A/N: New chapter up, all new, never before seen content. I've been a little nervous about posting this for reasons which will be obvious when you start reading. It's also a bit of a long one - sorry!


Chapter Six: A Bad Memory

"Ouch - ohforgoodness sake!" Rachel cried sharply, retracting her arm from behind the gate. After surveying the long, crimson, hair-thin scrapes that now ran along her left forearm, she glared at the innocent looking hedge with venom in her eyes, half hoping that it would shrink away in fear. It didn't. As far as she could remember, this unused entrance into the grounds was always overgrown, bushy and just plain awkward - but there were never any thorns there! Huffing slightly, she pulled the sleeve of her jacket more protectively over her arm and bunched the end together in her hand. Then she reached around the bars and tried again.

This bloody latch was proving very difficult to find. Rachel had used this gate so many times to sneak out in the past that it had simply never occurred to her that sneaking in through it wouldn't be as easy. Of course, it would help if she could see what she was doing, but the ivy had foreseen this apparently and, just to spite her, it had decided to grow so large and sprawling that it was a stroke of luck for her to have found the right spot at all. Working from memory, Rachel knew that the latch was roughly level to her shoulder, three bars to the left of the -

"Ha! Found you, you little bastard," she muttered triumphantly.

And now came the tricky part. Since this old gate was so disused, dislodging it from the tangled mass of shrubbery, vines and god knows what else would be no easy task. Pushing it roughly back and forth to try and gain some leeway, the brunette wondered vaguely why she couldn't just walk in through the front door - it would be so much easier. She knew she was being stupid and paranoid. It didn't really matter if anyone found out that she was here. She just wanted to save herself the hassle of explaining why.

After much complaining, moaning and groaning (from both gate and girl), the hedgerow eventually gave way - if giving way meant that Rachel could now open it by about a foot wide. But it would have to do. The quicker she was in, the quicker she'd be out.

Ignoring the painful way the overgrowth was snagging through her hair, Rachel managed to wriggle and squirm her way through the barely open gate. She brushed the plant debris off herself, looked back to the mess she'd made of the hedgerow and smiled. From here on out, at least, it would be plain sailing. Turning around, the teen re-adjusted her bag a little more comfortably across her shoulder and made towards the stables.

Despite the appearance of the back gate, the grounds themselves were just as well manicured as she'd remembered. The lawns were well tended to and the gardens were in full spring bloom, erupting with fragrant cascades of yellow, soft pink and pale lavender. Even the weather was pleasant. Sure, there was a bit of a nip in the air, but there wasn't any of the rain nor cloud that one would expect in late April. The result: a startlingly bright, brisk spring morning with a slight breeze and a melodic rustle in the trees. It was the kind of weather for light jackets, fluffy hats, a book in the garden and a nice, hot drink. If it were any other day, she might have stayed a while to enjoy it. As it were, there were other things on her mind.

When Rachel was young, one of the things she'd loved to do out here was try to creep up on the squirrels as they scurried about looking for food, and try to catch one. They were funny little things, she thought, with their tiny hands, bright eyes and pointy ears. Plus, she liked the challenge. She'd almost managed get one once, too. It was a grey one, and she didn't see many of those at all. It was too busy burying its acorn in the earth to notice her and she'd been so careful not to make a sound. Oh, and she was so close, less than two feet away. With baited breath she carefully stretched out her hands...

Then her mother found her and started shrieking. Filthy animals. Nasty vermin. What was she thinking - did she want to get bitten? Was she trying to make a scene again? Did she want to pass rabies on to her brother? And so on and so forth. When Rachel turned around again, the squirrel was nowhere in sight.

Stepping through the old wooden threshold into the empty stables, she walked right past one of the fluffy brown little critters without a second glance. Past the empty stalls that were once home to horses, but now home to nothing but dust. Through the second door on the left and into the service corridor. She spared a moment to peek stealthily into the kitchen - it, too, was empty. Then she lightly padded her way past the kitchen, into the hall and up the stairs. Without thought, she skipped over the seventh step. Somehow it still creaked anyway.

Soon enough, Rachel found herself walking the old, familiar route to her bedroom. Beneath tall, strong oak-wood beams and gilded picture frames on the walls, over lush crimson and sapphire rugs - the kind you just couldn't resist wriggling your toes into on lazy winter nights spent by the fire. The door on her left led to her father's study, with his big wooden desk and the squeaky old leather chair he hardly ever made use of. Opposite that was the library in which Rachel had spent more time than she'd like to admit climbing the shelves in her youth... she could still remember how the smell of old paper and stale wood clung to her hair. After that was a small sitting room that only ever saw use when her grandmother came over from Marseille to visit, followed by her parent's bedroom, after which she would find Liam's and then her own.

And if Rachel was experiencing a turbulence of emotions as she walked through these old halls, it didn't show in her face. If she was wading through memories, fond or otherwise, there was no light of recognition in her dark eyes. If she had any sort of urge to linger a while and reminisce, she resisted without even the slightest hesitation in her step. She passed by the closed door to her brother's room without seeming to acknowledge it at all, walked right on ahead to her own bedroom, silently opened the door and stepped inside.

And it was exactly the way she'd left it.

Well, not quite exactly.

