AN: Sorry for the long pause, I should be updating fairly regularly from
now on. Here's a long chapter to make up for the delay!
Chapter 10
Two weeks later.
Kay was walking through campus on her way to class, her spirits mellow and calm. It had taken her awhile to process the crazy events of that 24 hour period in her life, but she had. Despite her new found feelings for Nicholas, and their obvious intensity, Kay had decided that she needed a break from men altogether. She had rushed into things with Nicholas and had been burned just as much as she had by taking things painstakingly slow with Miguel. She needed to be alone for awhile.
She smiled, her decision bringing her peace of mind. She looked around her campus and saw that the snow laying on the ground reflected the sun beautifully onto all of its gothic style buildings. .And suddenly she felt the familiar sense of disorientation as the world inverted around her. She smirked as she felt the numbing pain in her shoulder and ankle.
She didn't see anyone around, but she said the obligatory, "Shoot!" and began to assess the damage. This time, she was pretty sure that she had done a bit of damage to her ankle. That snow covered a hard layer of ice and wasn't so cute anymore now that she was up close and personal with it. She tried to shift her weight to stand and was surprised when everything seemed to work properly. Until she went to put weight on her ankle and pain ripped up her leg. Mortified, she realized that she wasn't going to be able to get up on her own.
"Kay!" a voice called from behind her. "Kay, are you alright?" Kay squinted up into the sun and saw Simone looking down at her. Stunning as always, Simone was decked out in a bright blue loose fitting shirt with impossibly tight white pants.
Kay grinned up at her. "Well, besides being blinded by the snow and that shirt you're wearing, I'm peachy."
Simone lightly kicked Kay in the side with her chunky white boots and bent over to help Kay stand. With the help of Simone's shoulder, Kay was able to stand up to her full height.
"Where do you live?" Simone asked her, looking vaguely around the campus.
"Umm, just over there in that dorm building. If you could just help me get over there."
Simone grinned at her and started leading her in the opposite direction. "Oh, I was asking for future reference. Since you're clearly not going to class now, what with being an invalid and all, you might as well hang out with me for a bit. I've gotta get some stuff for my new apartment."
Kay hobbled along beside her. She was about to protest, but remembered that she'd sworn off guys. If hanging out with Simone didn't help her get perspective and start making new friends, nothing would. She grinned back at Simone and responded, "Not that I have a choice in the matter, but that sounds like a plan to me."
"Cool, I just need to pick up a friend and then we'll head to the store."
"Oh, who's your friend?" Kay asked idly as they slowly made their way to Simone's car.
"Oh, maybe you know her, she's our year, her name is Charity."
Kay winced internally. "Umm, yeah, I went to a birthday cook-out for her I think."
Simone looked at her, sensing something was up. "Are you alright?"
Don't blow this, Kay thought to herself. If it means hanging out with Simone, you could put up with Charity for a bit. It's not like you even have a real problem with her. If Miguel wants to hang all over her, so be it, you're getting over him. "Oh, I'm fine, I just leaned a little too hard on my ankle."
"Well, here's my car, so there'll be no danger of that happening again." Simone led her to the front passenger seat. As they got into the car and pulled off, Simone thought of something. "Oh wait, you can't walk! How're you going to get around the store?!"
Kay grinned, having already thought of that. "Well, I could."
Simone interrupted her, "Oh, you could just ride in one of those electronic cart thingies. I've always wanted to point and laugh at one of my friends in one of those things."
Kay smirked at Simone. "Well, I was going to suggest the same thing, only I was going to say I've always wanted to ride in one of them."
Simone winked at her. "Riiight. You know it's your dream to have me point and laugh at you in one of those things," She pulled to the curb and whipped out her cell phone. "Charity!" she yelled into it, holding it awkwardly. "Charity! Can you hear me?! I'm down here in front of your place!!"
Kay winced and involuntarily covered her ears as she wondered when this Charity chick had gone deaf to require all that yelling. When she heard the yelled reply from Simone's cell phone, she couldn't help but laughing.
