By Didi
Disclaimers: I do not own any recognized character, space, time, event or location. I'm sure Marvel would have a field day if they found out, not that they'd be able to get more than two quarters and jar of pennies from me even if they did decide that this was a violation of the law and they have every right to spend a few hundred thousand dollars are attorneys to come after little ole' me. (Insert halo and Angel's wings right here.)
Summary: Change isn't always so easy to accept, especially when there are unwanted and unexpected emotional consequences attached.
Rating: PG-13 should theoretically be enough. Don't kill me if it isn't, just email and tell me.
Author's Note: Okay, it would appear as if I have started yet another mini series of story focused around two characters... this time Jubilee and Bobby. Tentatively called my "Somewhat" series, I'm going to attempt this without making a complete jackass of myself in the fan fiction writing world. I'm no good with romances; it always comes out looking and sounding horribly cheesy or stupid. (sigh) But I'll attempt this anyways. Timeline: This will follow "Somewhat Unexpected" and "Somewhat Unexplainable." Read those two first to play catch up. They are both one-shots so it should be a quick read.
Also, for those of you that are following the "Weapon X" series and for those of us that aren't, this story will definitely take place before Jono's assignment there and the reconstruction of his face. (And what a face it is!) Thank you Beaubier and Sue Penkivech for that information.
Key: "Spoken", "Telepathic Speech." Any questions?
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Grace.
Pure and simple: grace.
She was the mortal incarnation of grace. Every movement she made was precise and fluid, like water over silk. It was breathtaking to behold such beauty of action so perfectly performed without thought of an audience; it was like watching a bird fly or a dolphin swim, a perfect example of Mother Nature's greatest gifts.
It's been years since he had seen Jubilee on the bars, even knowing that she was recently asked to teach a class. From the hallway gossips, it's quite popular with both male and female students, though he strongly suspect that the male students were there just to admire the way the dark purple leotard skimmed over that gently curved body. Jean had once mentioned that Jubilation had Olympic caliber potential and it was a shamed that she was choosing not to pursue it. Of course, that was just after she had joined the X-Men and before her life went to hell in a hand basket. But it was clear that the years of hard living hasn't dulled any of that aptitude.
His breath caught in his throat as she launched herself through the air, freefalling for a second, and caught the next bar with both hands slapping metal at the same time. Perfectly balanced execution of a triple rotational back flips. He let out the breath only when she had hoisted herself up to a sitting position on the bar, preparing for another move.
Having been awake for too many hours already though it was only seven in the morning, he had come to the Danger Room for a few moments of quiet exercise to clear his mind after another sleepless night, the fourth in a roll, before yet another grueling round of classes that involved employing his limited patience on the youth of tomorrow. He now had a new found respect for Professor Xavier who undoubtedly had to put up with similar forms of torture from himself years before. He made a mental note to send his mentor a thank you for not strangling him half a dozen times at various point in his vast education.
The early morning hours virtually guaranteed him an empty Danger Room and he counted on it. He had not been expecting the reason for his restless nights to be there, much less giving a performance with the kind of skill and beauty that only the naturally agile Nightcrawler could rival. So there he was, staring transfixed up on the slip of a girl he had known for too many years and experiencing a somewhat disturbing feeling that something had shifted in his universe though he could not quite put his finger on what it was just yet.
The past four nights had been less than kind of his sleep cycle, with vivid dreams that he couldn't quite remember in the waking hours but couldn't quite forget flashes of bright sapphire blue. As a result, it has left him moody, crabby, and exercising a tried and true strategy of old on dealing with uncertainties: avoidance. And so far, he's been rather successful on evading who he thinks is the object of these unsettling dreams that he couldn't damn well completely remember or forget. And he's been simply miserable because of it. There are moments where he called himself a fool and wonder why he was being so silly about this; after all, Jubilee and he have been friends for too many years now. They could tell each other anything and be okay. Nothing has changed; nothing should change. He didn't see how something as insignificant as a little kiss could change anything.
Okay, now he as just plain lying to himself.
The kiss did change things. It changed because he didn't react to it the right way. Didn't react to it the way he was sure Jubilee had meant for him to react. Like a brother. Like a friend. Like someone that didn't...
Well hell, he was a man for god sakes! How the hell did the little squirt expect him to react? He was only human after all.
But this was Jubilee.
Little Jubilation Lee.