It was a great deal tidier than she remembered, and any shoes or books that might have been scattered around were now neatly in their place. Her desk and drawers were dusted and the heavy curtains pulled back wide, flooding the room with cool, white daylight. Underneath the rug, she was willing to bet that the birch wood floor still bore the dark, scorched scar from that time she'd left her hair straighteners plugged in. The half-dozen wall-mounted bookshelves were still full-to bursting with books, more than half of which she'd never bothered reading, and probably never would. The bottom-most of these was stacked full of CDs... she smiled a little ruefully as she picked out a few of her old favourites and shoved them inside her bag, nostalgia strong in the pit of her stomach. Then she turned around and surveyed the other side of the room. Her bed was bare and unmade, just a plain white mattress resting upon the frame. For some reason that upset her a little, although she couldn't explain why - it wasn't as though she used it anymore. But above the headrest, the wall was still plastered with a collage of photographs from her days in high school, just how she'd left it.

Dropping her little duffel bag onto the floor, Rachel paced over and let her eyes wash over the photographs, smiling. Dozens of snapshots from happier times. There she was on the trip to Milan, boarding the plane with Victoria and Rose. Then again the year before when there was a huge snowfall in March. She and Noah from Literature class, practicing for the recital of Paradise Lost. A shot of her hungover with Elspeth the night after that Halloween party - that wasn't pretty… and why on earth had she decided to wear that? Rachel half covered her face in shame and moved along. There was a photograph of her and Johnny at the regionals that she didn't even remember being taken, let alone pinning to the wall. Christmas when she was seven, her birthday when she turned thirteen, her first time riding a horse, her trying furiously to finger a complex chord on the guitar under her brother's instruction.

Rachel frowned and tore her eyes away from the photographs, turning her back on the wall. She had the feeling that if she looked any longer, she'd never leave.

Might as well just get it over with.

With renewed resolution set in her jaw, she pushed herself across the room and towards the drawers beneath the window. Inside, she would find what she came here for. Third drawer down, towards the back left corner beneath her examination records, inside an old shoebox that she'd covered with artsy wrapping paper when she was eleven.

Her beyblade.

She carefully removed the box and, cradling it in her arms, went to sit cross-legged in the middle of her bed - dirty boots and all. Placing the box before her, she delicately lifted the lid, placed it to the side and scooped up the spinning top.

And it was exactly the way she'd left it.

Slate grey and razor sharp. Well, almost. Slightly shorter than the average beyblade, its body was compact and solid, the eight-heavy weight disk holding the blade together nice and firm. The wide spiral-upper attack ring which tapered out into three separate wings - one of which was missing - was still horribly blemished from her last battle. Everything else was chipped and scratched here and there, almost everywhere. It would take more than a little buffing out to get this thing battle-ready again. Rachel sighed. At least the tip was still fine and pointed. No worries there.

Then she cast her eyes towards the centre. Sitting proudly in the bit-chip was the form of a haunting swan, almost skeletal, draped in feathers of twilight black and midnight grey and faintly shimmering with a pale sort of light. Her Korrigan. And if Rachel thought she might have felt something upon being reunited with her blade - some kind of warmth maybe, or a mysterious breeze, or a sudden understanding of the path she should take - then she was utterly disappointed. Instead, she found herself simply sitting alone on her bed cradling a cold lump of metal and plastic in her hands to which she had given so much, and received so little in return.

... Now what?

She'd told herself that if she'd gotten this far, then she'd know what to do. That it would be easier to make a decision. This tournament, after all, it wasn't anything serious, there was nothing at stake. It was just a game, a friendly competition, a chance to test her skills and have a bit of fun. Oliver had said all of this to her and more before she left Paris the other day, and yet... still she hesitated.

Because she was afraid.

No.

No, she wasn't. Rachel wasn't scared, exactly. She was just reluctant, and understandably so. Sure, beyblading was only a sport for some people, a simple hobby or pastime - but she'd seen the darker side, been right in the thick of it. As innocent as these little spinning tops looked, it was easy to forget that they were also used as vessels for great power and that such power could be abused. But Rachel reminded herself yet again that this was nothing like that. As Oliver said, this tournament was just a bit of fun.

She'd spent the past three years running. If Rachel didn't confront this now, then... well, she didn't think she ever would.

Jaw set stubbornly, the brunette flicked her long, dark hair over her shoulder and stood up. Walking faster than was perhaps necessary, she collected her bag from the floor and deposited it roughly on top of the bed. She quickly scanned the contents of the box, double-checking that it still contained all the miscellaneous beyblade parts and materials that she would need to get her blade back into working order once again. Once she was satisfied, she placed Korrigan carefully back into the box, closed it, placed it into her bag and turned to face the door. She roughly swung the duffel bag back over her shoulder and -

"- Shit!" Rachel hissed, cringing away from the sharp, cascading crash of broken glass. Slowly peering over her shoulder to assess the damage she saw that - yes, it was the little decorative glass lamp she bought from the school-trip to Milan, of course it was. "Oh, but I loved that lamp..." she whimpered to herself, attempting to run a hand through the tangled mess of her hair in distress. And then she spun around and froze, the bag slipping from her shoulder as she listened to the brisk footsteps coming down the hall.

Wonderful. Well, she had two options.

Option one: quickly open the window, arrange the curtain over the drawers and hide in the closet until whoever was coming decided to leave. Only, she didn't know anyone who would buy that since there was nothing but the slightest breeze out today. Besides, her walk-in closet was a good 20 metres away, she'd never make it in time. And time, it seemed, had already chosen option two: stand there looking very sheepish and out of place while restlessly shifting from one foot to the other, damaging the lovely birch floor by further grinding down the shards of broken glass beneath her boots.

"Now, just what in the world was - Rachel? Oh, Rachel dear! When did you get here? You should have called ahead to say you were coming, I would have - why, just look at the state of you!"

