Chapter VII: How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?
Chapter Genre: General, Romance, Humour
Chapter Character(s): Twenty-four year old John MacTavish, a wedding singer (Madeline Desmarais), his siblings (Joshua & Josephine MacTavish) / Ghost, Roach
Chapter Summary: Aside from fear, what is life's biggest motivator? What (appears to) change people? It is called love. And it cannot be judged. It cannot be reasoned with. It cannot be taken away.

X

"It means that I, like God, do not play with dice and I don't believe in coincidences."
– V, V for Vendetta

"Were you shot, or something?" Roach asked his captain. MacTavish had given him a confused expression before bursting out in ferocious laughter. Ghost elbowed Roach for the moronic question and rolled his eyes.

"No, no, no," MacTavish shook his head. He cleared his throat and said, "Has anyone ever told you what the biggest motivator in life is?" Roach bit the side of his lip and looked awkwardly between the men.

He guessed, "Fear?"

"It's love, Yankee," Ghost told him. "Captain fell in love." His arms crossed again as he stared at MacTavish with a different interest. Roach's eyes widened and couldn't decide whether to laugh or to stay silent. Impulsively, Roach allowed his laughter to escape from his chest and the two stared at the childish sergeant. Ghost's eyes narrowed at him, signalling him to shut up before MacTavish would suddenly retract and refuse to tell them the rest of his life's story.

"Damn, you were serious?" he asked. MacTavish nodded.

"The world has a strange perspective. If they can't see the intimate moments between two people, they'll be convinced that these two people are not in love. They'll say these two people are not happy with each other, that maybe they're cheating on each other. They'll tell them to stop kidding themselves – they're not in love. But when you watch a superficial movie about two young teens falling in love, suddenly it's some passionate, altruistic relationship and it's undeniable that they're in love.

"I dated a few girls, I'll admit. But when I was in my brother's wedding, in London, and I saw my sister-in-law's friend working there. Joshua's wife worked in London Theatre, you know. I saw her – this girl singing in the reception. For a moment, regardless of what I thought of love beforehand, I thought she was the light that never goes out."

Roach laughed at that statement. Ghost kicked him under the table and said, "Shut up. You've never fallen in love, have you? No; I didn't think so. Now, let the Captain talk before he gets cranky! How much do you want to bet he's never going to talk about this ever again?"

2007.

May

Upon arriving to London, John only had one day in order to rest prior to attending his older brother's wedding. It didn't feel enough, though. Through the entire ceremony in the morning, his body welted through tiredness but felt the strange, warming affection for his brother and sister-in-law. He greeted them with altruistic love as he, in return, received heart-warming hellos. Some managed to surprise him by commenting how they didn't expect him to show – they had thought he already died!

Within the reception, he had reminisced with old friends and ex-girlfriends. He had discussed and joked with his older sister and brother, as well as teasing the bride. He had reminded his mother that he loved her dearly and thought of her whenever he was deployed. He had kept his interest as he gazed at dozens of attractive women in dresses. During the toasts, John had raised his glass in honour of his brother and congratulated the two. He had enjoyed the food – and was grateful on how delicious it tasted; it was a nice change, considering the food in the army was absolutely dull.

For a long period of time, John's attention had been focused on the little boy singing on stage, mostly because it wasn't a boy singing. He had been taken aback to listen to a young woman's voice come out of the little boy. Narrowing his eyes, he had finally seen the girl underneath the masculine clothes. With the fedora, dress shirt and tie and pants – not to mention genuine cowboy boots that didn't even match - how could have not mistaken her for a boy?

As almost an hour had gone, John had asked old friends to dance, out of politeness. His heart had childishly tugged toward the boyish wedding singer when had announced that an actual male was now taking over the vocals. She intended to have gone for a break but was instead pulled into a table filled with elderly men unnecessarily debating about England's politics. Out of courtesy, John had walked over to the table when noticing her boredom and asked her to dance.

Gratefully saying yes (all too quickly), she had thanked him repeatedly. Both of their gazes had cautiously turned to the elderly men and both of them had quickly made their way to the middle of the dance floor. Their small talk didn't last long as her sassiness and his witty conversation had taken over their spoken words.

