I'm sorry its taken so long. I just got back to university so everythings been a bit hectic in recent days. I have almost finished writing this story so its just a case of uploading numerous chapters. Hopefully I'll be updating a little more regularly than I have previously. Thanks for bearing with me. And thank you for the reviews.
The car peeled away from the curb and into the traffic. It was a busy time in New York City at four in the afternoon. The morning had gone quickly what with all the shooting and explosions and walking through mirrors into secret headquarters of an intelligence agency. Car horns beeped at bicycle couriers as they risked their lives threading their way in and out of the lines of stock still vehicles. The heat hadn't returned but everyone seemed to be getting a little hot and bothered from being stuck where they were for so long. Brennan and Shalimar were no exception.
Brennan ran his hand through his hair messing it up even more. Shalimar wanted to smooth it back so it didn't form quite so many giant spikes. Instead she raised the cup of coffee in its insulated cardboard container to her lips. They had just stopped off at one of the many Starbucks stores in New York before properly setting out for Boston. They were going to get to the city first and then travel onto Woburn after working out some kind of plan. They were hardly the most organised members of the team, their disappearance from the building behind the department store showed that. They had gone back down to the main room, where Lexa and Jesse were still doing their CIA operative thing. Brennan had the precise address but they wanted to leave a note behind, letting Lexa and Jesse know where they were and that they were okay and what they were doing. It was a crappy way to leave, they both knew that but they didn't realistically have any other choice. Shalimar had to leave, had to find her daughter and Brennan had to go with her. Shalimar had left the note in the pocket of Lexa's jacket which was thrown over the back of a chair. And they had gone. They had walked back up to the window that Shalimar had earlier been blowing smoke rings out of and, after a little trouble opening it fully had both jumped to the ground below. Minutes later Brennan had been steering the car out of the back road and into the main streets already filling with cars and taxis and trucks as everybody tried to get home first.
Brennan had made his way to Shalimar's apartment and they had entered. It was still a mess, furniture overturned, breakables smashed, glass shards ground into the carpet. She had quickly gathered some clothes and shoved them into a bag. They didn't expect to be gone long but some of the things were for Taylor.
Shalimar had wandered into the bathroom. It was the only untouched room in the entire apartment and she had splashed water into her face, rubbing off the marks of dirt. She had stared at her own face in the mirror in front of her, her chin still dripping with water, her eyes boring into their own reflection. How could everything have changed in so little a space of time? The morning before she had been happily taking her daughter to a friend so she could go to work. Now, in such a short space of time her life had been turned upside down and she was right back to square one. She had spent so long trying to distance herself from the memories of Mutant X, trying to convince herself that it wasn't where she belonged. She was living a normal life, doing the things she thought she would never get a chance to do in her previously upside down world. But she had missed always looking at things in a different way to regular people, she had missed being the wrong way up. She had lived in her topsy turvy life for so long that she had become accustomed to it and now it seemed like everything else was weird.
She had walked out of the room and through her wreck of a house. She hated to admit it to herself but she wasn't going to miss it. A normal life was all very well but what if it wasn't for you? What if you were meant to do extraordinary things that only ever happened in the movies? What if your life was supposed to be a little different?
They had got back into the car and Brennan had sat in traffic for a little while longer before they both realised they hadn't eaten anything in a long time. In everything that had happened the night before none of them had been feeling all that hungry before they went to bed, Shalimar had been hit by waves of nauseous that warned her off consuming anything. And that morning they had discovered there wasn't a single bit of food to be found in the apartment. Then they had left and been shot at and after all of that food had kinda disappeared from their minds. Brennan had pulled over to the Starbucks and Shalimar had arrived back five minutes later bearing the kinds of goodies that he would have paid millions for at that moment in time.
Shalimar looked over at Brennan again. He was getting increasingly frustrated with the complete lack of movement up ahead of them.
'There must have been some kind of accident,' he said, almost to himself to try and rationalise all the obstacles between them and Boston.
'Nope,' Shalimar replied, sounding as cheerful as she was going to get given the current situation. 'This is what its always like. There's a reason why I didn't buy a car in four years.'