Eleanor Moore. Or 'Nelly', as Rachel had always called her. Childhood friend of her father and Rachel's favourite among the house staff, all five-foot-and-two-inches of this woman came hustling and bustling towards her, crossing the entire room in a heartbeat. She stopped only to gather the young reluctant brunette up into the very definition of a mother-hen's embrace.

"H - hi, Nelly," Rachel managed to croak out through Nelly's iron grasp before she was released, briskly taken by the shoulders and spun around to face the large, Georgian-barred window once more.

"What a mess," the small woman clucked, picking roughly through Rachel's locks. Everything about her reminded Rachel of a bird - always had. A roosting hen when she was happy, a raving goose when she was mad. Even her cropped, wispy, dull-blonde hair resembled feathers. It shook around slightly as she continued crooning and complaining: "Twigs, pines, leaves; you've got half the estate all tangled up in your lovely hair - if your mother could see you now... You've been sneaking through the old service entrance again, haven't you? Oh, I don't know why you don't just use the front door like everyone else, dear."

"Hmm, well it couldn't possibly be to avoid all this fu-"

"- And look at this jacket, it's practically hanging off of you," the woman continued. Rachel bristled. Fuss fuss fuss, every time. She rather thought this particular jacket fit her well, thank you very much. She'd only had it tailored last month. Nelly, however, completely ignored the teen's complaints and spun her around by the shoulders once more. She took a step back and placed her hands on her hips as she surveyed the young girl disappointedly. "I know you'll insist otherwise, Rachel, you always do - but I'm quite sure you've not been feeding yourself..."

"Actually, Nelly, I have. I even ate two bacon sandwiches on the train this morning," she lied.

Nelly pursed her lips. "...Oh, that's terribly unhealthy, dear," she said, shaking her head solemnly.

Rachel rolled her eyes and groaned. There was just no winning with this woman. Not that she resented her for it, not at all. She'd loved Nelly all her life. Sweet Nelly with her little blue apron and her lady-grey tea and lovely, crumbly Thursday afternoon scones. This was the woman who'd consoled Rachel through her first high-school heartbreak. She'd taught her how to tie her shoes, make daisy chains in the spring and to always say 'please' and 'thank-you' like a lady - though the wayward brunette had never really had much patience for the latter. She'd chided Rachel for sliding down the stair-rails and ruining her clothes with grass stains in the summer. And when Rachel came home from school one day singing playground rhymes with naughty words in them, Nelly never told her father so long as she promised not to say them again. So she didn't. At least, not when any of the grown-ups were listening.

So, as Rachel surveyed the woman now, with her flowered, button-down blouse and little woolly cardigan, she almost felt a twinge of guilt to see her large, dark brown eyes fall sadly on the duffel bag that lay on the floor. Almost.

"...You're not planning on staying, are you dear?"

"I'm afraid not, no," the teen sighed. "I came by to pick up a couple of things and, well, now I have them." She stooped down to pick up her bag again and carefully brushed some of the glass fragments off.

"Your father -"

"Yes, I know. He's stuck in the House of Lords all weekend," Rachel interjected, slowly stepping around the small woman and making towards the door. She knew exactly where this conversation was going and was more than eager to leave before it went there.

Nelly clucked disapprovingly at her retreating back. "Oh Rachel, you really should have called ahead, he misses you terribly! I tell you," she affirmed with her hands on her hips, "that man would reschedule life-saving surgery if he knew you were coming! Nothing in all the world would keep him from -"

"Yes, Nelly," Rachel said somewhat sharply over her shoulder. "I know."

The dull-blonde made a despairing noise, her feathery hair shaking along with her head. "You're every bit as stubborn as that mother of yours sometimes, Rachel. I don't know why you insist on punishing him like this, but -"

"Punishing him?" That stopped the brunette in her tracks. From the doorway, she twisted around to look at the woman incredulously. Being compared to her mother was bad enough, but to be accused of punishing her father... what on earth had led Nelly to come to that conclusion? But Rachel supposed she should have expected it. This is how is had always been. Everybody always assumed the worst of her. She felt her blood begin to boil. "Oh yes, because that's exactly like me, isn't it? I just can't resist twisting the knife -"

"Now Rachel, don't be ridiculous - you know I don't mean it like that," Nelly protested, throwing her tired hands up into the air. Exhausted exasperation coloured her pleading tones. The poor woman had this conversation a dozen times before, and would probably have it a dozen times again. And what a shame for them both that it never ended well. "I just think that -"

"That what? That I don't care about all the hassle and the grief I've caused him, or that I don't realise it? Because believe me, I am painfully aware," she interrupted, her voice low and shaking. She tried hard to ignore the edge of hysteria that she heard creeping tone of her words. Why couldn't she handle this? Gripping the handle of her bag tightly, she took a deep breath and continued. "We've been through this. If I never do more than one thing right in my life, I need for that one thing to be this. It's the least I can do, and I just... I wish you could see how it's for the best."