The kid that use to rollerblade over Scott Summer's toes on purpose, put green dye in Hank McCoy's shampoo with him, inhale limitless amounts of sugar and thought hot pink was the "in" color. She was his little buddy, the kid that enjoyed Jim Carrey movie with him and laughed at crude humorless toilet jokes. How could he even consider that she¡K that she would know the different effects of how a kiss could drive a man to sanity! That's ridiculous.
She's just a little girl.
A charming little girl.
A graceful, charming little girl.
A graceful, charming little girl looking a little too grown up in a silver gray dress not four days ago.
That damn dress!
He could thank Emma Frost for putting that damn dress into his dreams as well. A glowing smoke gray dress that was two inches too short on the bottom and had four missing inches on the top. It evoked fantasies of silver pixie dusts and midsummer's night magic. She had in no way looked like a little girl in that curve hugging dress. She looked more like a...
"No, no, no." He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand.
She's a little girl. Just a little girl¡Kthat was getting bigger everyday.
Bobby groaned and put his face into his hands. This was getting him nowhere. Next thing you'd know, he'd be humming that little ditty that Maurice Chevalier sang in 'Gigi,' a ridiculously romantic musical that she made him watch. And he still wasn't solving his current dilemma: how to deal with this growing inability to purge these somewhat disturbing dreams before someone-namely Logan-picks up on it and separate his head from his shoulders.
"There you are."
Jumping out of his skin would have been putting it mildly the reaction that little break in the silence caused. Whirling around, Bobby found Warren Worthington standing in the doorway. He was just relieved that it wasn't Scott Summers, whose comments of late were a little too observant to his peace of mind. Or Logan with the at lie detecting nose of his. And on the plus side, the man known as Angel was notoriously tightlipped about his personal life to say nothing of gossiping about others. "Give me a heart attack, why don't you?"
"Sorry." Grinning, Warren came in and stopped when he saw the performance taking place below them. The observation dome had some advantages, one of which is an unobstructed view of whatever was happening in the Danger Room. "Taking in a show?"
Knowing that if he so much as paused in his response Warren would know something was up, "It's almost as good as Cirque du Soleil."
Sitting down by his best friend, Warren took a moment to observe Bobby Drakes. Contrary to what his friend may believe Warren knew Bobby well enough to know the subtle signs. Besides that, the whole school was commenting on the fact that Professor Drake has been steadily avoiding a certain gymnastics teacher that the students were so enthralled with of late. "According to Scott, Jubilee's classes are filled up and there's a waiting list started. She's quite popular."
"Possibly because the students feel like they can relate to her," Bobby answered without thought. "After all, she's in many respects still one of them," and was perfectly true. He's heard more than one comment in the hallways regarding such.
"Jubilee's spoken to Scott about taking some classes at the local colleges, did you know that?" Warren asked as he watched the lithe figure below spin in circles with such fluidity that he was half afraid she was going to slip off. "She and Paige both."
That surprised him. Last he heard the little firecracker despised school with a passion, almost as much as he had at her age. "Is Jubilee even..." Bobby was out of his chair and pressed to the glass window before Warren even had time to react.
She half broke her fall by catching a bar that was midway between her and the matted floor. Her fingers managed to hook onto a slanted sidebar. But with the momentum of the fall and her only catching one bar with one hand, she couldn't hold on and crashed to the padded ground with a resounding thud. Part of the setup of the program she was using had a safety feature where the beams below the body disappear after the first three seconds of freefall from anything over ten feet above grounds. While that little feature was great when Nightcrawler was using the program, teleporting in midair to safety, it didn't help Jubilee at all.
Then there was a long silence as she lied there, half on her side with one arm twisted around her back.
She didn't scream. That was the first thought that went through Bobby's mind as he stared down; stupefied. She hadn't let out as much as a gasp of surprise.
"I'll get Hank," Warren said harshly, his heart in his throat, making to go.
"SHIT!" Jubilee exploded, halting Warren's exit as she rolled onto her back and let out a groan. "Double shit!" flexing her hand and lifting her arm to check for damages. Her blue eyes stared back up at the acrobatic maze above her where the program was quickly reassembling itself, putting back the bars that had been removed during her fall. She growled as several appear exactly in her path of descent; those would have surely saved her from the painful fall had they stayed exactly where they had been. Then letting out a string of rather impressive display of her gutter French curses, she got to her feet again.
"Remind me to have a word with Gambit the next time we see him," Warren muttered with some relief as Jubilee dusted herself off. "She's going to be black and blue by this afternoon."
Bobby nodded more to himself than to answer him. He was just about to make up his mind to go down there and get her to Hank for a quick check up when the door to the Danger Room opened.