And now, all of John's attention stayed with the boyish girl. His eyes lowered to scan at her attire as he noticed the tie and dress vest. Cleverly hiding underneath it, though, was a Star of David, which was the item that caught his eye. He looked back up to her eyes, smiling foolishly as he moved his hips to match to the moderate beat of the music. The girl played along as their hands clasped with each other in a dance position. Nothing seemed too formal, in John's perspective. It seemed… all right.

Girl, you're my angel, you're my darling angel
Closer than my peeps you are to me, baby
Shorty, you're my angel, you're my darling angel
Girl, you're my friend when I'm in need, lady

"I'm John MacTavish," he told her spontaneously. He smirked slightly at the thought of her impulsiveness rubbing off on him. "I'm…"

"…Joshua's younger brother," she grinned. "Your brother talks tons about you. I'm Madeline Desmarais, the wedding singer – only for tonight." John's eyebrows rose with interest. She then added on, answering all the basic questions, "I'm actually not from around here, since you're giving me this bizarre look like I'm some alien. I'm from Nova Scotia – which strangely means New Scotland - in Canada. No, I'm not an actual singer. Your brother just didn't want to pay a large amount of money for a rip-off artist so he called in for a favour. I'm a student, really."

John blinked, later laughing. "Did you just read my mind?"

"It's just the questions I get around here. It's strange, really. Back in Canada, we'd all be asking for people to keep talking to listen to their accent. Here, it's the opposite. Joshua wouldn't let me shut up. He's never met a Canadian before, eh?" she asked. John chuckled at it and nodded.

"You said you were a student. Where are you studying? How old are you…?"

Madeline laughed loudly, unlike the other women in the reception. "I'm studying at King's College, Cambridge. I'm twenty-one."

"What do you study?"

"It's English. Actually, I'm just about to graduate this June. I want to be a teacher, eh? Back home, English was a fantastic year. I had the sassiest teachers ever. They'd let us joke around and that's how our ideas spurred. When I came here, most of my teachers were unbelievably strict and kept it silent. I kind of want to work here, as a teacher, and give some students here the vision of what it's like to walk into a classroom and get some inspiration. English isn't only about grammar and depicting opinions from poetry. It can be fun. I'd like to show that to some people.

"Oh, shoot – I've said way too much. Now, if you don't mind, may I ask questions about you?" she questioned.

"Aye; fire away."

"Your brother likes to talk about you and gloat about you being a soldier. So, you save the world, eh? Is that how you got your scar – striking down Tangos and being Oscar Mike? You're secretly saving the world without anyone's notice?" she joked, winking. John didn't bother to stop himself from being humoured. She talked in a funny way – like a child but at the same time old enough to keep a conversation with. It wasn't so serious.

Yeah, my, my such-a-sweet thing
I wanna do everything.
What a beautiful feeling
Crimson and clover over and over

John shook his head, still smiling. "Sorry; the story's not as great as Joshua makes it. I got this scar before I joined the military, actually. It was by my neighbour's dog." Madeline nodded slowly, allowing the information to sink in. She shrugged, her childish smiling returning and, from that moment, he knew that her mouth was about to open to say something outrageous.

"It must be easy getting some respect from the soldiers, isn't it?"

He grinned. "It is! One visible scar and suddenly everyone thinks you're badass enough to go through anything." He cleared his throat and momentarily looked at the stage with the changed music. Looking back at her, he said, "Tell me something about your self, Maddi."

Madeline's eyes shot up at him when noticing he had shortened her name. She grinned slyly. "Alright; I'm a nerd for Doctor Who ever since I Christopher Eccleston and Billie Tyler on the show. I'm a Valentine's Day baby – I mean, I was born on the fourteenth! I can speak French. I also know sign language! What else? Let's see… The first thing that disappointed me about London was that there was no poutine. The first thing that made me ecstatic was the architecture, accents and culture. Oh, and I think spiders are absolute nightmares."

John raised an eyebrow. "You didn't tell me your favourite colour. Everyone has a favourite colour."

She smirked. "Not people who can't see them. Sorry, love; I'm colour-blind." John's expression turned almost horrified from his previous statement. About to apologize, Madeline began laughing and told him that it was no problem at all. "Just tell me about you."