"Rachel, sweetheart," Nelly said in placating tones. Her warm, dark eyes were large and imploring. She had the air of someone trying to coax a wounded, frightened animal into safety - all kindness and patience. "All this distance, this… keeping yourself away. I know you want to make things right, but… Your place is here - home, with the people who love you and care about you. What you're doing now is just making things worse -"

"Worse? How could things possibly be worse?" Rachel cried. She could feel herself shaking with the effort to stay calm. She needed to leave before things got out of hand, but she couldn't stop her words from tumbling out. "Look around, Nelly," she said, gesturing around herself and beginning to pace around with restless agitation. "All these rooms, the halls, the grounds, the house - empty! Because of me. That's why I can't be here, I don't want -"

"Rachel, -"

"For Christ's sake, Nelly, no! Just stop it!" She yelled, spinning around in the doorway to face her. A silence fell into the room, cold and clean and sharp as glass, full to bursting with the delicate weight of things unsaid. The brunette cringed at Nelly's reaction, at the look on her face; Rachel's tone had cut through the poor woman like a like a knife. She tried again. "Look," she breathed softly, into silence. "I know you mean well but… things will never be as they once were... how can they be? I love my father, but he's been through enough. And I just -"

But Rachel never got to finish what she was about to say, because the phone in her pocket chose that moment to start ringing. Its cheery, twinkling tone shattered the silence entirely, frightening it away. Like a startled bird it left the room and took with it all of those unsaid words. Everything Rachel had planned on saying died in her throat, and she closed her mouth as Nelly turned away to face the window. With the tension still hanging in the air, but all her momentum now lost, Rachel sighed and brought the phone out of her pocket to view the display. Johnny. She cancelled the call. He could wait until she got outside.

Glancing up again, Rachel surveyed the back of the woman who, all her life, had shown her more love and tenderness than she had ever known from her own mother, and felt disgusted with herself. Nelly's arms were folded, her shoulders tight. Shaking. Rachel couldn't see her face anymore, not even her reflection upon the glass. That was probably for the best.

"Nelly," she said quietly, hesitantly. "I've got to go ...send father my love, will you?"

Silence.

Rachel lingered for a few moments longer and opened her mouth once, twice, as if to say something more. But then she closed it firmly. She'd caused enough damage already. She made Nelly cry again. She never said the right things. This is why she seldom came home, why she never stayed. So she bit her lip and strode back down the corridor purposefully, leaving the woman standing there alone in the midst of all that broken glass to pick up the pieces.

As always.


"- Heads up!"

Johnny blinked, ducking his head down and towards the left. Half a second later he saw the black-and-white blur of a football whiz past the point where his head would have been. He even felt a whisper of air kiss him on the cheek as it passed. How strange, he thought for a moment, that the shouted warning for incoming projectiles making a bee-line right for your face should be 'heads up' when in fact what you should be doing is the exact opposite. How ironic. How stupid.

"You wannae mind where you're kicking that thing?" Johnny called irritably towards the group of teens across the field, one of whom was now jogging towards him with his hands held apologetically in front of him.

"Sorry mate! Weren't me, it were Dan - he can't aim fer shit," the youth said, pointing indiscriminately towards his friend, as though the useless gesture would somehow allow Johnny to pick this 'Dan' out from the crowd. Ignoring the teen as he trotted past to collect the ball, Johnny rolled his eyes and pressed on along the path through the park.

Squinting ahead through the early evening sunlight, the redhead spotted the peaked, bronzed roof of the park's cafe nestled in among the trees. The building itself was of an interesting design; old stone bricks and glass pane walls, straight whitewashed beams intercepting with graceful curves where you least expected them - a recent renovation of the traditional old cottage Johnny remembered from his younger years. But this architectural intrigue and artistry was wasted on the redhead, who was considerably more concerned with brooding and belly aching than taking in the sights.

"Oh, I'll just come and meet you at the station," Johnny muttered scathingly under his breath, putting on a crude, high pitched imitation of a certain brunette's accent. "No no, I went for a walk in the park, I'll meet you by the lake." He shoved his hands a little further into his pockets, his face twitching with impatience. You see, the Johnny had been prancing around the streets of Derby like a prat all afternoon, going this way and that, arriving at his destination only to receive a phone call from his childhood friend that, actually, she'd gone somewhere else and would he mind meeting her there instead. Well yes, actually, of course he bloody minded. "I swear to god if I get one more phone call when I walk through those doors..." He let the empty threat drift out into the open air as he reached the cafe, placed his hands upon the cool, smooth glass panes of the doors and pushed.

Instantly, he was embraced with warmth and the bittersweet aroma of coffee intertwined with traces of honey, cinnamon, vanilla and something spicy... maybe ginger? Oliver would know. Oliver would probably wrinkle his delicate little nose in complaint.

Inside the cafe, along the left hand side of the room and against the wall, was the counter on which were displayed today's goods - the number of which he was sure were probably much decreased from this morning. After all, at twenty-to-six, they were less than half an hour from closing time. Nevertheless, there was still a fairly decent sized chunk of what seemed to be a chocolate and almond cake that, he didn't mind admitting, he might quite like to sink his teeth into right now. Chasing after phone calls all afternoon had given him a bit of an appetite. Taking a quick, slightly irritated glance around at the tables, Johnny deliberated for a moment as to whether or not he should buy a slice before the next inevitable phone call came to summon him to the next location. Then he stopped, his irritation evaporating, for it seemed that the next phone call might not be coming after all.

She was sitting at the far end of the room when he saw her. Right at the back, framed by the warm, late afternoon sunlight that spilled into the cafe through the windows behind her and bathed everything inside it with a soft, golden hue. From this angle, the light held her in an almost complete silhouette, but he knew it was her. Sitting in the light as she was, the sun revealed whispers in her sloppy, tangled braid of the almost blonde she'd had as a child. She held the same lazily self-assured posture as always, and by the looks of it she still had her thing for boots. Even from this angle, Johnny could see her feet twitching away, as always. It was like nothing had changed. And as Johnny watched Rachel sitting there at the table with her back turned to him, it felt almost as if the last three years hadn't happened at all. As if everything hadn't fallen apart. As if he hadn't watched her struggle through the breakdown and its fallout. As if she hadn't changed. As if the urge to flee hadn't won out in the end and she hadn't left the country over two years ago without so much as a word. As if what he was about to try and convince her to do wouldn't be that hard after all. Almost.