"I felt that."
Jubilee glared. "Stow it."
He laughed, or at least that was what appeared to be what he was doing.
"I'm warning you, Jono..."
"You better go get yourself checked out. A broken bone now would be rather inconvenient."
She made a face and took a running start to hit the spring board with enough force to launch her onto the first bar. "I heard you were taking off again."
Jono watched her with calm eyes the color of darkness. "Itchy feet."
Rolling her eyes, Jubilee began to climb higher and higher. "Is that what you told Paigey?" she looked down and smirked.
Bobby felt Warren tense up next to him. It wasn't any secret that Paige Guthrie and Warren Worthington were becoming 'close.' It was also obvious that the ex-boyfriend wasn't exactly thrilled. Having been on that end of a relationship, Bobby didn't blame the poor sap one whit.
The man that was a living chamber of bio-plasma merely stared back with an unflinching expression of blankness. "We spoke. I told her that I was leaving in a few days."
"Because of 'itchy feet?'" she asked with her voice dripping with sarcasm. The look of disgust told the others what she thought of this little circus act being played before her.
Jono didn't answer, merely continued to watch as she executed more complicated moves.
Catching a wide balanced bar, Jubilee got to her feet and braced herself with her feet crossed on bar for a moment. While she was high enough to see the observation dome, she wasn't at a height to see into it. "Why are you men so damn stupid?" she asked with a shake of her head before doing a back flip that should have been impossible at such a height and on such a narrow bar but she did it anyways.
Raising a brow questioningly, "Is that a question I really need to answer?"
"Well, I'm just curious that's all. I mean, if you like a person, shouldn't you just tell them instead of torturing yourself, and everyone else around you, by being all angst-y and mope-y?" she did two full front end spins.
"Is that the course of action you took with Everett?"
Almost unbalancing herself, Jubilee's head snapped down and she stared at him for a moment, face blank of all emotions before she inclined her head slightly, "Touché," then threw herself into the air, catching the next bar over.
There was a long pause where the tension was almost tangible. Bobby didn't know why but he could feel it growing. It hung like an unspoken secret between lovers, poisoning the very air around them. Glancing at Warren, it was obvious that he wasn't the only one that felt it. "Maybe we shouldn't be hearing this?"
"Maybe," Warren replied but made no move to leave.
For once, Jono expressed something other than silent brooding. "I'm sorry. That was out of line."
"Why?" she asked before free falling onto the next set of bars. She was becoming almost reckless now in her movement across the expense of metal obstacles. "It's perfectly true." She hoisted herself up and sat for a moment to catch her breath. Her big blue eyes were sad. "I doling out advise that maybe I should have taken when I had the chance."
"But I shouldn't have said it like that," Jono replied regretfully. "I apologize."
"Forget it, Shock-o-Shock," she replied with a smile that never reached her eyes. "Already forgotten."
Jono watched, along with her unobserved observers in the dome, as Jubilee executed a turn that probably should have dislocated an elbow of two. He was quietly thoughtful as he finally came to the reason that had him seeking her out so early in the day. "Mr. Logan asked if you were going to return to LA."
That was a surprise to Bobby as he turned and looked at Warren with startled eyes. He hadn't heard anything to that effect of late. Sure, it was mentioned when Jubilee first awoke from her brief visit to the pearly gates but no one had so much as hinted at it again after Scott had put his foot down on that subject. Not even Jean's gentle reminder that Jubilee wasn't his ward had sway Mr. Summers resolve that Jubilee not be away from the X-Men once more.
"What did you tell him?" Jubilee asked mildly as she clapped her hands together, sending a small cloud of chalk up.
"I didn't disclose our conversation if that's what you're concerned about."
"I'm not," she replied, releasing the bar and made a full straight-back summersault before landing on her feet. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she turned to him with a steady gaze, "If I were, I wouldn't have come to you."
"Why did you?" he asked as he handed her a towel. "I would have expected you to talk to Paige or one of the others."
"They won't have understood," Jubilee answered with a sigh. "Paige and I are friends and all but... She's so into all this; she wouldn't get it."
"And you think I do?"
"Don't you?"
Jono's eyes were blank again for a moment as he considered it. "Yeah, I do."
"See," she said smugly as she drank deeply from the water bottle.
He took her hand to gain her attention. "About what I said..."
"You're not going to change your mind on me now are you?" she asked quietly, watching him with unblinking blue eyes that challenged him.