"SIMONE!" came Charity's voice. "SIMONE, IT'S A CELL PHONE NOT A BULLHORN. STOP YELLING INTO THE THING!!! I can hear you!"
Simone looked sheepish. "Oh yeah. Well, I'm here chic so get down here." She clicked the phone off after a brief search for the right button and looked over at Kay. "I hate that damned thing, but it saves tons of energy. Can you imagine when people actually had to leave their car to get a friend?" She and Kay gave snorts of laughter together.
After a few minutes, Charity bounded down the steps of her building and hopped into the backseat of the car behind Simone. "Hey Simone!" she chirped. Kay struggled to keep from rolling her eyes. She couldn't imagine how someone got that much pep into two words. Kay grinned when she noticed that Simone didn't even bother trying to mask her eye roll. Kay was slightly impressed when Charity lightly popped Simone on the head. At least the girl had spunk and the ability to laugh at herself.
Charity turned her blue eyes to Kay. "Hey there, you're Kay right?"
Kay found herself smiling at Charity in spite of herself. "That's me. How's it goin'?"
"It's goin. If this girl in front of me would stop rolling her eyes and focus on the road." Charity smiled so sweetly that if Kay hadn't been paying attention to the words, she would have sworn that Charity had just paid someone a compliment.
"Hey now, this ain't Drivin' Miss Daisy, you chill out and I'll do what I like up here." Simone stuck her tongue out at Charity as punctuation using the rearview mirror.
The banter continued until they got to the store and Simone and Charity hopped out of the car. Simone walked away from the car towards the cart dispenser to get Kay transportation. "Charity, can you help Kay out of the car while I get her one of these things? She had a lil mishap and is a little incapacitated."
"Sure thing. Just try not to break the dispenser, we know how bad you are with technology." Simone ran quickly back to the car, wacked Charity on the arm, and bounded away again. Charity walked to Kay's side of the car.
"Here, take my arm." Charity began.
As Kay gripped Chairty's arm for support, it seemed as if the sun's light flashed intensely for a second and a blinding blue heat seared through Kay's hand, into her arm, and through her body until it hit her ankle. And, although somewhat shakily, Kay stood up without effort, all the pain gone from her ankle.
Charity looked into Kay's eyes and said calmly, "We need to talk, but not here, and not now. Simone knows about this, but we can't talk in public. We'll shop like normal and talk when we get back to Simone's."
Kay, stunned by her miraculous recovery already, was thrown completely off balance by Charity's little speech and sat down hard back into the car.
"Kay?" Charity was unsure of how to proceed. She had no clue how much Kay knew about what had just happened and didn't want to frighten her. "Kay, are you alright?"
"Charity, you just healed my ankle! I feel better, but I'm damn far from alright!!"
Charity grimaced internally, but kept her face expressionless. I guess she doesn't know much, Charity thought to herself. "Kay, I promise, I can explain this. well, mostly I think. But it's nothing to worry about. Let's just finish here and get back to Simone's. I promise, I'll explain everything," she said again.
Kay, beginning to realize that her life was just never gonna be the happily interrogative existence that she longed for, nodded numbly and followed Charity to the store. Simone briefly attempted to ask about Kay not needing the motorized wheelchair, but Charity shushed her with an intense look. ------------------------------------------------------------
"Dude man, what's going on?" Simone asked the minute they had brought all of the bags into her apartment.
Kay looked at Charity, indicating that she was the only person who had a clue what was going on.
Charity, for her part, looked slightly nervous, but strangely excited. She told them both to have a seat and started pacing around, wringing her hands. "Okay," she jumped right in. "Kay, have you ever seen or felt that blue heat before?"
Kay turned bright red, remembering that night a couple of weeks ago. But, that was with Nicholas. Kay was a pretty liberal woman, but she was pretty sure that she wasn't in love with Charity. She decided, once again true to her nature, to lay all her cards out on the table and see what happened. She told Charity and Simone the events of that night in detail.
