voice. "She's persistent, and loud, and sometimes even self-righteous. She's insane!"

"Oh, you mean like me?"

Although she meant for it to be a pointed, accusatory remark, the man across from her simply contemplated the statement for the span of about a second and then nodded his head in agreement. "Now that you mention it, yeah, the two of you are quite a bit alike. Huh."

"Oh, that's it," Elizabeth exploded. Pushing against the solid wall of his chest, she tried to dislodge the stranger from her presence. With every shove, though, he simply sidestepped her. Nevertheless, she followed, yelling the entire time. "Get out of my house. Stay out of my life. If you ever see me again, turn around and walk – no, run – the other way. In fact, forget that you ever met me at all, because, let me tell you, I'd have my entire mind erased if it meant exorcising you from my memory. You have to be the most hateful, chauvinistic, despica... Oh my god!"

In horror, she watched as her mammoth seven foot, completely decorated tree fell backwards, the ogre before her stepping into it and knocking it over. However, before she could adjust to the sounds of antique glass ornaments shattering, her magnificent white pine tree practically combusted, its entire length being destroyed by flames almost instantaneously.

In the back of her mind, she heard the stranger yelling at her – telling her to call for help, to get away from the fire, to snap the hell out of it already, but Elizabeth couldn't move. Her mind was simply too stuck upon the fact that her Christmas tree had burnt and it was catching her grandmother's beloved living room on fire. But how? Oh, she knew that Christmas trees were fire hazards, but her wiring was up to date, all her lights had been new that year, and there wasn't even a fire lit in the room's hearth. There was absolutely no logical reason for the flames licking ever closer towards her sofa, her wooden floors, the wrapped presents she had so artfully arranged beneath her tree. In fact, a part of her was even questioning if her tree had somehow been moved closer to the couch. She could have sworn that it had been further away, closer to the corner of the room, but trees didn't have legs, and she had been the only person in her house all day long... right?

Distracting her from her thoughts, she felt two strong, rough hands grab ahold of her shoulders, pushing her backwards and out of the way. Shaking her head, she cleared her cloudy mind only to realize that the fire had been put out, and the man who was so carelessly moving her was coatless. Once they stopped their retreat, she looked up and asked, "where's your leather jacket? Don't think that you're staying long enough to get comfortable, buddy!"

"My coat is on your floor, burnt... along with your tree, because I had to use it to put out your fire."

"Hey, you were the one who didn't watch where you were going, you were the one who knocked my tree over in the first place," she countered. "There wouldn't have been a fire in the first place if you wouldn't have been such a damn klutz."

"No, there wouldn't have been a fire if you wouldn't have had a candle lit next to your Christmas tree."

Confusion shook her to the core, and Elizabeth literally rocked back on her feet as though she had been physically attacked. "What are you talking about? I didn't put a candle next to my tree, and I certainly didn't light one either."

The stranger smirked. "Sure you didn't, Elizabeth." Shaking his head in dismissal, in frustration, he simply turned around and walked out of her house.

She tried to call after him, to thank him for putting out the fire and sacrificing his jacket to do so even if she knew for a fact that the blaze wasn't her fault and that his big, lumbering body was partly responsible for the accident, but he refused to listen to her and simply ignored her efforts. Not that she was sad to see him leave, but, truth be told, she did feel somewhat bad about how she had treated him. Heavy handed or not, the fact that he had made the gesture to help her out wasn't entirely... evil. And, sure, the guy was still rude, mean, and impossibly arrogant... and oh so not in a good way, but her house was still standing, and she was still alive. That counted... for something. She just wasn't sure what yet.

Picking up the scrap of paper on the floor – the stranger's check which he had never picked back up, Elizabeth looked down to see what the man's name was.

Jason Morgan.

Pocketing the check, she turned and headed for the kitchen where she kept her cleaning supplies. She had a living room to right and amends to make. She'd start with the easier of the two first, though.