"I'm glad you finally decided to stay in one place," Johnny grunted, throwing himself roughly down in the seat opposite her a few minutes later. There was a slice of chocolate-almond cake sitting neatly upon the plate in his hand. It wouldn't be for much longer.

Rachel was too busy looking out the window to notice him. She was leaning on the armrest of her chair and glaring out towards the lake at the far end of the park, all sense of the world around her blocked out by her earphones. Not one to be ignored, Johnny glanced under the table and took aim, roughly kicking the girl's foot. It promptly stopped jiggling around in time with her music as she jumped about a foot in the air. Johnny snickered and picked up his cake as Rachel snatched the wires away from her ears, held a hand to her heart and glared at him. "For God's sake, Johnny, what is wrong with -" she began, before stopping and stifling some laughter of her own. "Oh bloody hell," she said, "you've gotten fat."

Johnny stopped, the cake currently midway to his mouth. He dropped it back on the plate almost as quick as if it had sprouted legs and spluttered indignantly. "Fat?" The nerve of her... gone without a word for two years and the first thing she does is insult him? "These are muscles!" Johnny insisted.

The brunette smiled wryly, now fully recovered from her previous shock. "I don't know, you look awfully soft to me. I mean, are you entirely sure you want to be eating that?" she asked, gesturing with her eyebrows to the cake on his side of the table. She began inching her fingers towards it. "Because I could always -"

"No no, I'm eating it, alright," he assured her, possessively sliding the plate closer to himself and picking up the cake once more.

"Fine, fine," she shrugged impishly. "It's your waistline." The teen took Johnny's silence as an opportunity to help herself to another mouthful of whatever was in her mug. But she must have forgotten that it was empty, because she made a disgruntled face upon looking inside before placing it back down on the table. Then she noticed Johnny was still glaring at her. "Oh lighten up, I was only joking," she said, rolling her eyes at him. "...I just didn't expect you to have such big, like, man shoulders now, that's all."

"Man shoulders?" Johnny scoffed, opening his mouth to take another, hopefully uninterrupted, bite.

"Yes, man shoulders. You're all right-angled and broad all of a sudden," the brunette mused, holding her hands before her and pantomiming what Johnny guessed were supposed to be rectangular 'man shoulders'.

Well that was much better, he thought. Broad and manly - he liked the sound of that. Johnny smiled. And then he grimaced, chewing through his mouthful of cake with intense dislike. "Ughh," he groaned, pushing his plate and the rest of the cake away from him. He swallowed with some difficulty. "Dark chocolate," he exclaimed with absolute disgust written all over his face.

"I know. Lovely, isn't it?" Rachel enthused. "I had some earlier while wai-"

"It's vile." Johnny said, pushing the plate away from him as though it had caused him great offence - and to be quite honest, it had. "Who in their right mind puts dark chocolate into a cake?"

"I take it you'll not be having the rest, then?" she asked, ignoring his complaints.

"Be my guest," Johnny grunted, but not before she'd already helped herself to it anyway, forking her way through it like a priss. He reached over eagerly to grab her mug in the meantime and wash out the awful bitterness of the cake, and then glared at the emptiness inside of it. He, too, placed it back down disappointedly before glancing hopefully at the counter across the room and searching through the menu on the wall. "You've got horrible taste, you know that right?" he muttered as he scanned through the menu. A multitude of coffees, fruit blends, herbal teas... bloody fancy cafes - where was the good stuff?

"You're such a child. There's absolutely nothing wrong with dark chocolate," she insisted. "And it's actually quite good for you. Oh! But speaking of tastes," she exclaimed excitedly, suddenly pushing her chair back and ducking under the table, "I've got something for you."

Johnny's eyebrows shot up, his mind temporarily distracted from the disappointing lack of sweet beverages. "Huh, something for me?" he echoed, ducking down and peering under the table just in time to see Rachel's head disappear as she resurfaced. The redhead only narrowly avoided hitting his own head off the table as he sat up to join her.

"Yes," she affirmed, smiling brightly. "Something for you."

The package was small and somewhat lumpy, yet still neatly wrapped in high quality brown parcel paper with a red ribbon around it. She tossed it across the table at him and he caught it with one hand. It was heavier than he expected considering its size. "What is it?" he said, turning it over.

"Nothing much," she replied with a lazy wave of her hand. "Just something I saw at a street market in Ontario over the winter. Go on, go on - open it," she urged, leaning forward and grinning.

Johnny shrugged. "Alright, keep your knickers on," he muttered with staged aloofness, trying to seem less interested in the little parcel than he actually was. He hadn't really expected that she'd agree to meet him at all, let alone come bearing gifts. Johnny wondered vaguely whether he should have bought something for her. He carefully eased the ribbon off the parcel before proceeded to roughly tear away at the seams of the paper. First he revealed a small brown hoof, followed by what looked to be antlers accompanied by muffled snickering from across the table. "Oh, fuck off," he scoffed, realising at once what the present was and resisting the urge to throw it at her. He settled for kicking her boots again under the table instead.

"What, don't you like it?" Rachel asked wickedly while wiggling away from his kicks, her eyes shining mirth. "It's delightful!"