At the end, Simone jumped up and shouted, "That's why that fool has been acting so retarded. Man, Kay, you sure did a number on him." Simone started grinning now that her worry over Nicholas's state could fade with this new information. "Oh dude man, I'm gonna rag on him to no end about this."
Simone's grin only widened at Kay's look of panic. She loved stirring things up a bit. Besides, her long time friend and supporter would suit this new friend of hers just fine. A glance at Charity, though, told her that there were more somber and important matters to discuss for the time being. But she filed away plans for Nicholas and Kay for later.
Charity, for her part, had turned even paler as she ran the details of Kay's story through her mind. Something about a young woman in flames. Flames. Her mother had always been afraid of real fire, which Charity thought ironic, given the cool blue heat all the women of her family shared. Charity had always understood this fear, however, since Faith, her mother, had lost her twin sister to fire.
Kay and Simone were both worried by the shock apparent on Charity's delicate visage. Simone was the first to break the silence. "Charity, what's the matter, I thought you already knew about this stuff? Doesn't this just mean that you and Kay are related somehow?"
Kay looked at Simone in shock. "You knew about this. this. this blue thing? It runs in her family?" Slowly, Kay began to piece together the puzzle in her mind. "So, it must not be only love that triggers it, but family contact, right?" she muttered more to herself. "So this is great news." she continued as she whipped around to face Simone. "My mother's had amnesia since before I was born, this means I might finally have found some of my family!" Kay turned to face Charity now, her face shining. "Charity, we could be distant cousins or something!"
Charity slowly came out of her daze as the color returned to her cheeks. "Kay." she began. "Kay, we're not distant cousins."
"I mean, okay, maybe not, but how else would you explain this?" Kay was inexplicably hurt to hear Charity deny their relationship. She had always valued family above all else and it didn't seem as though Charity was willing to share hers, despite this extraordinary proof of their relation.
"Kay, let me finish," Charity said, her voice stronger now and a matching grin growing across her face. "Kay, we're not distant cousins. We're first cousins."
Chapter 10
Two weeks later.
Kay was walking through campus on her way to class, her spirits mellow and calm. It had taken her awhile to process the crazy events of that 24 hour period in her life, but she had. Despite her new found feelings for Nicholas, and their obvious intensity, Kay had decided that she needed a break from men altogether. She had rushed into things with Nicholas and had been burned just as much as she had by taking things painstakingly slow with Miguel. She needed to be alone for awhile.
She smiled, her decision bringing her peace of mind. She looked around her campus and saw that the snow laying on the ground reflected the sun beautifully onto all of its gothic style buildings. .And suddenly she felt the familiar sense of disorientation as the world inverted around her. She smirked as she felt the numbing pain in her shoulder and ankle.
She didn't see anyone around, but she said the obligatory, "Shoot!" and began to assess the damage. This time, she was pretty sure that she had done a bit of damage to her ankle. That snow covered a hard layer of ice and wasn't so cute anymore now that she was up close and personal with it. She tried to shift her weight to stand and was surprised when everything seemed to work properly. Until she went to put weight on her ankle and pain ripped up her leg. Mortified, she realized that she wasn't going to be able to get up on her own.
"Kay!" a voice called from behind her. "Kay, are you alright?" Kay squinted up into the sun and saw Simone looking down at her. Stunning as always, Simone was decked out in a bright blue loose fitting shirt with impossibly tight white pants.
Kay grinned up at her. "Well, besides being blinded by the snow and that shirt you're wearing, I'm peachy."
Simone lightly kicked Kay in the side with her chunky white boots and bent over to help Kay stand. With the help of Simone's shoulder, Kay was able to stand up to her full height.
"Where do you live?" Simone asked her, looking vaguely around the campus.
"Umm, just over there in that dorm building. If you could just help me get over there."
Simone grinned at her and started leading her in the opposite direction. "Oh, I was asking for future reference. Since you're clearly not going to class now, what with being an invalid and all, you might as well hang out with me for a bit. I've gotta get some stuff for my new apartment."
