"Rose, you look like you've got a lot on your mind." Thea said leaning against Jen's motorcycle.
"Thea, you have no idea." Jen replied. "I just found out Burn is in love with my sister?"
"Burn, didn't you work with him for a while?"
"Yeah, about 6 months to a year, we worked well together when we weren't at each other's throats." Jen shook her head. "Burn is a powerhouse in the courier field, really he is one of the best Dojo has ever had. He also has a really good heart and really wants what is best for his team; Fizz has always been special to him according to Ol'Skool."
"Yes she has." It was Ol'Skool.
"Rose, Thea, you don't know the relationship that developed between Burn and Fizz, he wasn't sure about having her around at first, he kept reminding me that she was very young, but even then I knew what I was doing." Ol'Skool explained "the team was going to need a good mechanic and she was perfect, very intelligent and capable of making things and thinking outside the box. She was young enough that she didn't see the limitations that her elder peers saw, all she saw was something that needed to be done and she could come up with ways to do them."
"What did this have to do with Burn?" Thea asked.
"Burn had already been a part of the team, had worked with Rose, or as she was known back then 'Gem'. From the moment Fizz joined Dojo Burn vowed to keep her safe from harm and to date Fizz has had no serious injuries" he chuckled "wish I could say the same for Burn."
"Broke his collarbone his first week at the Dojo." Jen said shaking her head.
"How did that happen?" Thea asked.
"He got body slammed by another courier and his drop got jacked." Ol'Skool sighed.
"He was furious when that happened." Jen said.
"I don't blame him." Thea replied, "I'd be pretty pissed too."
"Yeah but he wasn't the only one to be injured during the overlap time," Ol'Skool said "and if I remember correctly he got pretty fired up over that incident too."
"Do you mean my wrist or my ankle?"
"Neither of those; he wasn't there," Ol'Skool pointed out.
Jen gave him an odd look.
"The concussion," Ol'Skool said pointing to his head for emphasis.
"Snap how the heck did I forget that little adventure?" Jen said rather embarrassedly.
"Well you did have a concussion." Thea pointed out.
"Good point." Jen replied.
"Rose if I remember correctly you and Burn didn't part ways on the best of terms." Ol'Skool pointed out.
"No, we didn't, we had one of our typical explosions." Rose sighed "We were good together for a lot of reasons but one of our former teammates said it was like having a vat of reactive plasma in the dojo, one spark and watch the fireworks."
"Yeah but sometimes those fireworks were really useful, when I could get the two of you on the same page and working towards one goal all I had to do was point you in the right direction and get out of the way things would get done and done well." Ol'Skool laughed "but you boy could you two clash, that was another time I got out of your way."
"We typically worked it out on our own"
Meanwhile Fizz lay awake in her bed, she had faked going to sleep in hopes that her sister would leave her to cry alone, what she didn't realize was that Burn entered the room not too long after Jen left. She tried to hold the tears as long as possible to make sure her sister was out of the room before they fell but that didn't last.
Burn walked in and could see the glisten of tears on Fizz's face, he knew she wasn't asleep and wanted to help her through this, but he wasn't sure how to help her. He started to touch her but hesitated, he wasn't sure what to do. He wanted to comfort her, let her know she wasn't alone, but he wasn't sure how he could do that.
He sat in the chair Jen had vacated just moments before and watched Fizz silently, and listened to his own heart. He tried to interpret what he felt and what he was compelled to do and decided she needed him to be strong for her now more than she had ever needed him to be before. Back then she could stand strong on her own, but now she was scared to try, scared of what she couldn't hear around her she needed him and the rest of the Dojo crew to be her ears and keep her safe from the dangers she couldn't hear coming.
Fizz knew the touch of the hand on her arm; it was Burn, why did it have to be him? Why couldn't it have been Deets, or Ed, or anyone but him, her secret crush. She didn't respond, maybe he would go away if he thought she was asleep, but she knew she wouldn't be that lucky, he could tell she was faking.
She opened her eyes and looked at him and the expression on his face confused her, what was he thinking? What was going on behind those golden eyes?
Fizz sat up wiping her eyes trying her best to hide her tears but she could tell Burn knew she was crying.
"Why are you trying to hide your tears?" He wrote on the same piece of paper Jen had earlier.
"I hate crying, it makes me look like a weak little kid" she wrote back, Burn could see by the way she wrote it the way she felt about it but that didn't match the situation.
"No, it doesn't, especially not right now" was his reply. He knew how she felt but he also knew that as much as she hated to cry, and as much as he hated seeing her cry, she needed to in order to start the emotional healing process. Waking up without hearing had been a horrible experience for her and he knew she was bottling up her emotions when she really needed to be letting them out in order to heal the damage caused by the meningitis that no medication could.
He embraced her and at that moment she could hold the tears back no longer and fell apart in the safety of his arms.
To Be Continued…