Brennan chuckled to himself before winding down the electric window. He had to admit that he wasn't all that uncomfortable. The car that he had stolen from the car park was a nice vehicle and he had a feeling that he was going to have a good time driving it along a freeway. He just didn't like being stuck in one place for too long especially not given the urgency of their mission.
Shalimar, sensing that Brennan needed something to do with his hands which were tapping out random beats and riffs on the steering wheel reached behind her to the back seat and pulled the Starbucks bag into the front. She had brought numerous items of food, including lollipops which she didn't expect Brennan to start sucking on but which she was prepared to enjoy.
She pulled out a croissant and held it out in his direction while she looked for the lemon flavoured sweet. Brennan looked across at her and smirked at her offering.
'I didn't think you'd want to take up smoking,' she replied and smiled as she heard his loud laughter fill the car. It had been a long time since she had seen him look quite so happy and since she had heard that laugh, the boisterous one that shook his entire body and made the corners of his eyes crinkle into a thousand minuscule wrinkles.
'I miss this,' he said once he had managed to stop his laughter. He ripped off a piece of the pastry, crumbs scattering everywhere and shoved it into his mouth. A slight groan became audible in the back of his throat as he realised how very hungry he really was.
'I know what you mean,' Shalimar replied, placing the lollipop on her tongue and closing her mouth around it. She let go of the small white stick and pushed the button to open her window a crack. It was getting hot in the car in sharp contrast to the chill outside. She leant her head to one side and closed her eyes. She liked driving in cars with Brennan, always had. He was never really lost for words and their similarities allowed them to enjoy such small spaces with each other. He liked the same kind of music as her and as she thought about it she turned on the radio. Blasting music filled the car and Brennan and Shalimar grimaced in unison.
'The Backstreet Boys!' Brennan said, disgust evident in his tone as Shalimar turned the volume down and began fiddling with the stations. She eventually found something worth listening to and leaned back in her seat.
'Must be a chicks car,' Brennan said.
'Hey, who just tuned the radio to the Killers,' Shalimar replied as she leaned across and whacked Brennan's arm with her hand.
'Alright, but you're an exception,' he relented, sighing deeply as the cars in front of him moved on a couple of feet.
'Think we're ever going to make it out of New York City?' Shalimar asked, looking around her for any way out of the traffic. She sighed as she saw nothing. The road was going to be pretty blocked for at least the next half hours worth of driving.
'Yeah,' he said, turning towards her. They may simply have been talking about something as trivial as rush hour in New York but he knew that there were layers to what Shalimar was asking. She wanted to know how long it would take to get to Boston and he had to reassure her that they would get there sooner rather than later.
Their eyes met and in no time at all their lips had met too. It was like they were caught in a vacuum where nothing, not even oxygen could affect them. Shalimar felt his strong body pressed against hers and she ran her hands through his hair. His hands ran across her back making her skin tingle. Her lips against his, their skin touching felt so perfect
They visibly jumped as a chorus of car horns went off behind them. They turned back to the road still holding each other and saw that there was practically nothing in front of them anymore. Shalimar smiled wryly to herself as Brennan sat back in his seat and the car moved on.
'The real world strikes again, huh?'
'Jesse,' Lexa called out as she strode across the room towards him. Her face held hidden depths but her voice was urgent, on the point of panicking. 'I need to talk to you,' she said pointedly as she reached him before unceremoniously grabbing his hand and pulling him away from the computer terminal he had been working at into a separate room, one with a lot less people.
'You probably shouldn't do that too much, people might start to think you're the boss in this relationship,' he said with a smirk.
She raised her eyebrows, her eyes glinting.
'Okay, so you are the boss but that doesn't mean I want everyone to know about it.'
Lexa held up a small piece of paper. 'They're gone,' she said.
'Who's gone?' he asked.
'Brennan and Shalimar are gone,' she reiterated, speaking a little slower as if she were talking to a ten year old. Jesse glared at her before taking the note and reading it for himself. He had known that she would leave and he had known that he would go with her. It had been inevitable from the beginning and as happy as he was that two of his best friends were finally on speaking terms again he was terrified for them. They had no idea what a huge mess they were getting into. Lexa and Jesse had been fighting constantly for the past four years to try and take apart Dominion contacts and other branches of that organisation. It had been tougher than anything he had ever done with Mutant X, he was exhausted as was Lexa. Brennan and Shalimar were going into a situation completely unprepared and they could be risking Taylor's life with it.