Kay hobbled along beside her. She was about to protest, but remembered that she'd sworn off guys. If hanging out with Simone didn't help her get perspective and start making new friends, nothing would. She grinned back at Simone and responded, "Not that I have a choice in the matter, but that sounds like a plan to me."
"Cool, I just need to pick up a friend and then we'll head to the store."
"Oh, who's your friend?" Kay asked idly as they slowly made their way to Simone's car.
"Oh, maybe you know her, she's our year, her name is Charity."
Kay winced internally. "Umm, yeah, I went to a birthday cook-out for her I think."
Simone looked at her, sensing something was up. "Are you alright?"
Don't blow this, Kay thought to herself. If it means hanging out with Simone, you could put up with Charity for a bit. It's not like you even have a real problem with her. If Miguel wants to hang all over her, so be it, you're getting over him. "Oh, I'm fine, I just leaned a little too hard on my ankle."
"Well, here's my car, so there'll be no danger of that happening again." Simone led her to the front passenger seat. As they got into the car and pulled off, Simone thought of something. "Oh wait, you can't walk! How're you going to get around the store?!"
Kay grinned, having already thought of that. "Well, I could."
Simone interrupted her, "Oh, you could just ride in one of those electronic cart thingies. I've always wanted to point and laugh at one of my friends in one of those things."
Kay smirked at Simone. "Well, I was going to suggest the same thing, only I was going to say I've always wanted to ride in one of them."
Simone winked at her. "Riiight. You know it's your dream to have me point and laugh at you in one of those things," She pulled to the curb and whipped out her cell phone. "Charity!" she yelled into it, holding it awkwardly. "Charity! Can you hear me?! I'm down here in front of your place!!"
Kay winced and involuntarily covered her ears as she wondered when this Charity chick had gone deaf to require all that yelling. When she heard the yelled reply from Simone's cell phone, she couldn't help but laughing.
"SIMONE!" came Charity's voice. "SIMONE, IT'S A CELL PHONE NOT A BULLHORN. STOP YELLING INTO THE THING!!! I can hear you!"
Simone looked sheepish. "Oh yeah. Well, I'm here chic so get down here." She clicked the phone off after a brief search for the right button and looked over at Kay. "I hate that damned thing, but it saves tons of energy. Can you imagine when people actually had to leave their car to get a friend?" She and Kay gave snorts of laughter together.
After a few minutes, Charity bounded down the steps of her building and hopped into the backseat of the car behind Simone. "Hey Simone!" she chirped. Kay struggled to keep from rolling her eyes. She couldn't imagine how someone got that much pep into two words. Kay grinned when she noticed that Simone didn't even bother trying to mask her eye roll. Kay was slightly impressed when Charity lightly popped Simone on the head. At least the girl had spunk and the ability to laugh at herself.
Charity turned her blue eyes to Kay. "Hey there, you're Kay right?"
Kay found herself smiling at Charity in spite of herself. "That's me. How's it goin'?"
"It's goin. If this girl in front of me would stop rolling her eyes and focus on the road." Charity smiled so sweetly that if Kay hadn't been paying attention to the words, she would have sworn that Charity had just paid someone a compliment.
"Hey now, this ain't Drivin' Miss Daisy, you chill out and I'll do what I like up here." Simone stuck her tongue out at Charity as punctuation using the rearview mirror.
The banter continued until they got to the store and Simone and Charity hopped out of the car. Simone walked away from the car towards the cart dispenser to get Kay transportation. "Charity, can you help Kay out of the car while I get her one of these things? She had a lil mishap and is a little incapacitated."
"Sure thing. Just try not to break the dispenser, we know how bad you are with technology." Simone ran quickly back to the car, wacked Charity on the arm, and bounded away again. Charity walked to Kay's side of the car.
"Here, take my arm." Charity began.