He took a moment to think it through. "I hate dogs – can't stand them ever since I was twelve. I, uh, always wanted to be a soldier when I was little and now I'm living what I want. I've have crushed on almost all of my sister's girlfriends. It hurt knowing that I stood absolutely no chance, though. Anyway, when I was much younger, I brought in a skunk once to keep as a pet. And, when I was sixteen, my friends shaved my hair and I've kept the hairstyle ever since."

"I think that was a blessing in disguise," she grinned. He nodded in agreement and both laughed. Both of them received awkward looks from the other dancers. "Maybe we should get away from the dance floor and just head out, eh? We're bothering too many people here. At least it is cooler outside and we can laugh all we want. How 'bout it?"

Before he was able to open his mouth to agree, Madeline grabbed his hand and dragged him outside. For hours, the two spent their time giggling like children about their previous life experiences. Despite the fact that he had only known her for a few hours, and every piece of being uncomfortable had evaporated. They maniacally shouted, making fun of themselves and their previous stupidity.

Watching her movement, he looked past her boyish, "unnoticeable" features and appreciated her faint curves, mostly outlined by her bold physical movements. He noticed the way Madeline's hands had moved as she talked. He attempted to suppress the smile he had whenever listening to her Canadian-accented voice. What interested him the most was when she finally removed that damned fedora of hers, allowing her curly brown hair to fall to her shoulders. Now, her appearance looked like she had stolen clothes from a man.

Having to depart, both exchanged numbers with the intent of seeing each other again. He watched her being to walk away, but found his self confused when seeing her turn around to face him. She moved her feet toward him and did not stop until her hand slipped behind his neck and her lips pressed against his. His heart instinctively paused.

"I would have regretted it if I didn't do that," she said, shrugging. Stunned, John's eyes could not blink as she disappeared behind the door to re-enter the building. His hands froze with the thought that even after eight years of being secluded, he still managed to find himself in a whirlwind. His jaw slightly slacked.

He only managed to saying, "Holy shit."

Roach's mouth opened but failed to provide any audible words. Ghost merely looked impressed as he said, "You saw her again, right?" MacTavish nodded while leaning against his seat while placing his hands on his head.

"Oh, I saw her. For everyday while I was home, or, err, in London, I saw her – all the way until I was deployed again. She stuck out, you know? She was some sort of tomboy. She loved to joke around. She had a twisted but hilarious sense of humour. Maddi used me as a test dummy on her jokes, actually, especially with having an audio of a dog barking just to scare me. But I loved her, regardless of what she did. I don't know why. Maybe it was because she made every damn day so bloody interesting. She never watched life – she lived it.

"I agree; she was a little weird one. These cowboy boots were hers. They were her lucky charm. She wore it for everything – her graduation at King's College, her job interview, her first day at work, and pretty much at everything else. She was… quirky. You could spend one hour with her and you'd fall in love with her weird, bubbly personality. She smiled all the time. I always wondered if I lived on the wrong continent, if all Canadians or Americans were like that…"

"I had this one problem with her, though. As a kid, I was afraid of people getting into car crashes ever since my sister's friend got herself injured. Maddi, though, always liked to speed. I don't think she intended to do it. She just did. I got into the habit of reminding her every day two things: that I loved her, and for her to slow the hell down. I mean, she spent a lot of time in the hospital in her childhood because she was accident prone. You would think that it would scare her into precaution. Damn girl.

"Anyway, too many people told me that we'd never get along, that our being apart would break this relationship. But you know what? I had faith in Maddi. I loved her enough to trust her with everything I had…"

I'm going to ask you all for one thing right now: please be considerate when criticizing Madeline! There is a reason why she acts to bubbly and quirky, but I'll have to reveal that part later. Anyway, this is the end of Chapter VII! I am also reminding you to please review this chapter. Constructive criticism and comments will be highly appreciated! Flames will be used to find Makarov!

By the way, the lyrics came from "Angel" by Shaggy and "Clover & Crimson" by Tommy James & the Shondells.

Chapter Title: How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away? By Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks
Chapter Question: Do you believe in love at first sight? Please elaborate! (This will be used for future writing references.)

Review for not-so-mini-MacTavish!