'We need to get there before them,' he said, crumpling the scrap of paper in his fist.
'They took the car so we can assume that they haven't got much of headstart on us.' Seeing Jesse's frown and downcast face she raised his chin, placing a soft kiss on his lips. 'We'll get there first,' she said, promising things with her eyes that they both knew she couldn't necessarily give.
Brennan looked across at Shalimar. She had been staring out of the car window for a few hours and he was beginning to wonder if she would ever open her mouth. She had withdrawn into herself ever since they had left the city but instead of sleeping or resting she seemed to be worrying about possible future events. The fact that she wasn't speaking to him about any of it was what worried him most. She was ordinarily so verbal with her emotions or she at least let everyone know what she thought via the medium of body language. He hadn't allowed himself to think about what would happen, he needed to stay calm and strong for Shalimar, he couldn't afford to start working his way through every possible conclusion to this scenario.
The sky was gradually darkening through the window and Shalimar watched it with interest. It was still cold but the sun was shining brightly across the pale blue sky, through the occasional strip of clouds that slowly meandered across the great expanse above her. It would be setting soon and Shalimar could feel her senses becoming more alive, more attuned to her surroundings.
She could almost sense Taylor, her scent, her own individual smell. It burned inside Shalimar's nose and she ached for the girl she couldn't see. She could sense her presence even though there were miles between them. Shalimar could tell they were getting closer. Her face remained as still as it had been for hours, the occasionally blink doing nothing to break the stony facade Shalimar had applied but inside she wanted to scream and run. The car wasn't moving fast enough for her but she had reached a state of calm, one where she could successfully co-exist with everything that seemed to be conspiring against her to stop her from going any further.
They had been sitting in silence, not uncomfortably, without the radio. All of the songs that had been playing seemed to have such trivial messages, they had only served to piss both of them off. But now Shalimar reached across and pushed the button in. The sounds of Orange Sky filled the car, and Brennan looked across at her again, taking his eyes away from the road for a few seconds.
'I'm okay, Brennan,' she said, without even needing to know the question.
'Well, then you'll have to forgive me if that seems like a brush off at the moment,' he replied, turning his weary eyes back to the road in front of him.
'Pull over,' she said.
'What?' he replied.
'Pull over, you're tired,' she answered.
He opened his mouth to argue before realising that there was no point. Shalimar was stubborn and pig headed and she had got an idea into her head which meant she wasn't going to give up.
He steered the car over to the side of the freeway. There were practically no other cars around, their lights occasionally illuminating the fields which lay beyond the road. When the cars had passed the world was once again returned to darkness.
Shalimar pushed open the car door and got out, stretching her legs and raising her arms above her head, feeling the stretch in all of her muscles, feeling the bones in her back move from the place where they had been to the place where they should be. She walked around to the front of the car, meeting Brennan. She grabbed his arms to stop him from walking onwards. She wrapped her own arms around his neck and he instinctually wrapped his around her lower back. She leaned into him and they swayed with each other in time to the music. Feeling her body against his made Brennan smile. He had missed her for so long and now she was right there in front of him, holding onto him. He pressed his lips against the top of her head, burying his face in her hair. He felt her cheeks move against his chest as she smiled.
Eventually they pulled apart and Shalimar moved back towards the car. She placed her hands on the hood of the vehicle and hoisted herself so that she was sitting on top of it. She slid across the metal so that her back was leaning against the windscreen and looked out across the landscape at the oncoming sunset. The sun was gradually making its way down through the sky towards the horizon, the shadows growing longer as it did. Brennan sat on the hood next to her and she leaned her head against his shoulder. It was a comfortable place, their bodies fitted like pieces of a jigsaw. The sun lit up their faces, causing them to squint their eyes slightly. They sat there for what felt like hours, watching the world pass them by, enjoying the complete lack of movement between them. Everything recently had been moving so quickly that it was a relief for both of them to just sit and watch. The sun gave out one brief blast of heat and light and then sank below the edge of the world.