"No," he replied with a firm shake of his head. "I just think that it might be a better idea if you stay here."
Bobby sucked in his breath and leaned against the pane, his heart in his throat and his mind damning Jono for whatever advice he may or may not have given Jubilee. And while he didn't understand or even want to acknowledge why her presence would or could be so important to him after knowing her for so long, he accepted it as a fact nevertheless. "Did you know she was considering returning to LA?"
"No," Warren brow pointed down with displeasure. "Last I heard Scott had thoroughly quashed that idea from her mind. He even threatened to move the whole team's main base there if she thought about leaving us."
"He did?" Bobby looked at Warren to see if he was having his chain yanked. But the complete seriously in the millionaire's handsome profile told him so. "When did Scott and Jubilee get so close?"
"When Rachel disappeared I guess," the winged one answered softly.
"Jono..." rolling her eyes and giving into the need to sigh. Obviously this was a subject discussed one too many times. "Give me one good reason why."
"For one, the students would miss you." Jono pointed out with great authority.
"Yeah because they so need gymnastics as an elective."
"No," taking her shoulder. "Because they would miss a teacher that can still relate to them in ways that the others can't. You don't think the others don't notice that you are everyone's favorite counselor because you are one of them?"
"Jono¡K" knowing that he was hitting on something.
"Mr. Logan isn't over your little stunt with the cross yet," he reminded his friend. "Cripps Jube, I'm not over that little resurrection act you pulled."
Jubilee winced.
Bobby nodded his head in agreement. It'll be a pretty cold day in hell when he could finally put that image from his mind. Her staked to a cross, face bloodlessly pale and those eyes, those sparkling eyes of sapphire, forever closed and screwed together in pain. It was as if someone had drained all the color for the world and left nothing but the darkness there. He had felt so cold from the inside, and not because his powers were running rampant again. It was a sensation that he never want to revisit. EVER!
"I still have nightmares," Warren admitted quietly from Bobby's side. Though his face was stoic, there was a haunted quality in his powder blue eyes. "If we had gotten there just five minutes earlier..."
"Stop it," Bobby said sharply, knowing where his friend's mind had gone. Though Warren had managed to bring back a majority of those that had been crucified alongside Jubilee, there was still that one... the one that hadn't come back; Jubilee's friend, her roommate, her companion: Angelo Espinosa a.k.a. Skin. With all the good he did, Warren was haunted by the one failure. "It does no good to dwell." And though he hated himself for it, he was glad it had been Angelo.
"Tell it to Jubilee," Warren replied without any heat.
Unable to argue with that fact, Bobby said nothing.
"Blood hell girl, I'm just saying that perhaps it's a bit too soon for you to be heralding off on your own again."
"Too soon for who?"
"For whom," he corrected automatically. "For everyone."
Jubilee rolled her eyes. "I hardly think that I'm of any consequence as far as fire power goes around here. I'm a sparkler," displaying at spray of color into the air. "I'm like a pea shooter to your Stealth Bomber. I can't play with the big boys around here."
"That's not what she said the other night," Bobby muttered under his breath.
"What?" Warren asked turning sharply.
"That's not true and you know it," Jono admonished with a frown.
"Do I?" she asked tilting her head questioningly at him.
"I think Everett proved that more than once," he pointed out. That didn't sit too well with her and she sent sparkler into his face. Jono, true to this dark and brooding form as well as his trust in his friend, didn't so much as blink. "Don't leave."
She looked at him, her slightly tilted eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Why?"
He stared at her for a moment. "I would miss you."
Bobby felt himself flinch for no apparent reason.
"When did Jono and Jubilee get so close?" Warren muttered.
That's what Bobby would like to know.
Jubilee gave him a look that was pure annoyance. "You're not even going to be around."
"But I would like to know that you will be here when I get back," he gave her a look that was a little too intense. "I'd consider it a personal favor if you keep yourself alive for me to come back to."
"I don't plan on getting killed again any time soon," she muttered disagreeably.
"I didn't think you meant to do it the first time either," he replied and gave her a little shake. "I don't have a lot of friends in this world, sunshine. And I've lost enough of them to not want to be careless with the ones I've got left." His elbows bent a fraction, as if he was considering hugging her but then straightened once more. "We may not be as close as you and Angelo or Ev was but I do consider you a friend, Jube; I don't get to say that about a lot of people in my life, especially where I'm going. Stay where you are protected; where I know you are protected."
"Jono..."
"Please."
Her eyes turned dark with concern. "You know, I don't think you've ever asked me for anything before."