As Kay gripped Chairty's arm for support, it seemed as if the sun's light flashed intensely for a second and a blinding blue heat seared through Kay's hand, into her arm, and through her body until it hit her ankle. And, although somewhat shakily, Kay stood up without effort, all the pain gone from her ankle.
Charity looked into Kay's eyes and said calmly, "We need to talk, but not here, and not now. Simone knows about this, but we can't talk in public. We'll shop like normal and talk when we get back to Simone's."
Kay, stunned by her miraculous recovery already, was thrown completely off balance by Charity's little speech and sat down hard back into the car.
"Kay?" Charity was unsure of how to proceed. She had no clue how much Kay knew about what had just happened and didn't want to frighten her. "Kay, are you alright?"
"Charity, you just healed my ankle! I feel better, but I'm damn far from alright!!"
Charity grimaced internally, but kept her face expressionless. I guess she doesn't know much, Charity thought to herself. "Kay, I promise, I can explain this. well, mostly I think. But it's nothing to worry about. Let's just finish here and get back to Simone's. I promise, I'll explain everything," she said again.
Kay, beginning to realize that her life was just never gonna be the happily interrogative existence that she longed for, nodded numbly and followed Charity to the store. Simone briefly attempted to ask about Kay not needing the motorized wheelchair, but Charity shushed her with an intense look. ------------------------------------------------------------
"Dude man, what's going on?" Simone asked the minute they had brought all of the bags into her apartment.
Kay looked at Charity, indicating that she was the only person who had a clue what was going on.
Charity, for her part, looked slightly nervous, but strangely excited. She told them both to have a seat and started pacing around, wringing her hands. "Okay," she jumped right in. "Kay, have you ever seen or felt that blue heat before?"
Kay turned bright red, remembering that night a couple of weeks ago. But, that was with Nicholas. Kay was a pretty liberal woman, but she was pretty sure that she wasn't in love with Charity. She decided, once again true to her nature, to lay all her cards out on the table and see what happened. She told Charity and Simone the events of that night in detail.
At the end, Simone jumped up and shouted, "That's why that fool has been acting so retarded. Man, Kay, you sure did a number on him." Simone started grinning now that her worry over Nicholas's state could fade with this new information. "Oh dude man, I'm gonna rag on him to no end about this."
Simone's grin only widened at Kay's look of panic. She loved stirring things up a bit. Besides, her long time friend and supporter would suit this new friend of hers just fine. A glance at Charity, though, told her that there were more somber and important matters to discuss for the time being. But she filed away plans for Nicholas and Kay for later.
Charity, for her part, had turned even paler as she ran the details of Kay's story through her mind. Something about a young woman in flames. Flames. Her mother had always been afraid of real fire, which Charity thought ironic, given the cool blue heat all the women of her family shared. Charity had always understood this fear, however, since Faith, her mother, had lost her twin sister to fire.
Kay and Simone were both worried by the shock apparent on Charity's delicate visage. Simone was the first to break the silence. "Charity, what's the matter, I thought you already knew about this stuff? Doesn't this just mean that you and Kay are related somehow?"
Kay looked at Simone in shock. "You knew about this. this. this blue thing? It runs in her family?" Slowly, Kay began to piece together the puzzle in her mind. "So, it must not be only love that triggers it, but family contact, right?" she muttered more to herself. "So this is great news." she continued as she whipped around to face Simone. "My mother's had amnesia since before I was born, this means I might finally have found some of my family!" Kay turned to face Charity now, her face shining. "Charity, we could be distant cousins or something!"
Charity slowly came out of her daze as the color returned to her cheeks. "Kay." she began. "Kay, we're not distant cousins."
"I mean, okay, maybe not, but how else would you explain this?" Kay was inexplicably hurt to hear Charity deny their relationship. She had always valued family above all else and it didn't seem as though Charity was willing to share hers, despite this extraordinary proof of their relation.
"Kay, let me finish," Charity said, her voice stronger now and a matching grin growing across her face. "Kay, we're not distant cousins. We're first cousins."