It most certainly was not delightful, Johnny thought, setting it down on the table between them. It was a rough wooden carving of a pair of moose - a long running joke between the pair. Long story short, when Johnny was a small boy, his pride and joy had been his grandfather. His father was always too busy, but Grandpa had all the time in the world for the little redhead. He'd loved sitting on the elderly man's knee and listening to his war stories and hunting tales, imagining that one day he too might be able to do all those exciting and dangerous things. The large stag's head that was mounted above the grand fireplace back home was shot down by none other than his grandfather on his 16th birthday, and that particular tale had kept Johnny enthralled for many a bedtime in his youth. One day, Johnny made the mistake of letting slip to Rachel just how proud he was of that stag. He'd been receiving ridiculous little antlered trinkets ever since.

"You can put it on the mantelpiece with all the others," Rachel continued fondly, fiddling with the end of her knotty braid.

Johnny lobbed the brown paper ball he'd been scrunching up in the general direction of her face. She dodged with ease. "This is not going on anyone's mantelpiece, anywhere," he said, picking up the small figurine and brandishing it at her. It was a little hard to tell since the carving was so rough, but it seemed to depict two moose in the shadow of a pine tree, fornicating with reckless abandon.

"Why not?" Rachel countered with mock disappointment in her voice. "It's so…"

"… Vulgar?"

"Yes," the brunette agreed, clicking her fingers. "Perfectly vulgar. I think it's probably the best I've bought so far," she continued, nodding to herself. Johnny couldn't help but smirk at how pleased she seemed with herself.

"I don't know how something like this even exists," the redhead mused, picking it up again and examining the inappropriate ornament with an amused interest in his pale eyes. "Mind you," he continued, looking over the moose's embrace at her, "it still isn't as bad as Uthbert."

"As who - Oh! Oh my god, Uthbert the uncouth, how could I forget?" Rachel let out a great peal of laughter, her eyes bright and shoulders loose. "He was just magnificent. And your mother's face..." she recounted with glee.

"Well it's not every day your son brings home a carved elk complete with a massive swinging scrotum, is it?" he exclaimed, swinging his new ornament about wildly. "You never did tell me where you got that one from."

She raised an eyebrow. "Why? If you want another, all you need to do is ask."

"...Piss off."

They laughed together, and just like that Johnny had fallen back into the past again.

This was the girl who he'd switched all of his father's socks around with that one time, messing up their perfect pairs, sniggering with silent, mischievous glee. She was the girl who wasn't afraid to pick up worms and who tracked more mud around the manor than he did when her family came to visit. She was the idiot who convinced him to sneak out with his father's rifle that autumn, all too eager to start shooting, but she'd cried when the pheasant they'd shot writhed around helplessly in pain, beyond saving. She was the girl he'd secretly crushed on in his early teens and who, despite the continually messy state of her curls, he knew she cared more about her hair than she'd ever admit. He still remembered the sight of it falling to the floor, lock by lock, when she'd taken those scissors to it, leaving behind only ragged, patchy tufts to frame her hollow, vacant eyes.

But now here she was - vibrant, bright eyed and messily braided once again, looking as though there wasn't a damn thing in the world that could touch her. Her haughty little eyebrows were exactly as annoying as they should be. She seemed happy and he couldn't believe how much he'd missed that.

"You know, you look really well, Rachel," he voiced once their laughing had ceased. But it spoiled the moment. Her eyes tightened and at once the room seemed to lose its warmth. Rachel's smiled faded and she recoiled back in her chair and sighed, looking at him with guarded eyes. Suddenly, she seemed so unsure of herself. It occurred to him now that her bravado might just have been a façade. Stupid. He should have kept his big mouth shut. "Sorry, I didn't mean -"

"No, I know exactly what you mean," she said, almost scowled. Her voice was sharp with acid. "...I look well for a girl who completely tore her family apart, right?"

Johnny's brow furrowed with indignation. "Now wait. That isn't even close to what I said. That's not fair and you know it."

Rachel blinked. Then she caught herself and sighed again, running a hand impatiently through her hair and then tutting as it got caught up in her braid. She turned to stare out of the window, a stormy tempest churning around in those dark eyes. He wished he knew what she was thinking. Those eyes weren't as easy to read as they used to be. "You're right," she breathed after a moment, so softly Johnny wasn't sure if he was hearing things or not. She continued glaring out towards the rapidly approaching glorious sunset. "I'm sorry."

Johnny fiddled with his ornament over the passing silence, jaw tight. Maybe dragging Rachel back off her travels wasn't such a good idea after all. He'd already touched a nerve and hadn't even made any mention of the tournament yet. He could already imagine what a glaring bloody success that would be. Johnny considered getting up to buy himself a drink before broaching the subject of the tournament, if for no other reason than to douse the flames of her explosion when he did. That fool Enrique, convincing him that this would be a good idea. And more fool Johnny for believing him.

Rachel shuffled awkwardly in her chair. "Well, go on then," she said, leaning her elbow on the armrest of her chair and tiredly propping her head up on her hand. "Ask me."

"Huh?" Johnny grunted, pulled out of his thoughts. "Ask you what?"

The brunette narrowed her murky grey-green eyes at him and held him in a cool regard. "… I really can't tell whether you're playing dumb with me or not."

Johnny smirked, attempting to lighten the mood again. It was nicer to be around Rachel when she wasn't so tense. He bent down to rummage in his backpack and placed his new moose ornament inside of it. "Would it be worth my life to?" he asked.

Johnny watched the brunette fight with herself as she attempted to stare him down for a moment, but then lost the battle as the corners of her lips began to rise reluctantly. "I suppose not, no."