"Then would you be willing to grant me this one request?"
Holding his breath, Bobby pressed himself forward against the glass dome waiting for the response. He wasn't sure if he wanted it to be yes or not, not to the question as to whether she would stay, but whether she would honor a request from Jonothan Starmore. He didn't know why but it was somewhat disturbing for him to know that Jubilee would shift her life to please another... another guy...K that wasn't Logan.
"What's going on, Jono?" she wanted to know, taking hold of his arms as well. She ignored the fact that she was suppose to have class in less than half an hour and she's still got to get showered. "This isn't like you." He turned his head away but she won't let him go. "Talk to me," she said without anything but concern.
"I'm going away," he projected with some concern. "Mr. Logan said that it wasn't going to be... it wasn't going to be like last time."
"With the college you mean?"
"Yeah," nodding slowly and ran a quick hand through his hair as she dropped her arms to her side. "This isn't going to be as easy."
The expression on Jubilee's face was a mixture of pain and fear. "Where are you going?"
He didn't look at her. "I can't tell you."
"Are you coming back?"
He turned to face her, not letting a hint of emotion betray him. "I can't tell you that either."
"Jono..." she stopped herself. Coming close, she hesitated for a moment before she wrapped her arms around his middle and hugged him. She hid her face in his jacket for a moment. "Do you have to?"
There was a moment of doubt in his eyes. "Yeah, I have to."
She nodded and just stayed there.
Bobby swallowed the swallow lump in his throat. "Do you know?" he asked Warren.
"No," shaking his head. "But I'll find out."
"Do that," Bobby said quietly, watching the two below, feeling torn between sympathy and... and something else.
"I'll miss you," Jubilee whispered against the leather jacket.
"Only if you stay," he replied, not moving, possibly because he didn't know what the next move is.
"You going to come back if I stay?" she asked.
He nodded. "I don't expect not to."
Jubilee closed her eyes and took a deep shuddering breath as if to calm herself before she pulled away. Facing him, she wrinkled her nose and told him sternly, "I really hate emotional blackmail, you know that?"
"Don't we all?"
Wiggling one finger at him, "If I find out that you're going away just to make me stay here and listen to Scott Summer drone on and on about the responsibilities of the X-Men and blah, blah, blah; I'm going to soooo... kick your ass."
Jono made a movement that may have been a smirk had he a mouth to make a smirk with, "Yet another reason why I like undercover work."
"You mean besides avoiding Hayseed and Auntie Em?" she needled.
Warren tensed up beside Bobby once more.
Leaning over, Bobby couldn't help but ask, "What's up with you and Paige?" The tension between Warren and Jono had become so palpable that even Scott has commented on it on more than one occasion; and Summers was usually the last one to know any of the good gossips around the school.
"Nothing," came the curt reply that shut down any more inquiries in that regards.
"Running doesn't solve anything," Jubilee said in a sing-songy tone as she danced around Jono with a grin.
He gave her a look.
She winced. "Okay, people in glass houses and all that shit¡K" she muttered with a face.
"By the way," Jono stopped her just as they were about to reach the door. "A car?"
Giving him her most innocent look, "What? It was only a car."
"And I thought I was indiscreet."
"Excuse me?" she said outraged. "Hello? Do the words 'Sugar Kane' and 'tabloid' mean anything to you?"
Bobby could tell from the look Jono slanted her that he was more than just a little amused by that comment as they slipped out the door. Letting out a breath he hadn't even realized he was still holding Bobby collapsed into the chair behind him. His knees felt just a little too wobbly at the moment and he wasn't even sure why¡K no, that's not true, he knew exactly why. "That was close," he muttered.
Warren said not a word as they stay there in the silence, Bobby too absorbed in his analysis of why he was relieved to really notice that his friend was studying him eyes that were seeing just a little too much. Powder blue eyes met gray-blue eyes after several minutes of silence where Warren weighed his options as to what to do with this newfound tidbit of news, both in regards to Jubilee and Bobby. "Should we inform Scott?" referring to Jubilee's recent thoughts on returning to her hometown.
"Why?" Bobby replied sharply. "She isn't going anywhere."
Raising a brow, for Bobby wasn't usually so slow, "If you'll notice, she very neatly avoided answering Mr. Starmore directly," Warren pointed. "She may still decide that she would be¡K" he didn't get a chance to complete his thoughts on that matter for Bobby had left his seat and the room before he could get pass the first line of thinking. Apparently, action does speak louder than words and Bobby's just eliminated any doubt Warren may had about the recent strange behavior from the man in regards to his favorite Gen-X-er. Well... maybe his second favorite.
Catching up to the Jubilation in the West Wing, where the rest of the X-Men were currently housed, Bobby wasn't very nice about it as he grabbed her arms on his way to his room. He didn't really give any consideration as to what the others might think seeing this, he only had one objective in mind.
"Hey!" was all she got out before Jubilee found herself shoved rather unceremoniously through a door, lost her balance on a pair of errant shoes discarded in haste and bounced once on the edge of an unmade bed before landed partially on an open book about world economics. She had a brief moment of curious thought as to why anyone, much less happy-go-lucky Bobby, would want to read about the problems of global economic consequences. "What gives?"
"Are you leaving?" without any preamble.
Eyes wide and just a little lost as to the content of the question, "What?"
"Are. You. Leaving." Grounding out every agonizing word so that he won't choke on it. And when she didn't answer after a minute of silence, "ARE YOU LEAVING?!?"
Startling by his raised voice, she scrambled to her feet. Bobby lost his temper often, too often by most accounts, but never at her. Never! "What are you talking about?"
"Jubilee, I really don't have the patience to play games with you right now. All I want is a straighter answer."
Narrowing her eyes slowly, "Where did you hear that I was leaving?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It does to me," poking him in the chest with a stiff finger, her blue eyes bright with seriousness.
He wasn't going to get anything unless he gave her something. "Rumors."
"Rumors?"
"Gossip in the halls," it seemed as good of a source as any and wouldn't get himself in trouble for eavesdropping on a conversation he highly doubt she wanted to share. "Now tell me if..."
"I'm not leaving," she said firmly without blinking.
Bobby's breath came out in a rush. For a moment or two, they just stood there, in his room, facing one another. "Good," and turned away.
"Good?" she rolled her eyes and kicked a book halfway across the room. It hit several littered objects on the way. The room was a mess. "God, you're worse than Paige."
"Thank you," he replied just to annoy her.
"What's you're problem?" she asked softly, crossing her arms cautiously. "You've been acting really weird lately."
To deny it would be ridiculous because he has made several uncharacteristic moves of late, including his latest boner of an idea¡K dragging her into his room to have an out wasn't the greatest game plan he could have possibly chosen. And having walked out on Warren to do it... if Warren doesn't say something about it, it would be a true miracle. Lord, he was an idiot. And all because... because of a silly kiss that shouldn't have been more than that, a silly kiss.
"Bobby?" she prompted.
"I'd miss you if you go," he admitted with his back to her, wondering why it made him hurt to say it out loud. He knew it was true but... It certainly wouldn't be the first time Jubilee has left the X-Men. Why should it affect him greater this time than it had in the past? Why did it hurt so?
Jubilee studied the ridge lines across Bobby's wide shoulders. It must have been hard to swallow his pride and admit something like that. A smirk almost made its way onto her face before she stopped herself. Because she was who she was and he was who he was, she didn't hesitate. Stepping toward him, she put her arms around and rested her cheek between his shoulder blades, silently cursing his height and her lack of it. Simply holding him for a moment before she murmured, "I'd miss you too."
His breath caught in his throat, unable to find its way out as his mind stopped time to capture this moment of peace that settled itself across his heart. It scared him, this unnamed emotion. Yet... "Don't go."
She smiled, not in laughter but in comfort though he could not see her face. "I'm not."
"Promise?" He didn't know why he asked it, perhaps to see if he could. A part of him can't help but remember that Jonothan Starmore had been in his exact position not five minutes before and didn't get a straight answer out of her.
Because she didn't know any other answer, "Promise."
Letting out the breath slowly, he briefly wished he could have turned around to hold her... just simply hold her. But he knew if he moved the moment would be broken. He didn't want to break this moment, didn't want to let of it... not yet. And he couldn't for the life of him say if that was good or bad. No, that's not true. It was good; it had to be good. He wasn't sure why it was good but he knew it was. No, it wasn't just good, it was... He wasn't quite certain.
It was somewhat disturbing yet comforting this feeling of uncertainty for something that could be... would be... maybe wonderful.
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Note: the song from 'Gigi' sang by the immortal French actor, Maurice Chavier, was "Thank Heaven for Little Girls," though I think Louis Jourdan's "Gaston's Soliloquy" was more apt here. But that would have been apparent for anyone that's seen the movie.
Okay this story ended a little abruptly because... well it just did. Sorry.