She continued looking at him speculatively for a while, chewing on her lip, wrestling with some sort of decision. Johnny decided to look out the window and leave her to it - he didn't like being held under someone's gaze for so long. It made him feel ever so slightly self-conscious, and that's not something he was used to feeling. So he tried to appreciate the view instead. Everything was lush and fresh and green and bursting with new life, dipped in gold with the oncoming sunset. Johnny sighed, feeling vaguely like he was turning into Oliver. Then Rachel's struggle eventually reached its conclusion, apparently, for he heard her dive under the table and rummage around in her bag again. When she resurfaced, Johnny looked up. She was sitting back in her chair, staring at whatever she had cradled in her hands.

"What's that?" he asked, feigning nonchalance and resisting the urge to crane his neck and snatch a view.

She didn't reply. She simply leaned forwards and placed it in the middle of the table between them, not taking her dark eyes off it. Johnny recognised it instantly and damn, just look at the state of it. Johnny's patience crumbled and he picked it up without invitation. "Shit..." he breathed softly, turning the wreck of a beyblade over in his hands and scanning it thoroughly under his pale lavender gaze. This was definitely not the way he remembered it. Simply a ghost of its former glory days, the steely grey blade was now quite literally covered with gashes, dents and craters. Honestly, he was surprised the thing was still in one piece. An entire attack wing was missing, and as for the defense ring...

"I know. It's a little worse for wear," the brunette said lowly, not meeting his eyes.

"A little?" Johnny gasped, completely missing the understatement. "What the hell did you do to it?"

She shrugged. "You should have seen the other guy," Rachel muttered dryly. Her dark humour was not missed.

"... You really haven't touched it since, have you?"

"Nope."

"Were you ever planning on -"

"Not really."

"What made you change your mind?"

Rachel met his eyes at last. She crossed her legs and her left foot began to fidget, as it tended to when she was nervous or unsure of something. The redhead watched as she let loose her braid and began to run her fingers through its tangles, stalling for time. "You probably think I'm pathetic, don't you?"

"Always have," Johnny smirked. "But why are you asking now, specifically?"

Rachel held her left hand out expectantly. Johnny obliged by chucking the spinning top carelessly across the table. She caught it and her dark eyes scrutinised it carefully as she continued talking. "I've been running from this for nearly three years now," she said quietly, pensively. Johnny tensed, listening attentively. Rachel never talked about what happened that night, never opened up. When they were younger, she used to tell him everything. Now here he was, reduced to grasping for details in passing to have any idea of what went on inside her head. How much things had changed. "Like a coward. Like a stupid, frightened little girl. Because I'd gotten way in over my head with something and when it all came down to it in the end, I just couldn't handle it." Slowly, her eyes refocused. When they met Johnny's pale eyes, he could see embers of defiance in their dark depths. "I need to know that I'm in control of this. And I am sick and tired of running. So... if you'll have me, and if the other guys don't mind, then I'm in. I'll come to the tournament."

Johnny blinked, wide eyed. "Just like that?" he laughed, running a relieved, disbelieving hand through his unruly shock of red hair. "Fucking hell, Rachel, I was rehearsing the entire way here how to convince you to come along and -"

"But I need to know that you've got my back," she interrupted, not returning his smile.

"Yeah yeah, 'course I -"

"No, let me finish," she interrupted, flicking her curls irritably. She took a deep breath and started again. "I lost control, Johnny -"

His smile fell as butted in. "It was an accident -"

"You weren't there -"

"And you had no choice -"

"I lost control," she repeated firmly. "And I need to know that if it happens again -"

"I won't let it won't come to that -"

"But if it does -"

"For God's sake, Rachel, just stop being such a bloody drama queen," Johnny cried, throwing his hands out before him with impatiently. "You are worrying way too much over nothing and it's starting to piss me off," he said gruffly. What happened to the reckless, wayward girl who never thought twice about anything? Where did she go? He leaned over the table and snatched the steely grey spinning top from out of her fidgeting hands. Ignoring her attempts to regain ownership of the blade, Johnny applied pressure and twisted the attack ring counter-clockwise, letting it loose from the main body.

"Johnny, what are you doing?"

"What does it look like, Einstein," he muttered.

Counter-balance and weight disk came next, followed by the rest of the blade. Piece by piece, Johnny laid out the beyblade on the table between them, sitting them neatly in a line. The defense ring stuck a little, its torn edges and injured frame offering considerable resistance. But it eventually gave way. Finally, he dislodged the bit-chip from the attack ring, then sat back to admire his handiwork.

"Okay. Take a good look."

"Oh, I've been taking a good look. What exactly are you doing pratting about with -"

"This is nothing but a bad memory," Johnny said, brushing over her complaint as though he hadn't heard it. He gestured towards the ruined beyblade parts. "And it's the last time you'll be seeing it. 'Cause you sure as hell aren't blading in my team with that wreck," he asserted.

Rachel scoffed. "Your team?" she repeated scathingly, her superior little eyebrows twitching away.

"Yes, my team." Johnny had been thinking long and hard about this fact for all of two minutes before he came to the inevitable conclusion. With Robert not participating, who else would take over as captain? Not Oliver. That gentle, soft-spoken girl's blouse couldn't handle leadership over a team, and as for Enrique...

No, Johnny was the only capable member who could lead the Majestics properly, that much was obvious.

"Well, at least give me back Korrigan, then," she said testily, arching an eyebrow expectantly.

"Hm? Oh," Johnny replied, looking down in his hands to the bit-chip he hadn't realised he was fiddling with. In the centre sat Korrigan, Rachel's pain in the ass bitbeast. It had been a long time since he'd seen the black swan in action, swooping around the stadium with distinct aloofness, an eerie grace in its swift movements. He could still remember the sound of its wings. Now it, too, seemed washed out, tired and misused, just like the blade it was housed in. Hopefully that would change soon. "Here," he said gruffly, holding it out to her. He dropped it into her outstretched palm.

Rachel held onto it delicately. It seemed surprisingly small, sitting there in the palm of her hand. Her brow was furrowed and her face troubled as she looked down at it, and again Johnny wished that he knew what she was thinking.

"Right," the redhead said briskly, getting to his feet. "I don't know about you, but I'm starving. What time is it?" he asked, too lazy to take out his phone and check for himself.

"It's a quarter past six, love," said one of the ladies from behind the counter as she came by to relieve a nearby empty table of its cups and plates. In fact, all the tables were empty. Johnny looked around and discovered that he and Rachel were the only two people in the room who weren't cafe staff. "Was everything to your liking?" she asked, smiling politely.

"Er, yeah. It was fine thanks," he lied, suppressing a shudder as he remembered the awful cake. "Sorry for overstaying. Come on Rachel, we're going," he said, nudging roughly past her to pick up her bag from the floor.

"Hmm...?" she toned, finally managing to tear her eyes away from the chip in her hand.

"It's past closing," he said shortly.

"Oh - sorry!" the brunette exclaimed, moving to pick up her bag and blinking around when she found it wasn't there. "I didn't realise it was so late already."

"Oh, it's fine, it's fine, there's no rush, dears," said the lady, completely laden with plates, cups and cutlery. She was already halfway back to the counter again, performing an impressive balancing act as she disappeared into the kitchen. "Thank you for coming!"

Rachel slipped the bit-chip carefully into her pocket and looked around sadly at the remains of her beyblade laid bare on the table. Then she turned and met his eyes, and began to work her arms into her jacket. "So, where to?"

Johnny placed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "Don't ask me. It's not like I used to live here or anything."

Rachel scoffed. "Asshole," she muttered. Then she tucked some loose bangs behind her ear before continuing. "There used to be this really nice salad bar down the road from here, super green. Everything's organic and sourced locally. I used to love going there."

Johnny levelled a glare at her. Salad? Him? Pfft. "Seriously though," he said, opening the door and letting a cool evening breeze sweep through the cafe. He held it open with his boot while waiting for the girl to catch up.

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Fine fine. There's a Frankie and Benny's along the high street and a pub around the corner… but it's always looked a bit dodgy to me. There's a TGI Fridays closer to town from what I remember, and -"

"Fridays it is."

The brunette sighed, faffing with her jacket. Noisy, cheep and ridiculously cheerful, the diner was precisely everything Rachel tried to avoid when eating out and this was something Johnny knew well. "Of course it is," she said under her breath. "Bloody commoner."

"Stop complaining and hurry up," he said, shouldering her bag as well as his own backpack out of habit.

"Alright alright, keep you knickers on," she echoed, smirking while zipping up her jacket. "You look good with my bag, by the way. Suits you."

Johnny looked down towards her black leather and grey tweed duffel bag, complete with navy accented trim and the badge of some brand or other he didn't care to recognise, and grimaced. His friend's taste was by no means feminine - never was - but even that didn't mean that this bag was anywhere near 'masculine' enough to suit him. He wouldn't be seen carrying it at all if she wasn't directly in his company. "Ha ha," he snarked, "shut up or you can carry it around yourself."

"No no, it's fine, you keep hold of it," she said, brushing past him through the doorway.

On the way out, the brunette took one final, furtive glance back to her dismantled beyblade on the table. Johnny could see guilt in those dark eyes, and regret. He looked across the room at the pieces too and wondered if he'd ever find out what really happened that night. There was so much pain and secrecy involved that he wondered if he even really wanted to know. Then he looked back around again and saw that those tangled, lazy curls were already a good twenty paces down the path.

"Oi, wait up," he called, jogging towards Rachel's retreating back, leaving the destroyed parts of her old beyblade behind them, never to be seen by either of them again.


A/N: Okay, well, there you have it - Rachel's official introduction.

When writing and redrafting the series, one of my biggest love/hate/disappointments was Rachel. I had spent so long working on her and her relevance to the story, and then had been so afraid of playing the OC card that I worked twice as hard on making her seem less important, less lime-light taking (which is silly, since she never really takes it anyway), with the result being that I became immensely dissatisfied with the substandard version of her that I delivered.

Rachel has been a character in 'my' beyblade universe for at least six years now, from the time that she bubbled up in the dark and unseen corners of my imagination to the day that she stepped forwards into the light and told me everything about her that she thought I needed to know. I say it like this because, even as I redrafted and refined other aspects of the series (our antagonists, the mechanics of blading, the 'lore' as I see it behind the bitbeasts') I learned new things about her daily. Anyway, all of this is besides the point.

All that I wanted to say is that Rachel, a bit like Tyler and a couple other OC's of mine that are waiting in the wings, are a bit like children to me - and it is surprisingly nerve-wracking to then send them forth into your hands. Despite that, this time around I decided to write her as I would have her, not as I think my audience would. As a result I am much happier with her in this chapter and in all that follow, and I can only hope that this is a good sign and that she will be reasonably well received.

As always, I would be absolutely delighted to hear your thoughts and opinions on this or any other chapter - the good and the bad. If you have questions, or compliments, or concerns, or flaming, by all means throw them at me. I'll be sure to get back to you.

Anyway, I hope you've all had a lovely week, and I'll see you next time!

~ Indie