Mab's hands trembled as she re-packed her suitcase. The thin tissue paper crinkled somehow much louder than it had back in New York as she tried to carefully pack away her green silk tea dress. She wondered idly if she'd ever get a chance to wear it again.
Of course she wouldn't, Mab knew. It would forever be wrapped up in a dizzyingly fantastical memory of orange flowers and a vibrant sunset and Do you trust me?
In her haste to tuck away the possibilities, Mab dropped her pill sorter and the contents clattered in irritation against a perfect tile floor.
She wanted more sleep. Mab wanted to lay down on the mattress, wrap herself in the softest sheets she'd ever slept on, and wait to be awoken by the dawn. She wanted coffee and breakfast in this architectural perfection of a guest house and pretend, just for a morning, that it was her real life.
The pill case rattled as she picked it up. Mab popped open a few compartments, palming a careful selection of medication. One for the shakes, and one for the exhaustion in her bones. Another for the headache lumbering to life in her brain, and two more to suppress the cough flaring into hot irritation in her chest.
Doubling up was never really a good idea and Mab was well aware of the price she'd likely pay at the end. It would be so much smarter to just go back to sleep. It would be so much smarter to rest and recover from the ordeal of pretending to be healthy in a world that demanded perfection.
Do you trust me?
They had quietly excused themselves from the reception and retreated to the guest house. A quick change and a nap of maybe two hours, and now she was packing in the deep of night.
Mab sighed and hung her head. "Who talks like that, Steve?" she muttered to herself.
The collection of pills in her hand pressed into her skin, reminding her of that moment of silent acceptance. They went down easily enough with a quick swig of water, but sat heavily in her empty stomach in solemn reminder. Mab didn't need more reminders. She needed more time.
A knock at her open door halted the beginning of a cycle of self-pity. "All packed?" Steve asked, looking frustratingly well-rested in comparison to how Mab felt.
Mab zipped the suitcase closed. "I am now." She didn't have to ask Steve to carry it to the car, or stow away her wheelchair, allowing her to settle in the passenger seat with her striped cane resting against the outside of her thigh and the far edge of the footwell.
She cast a last glance at the guest house as scant night insects chirped a peaceful goodbye. Moonlight made mirrors of the glass and cast deep and angular shadows along scrub brush. Beautiful, alien, and new. A place she would likely never return to see again.
"It's a long drive, so get comfortable," Steve interrupted her though and the roar of the engine drew her back into her seat, settling her back into her body as her attention had wandered.
"Any hints?" Mab asked as she pulled the seatbelt into place.
"No ma'am," he shot her a surprisingly roguish grin, and she couldn't help but stick out her tongue childishly in response.
The California night swallowed up the house and the hills as they descended towards the main roads. The air itself seemed to be holding its breath, albeit badly, as they drove into darkness. It was almost like an unwinding of tension; a slow and reluctant release of breath simply for being unable to hold it any longer.
No great catharsis had led to a gasp of revelation or a burst of realization; it was simply time to let go.
Clenching of the spirit could hold on no longer, the impatient night and the cold air could not keep them, and the silence made less eager by time became a comfort.
It drew Mab down into her seat, curled her arms up against the breeze, and tucked her into a light and easy sleep. No great dreams of the ocean, none of dancing and none of loss, Mab drifted like the waves in the space between resting and waking.
It was the stopping that woke her. Mab woke sharply, her head coming off her chest with a snap that pulled something in her neck. "Ow…" the moaned, stretching slowly. The top of the sporty car seemed to start retracting on its own, further startling Mab.
"Morning," Steve greeted with a chipper note, appearing at the side of the car as the top fully disappeared into the back of the car.
"Is this the first we've stopped?" Mab asked around a yawn.
The pump thunked and Steve hung up the nozzle. "First we've needed gas. We're almost there, too."
"Almost… where?"
He didn't fall for it. "Just a little bit longer."
"Mean." Mab rested her arms on the car door and set her head down as Steve pulled back onto Highway 1. The whipping of wind through her hair and the barely distinguishable smell of salt combed through her senses.
A heavy fog covered her view of the ocean, but she could still hear the faint roar of waves beating against rocky shores. A tireless and endless battle of the only truly unstoppable force of nature. The world moved in flux; new lands born from within and pushed to the surface only to be jostled and worn down into tiny grains of sand and silt by a furious sea.
Mab closed her eyes, letting the beating air currents run new trails through the fine hairs on her arms and ripple softly at her skin. She could feel the motion of it, the waves of air that followed the motion of oceans, fractured over mountains, and skimmed the underside of stars.
Steve took an exit off the coastal highway and Mab idly examined the inland surroundings. A vague sense of deja vu solidified quickly into certainty.
Mab sat up straighter in her seat, pushing wildly messy hair out of her face. The outline of a building she never thought she'd see in person loomed over evergreens. "I know where we are," she breathed excitedly. Tall white pillars wrapped around a low building, arms reaching sphinx-like towards the sea.
"Mm, I don't think so," Steve tried and failed to hide his smile.
"Bullshit," she said. "Bullshit," she said again.
Steve pulled into a front parking spot and Mab scrambled to unbuckle her seatbelt, barely able to contain her excitement and failing to control her suddenly trembling hands. "Bullshit," she whispered as Steve began to laugh.
"Ma'am," he offered, opening her door and giving her a hand to help her stand. "I'm going to take that as a 'yes, this is the place'."
"Rogers," Mab breathed, "I'm gonna punch you in your perfect teeth." She grasped his hand shakily, but the tremors reduced quickly. "... never told you what it was called."
"I work with some very smart people." Steve released her hand as Mab leaned against her cane. "You gonna stand there all day staring at it or should we go in?" He turned to appraise the white marble museum. "I mean it is a really nice building…"
Mab's stunned look began to transform into her usual sly smile. "Okay, smartass - lead the way."
The Legion of Honor stood as an impressive temple perched on a cliff above the Pacific. Not-so-distant red cables suspended a bridge over the Bay and low mountains hid the Muir Woods from view. Cypress trees and star jasmine separated asphalt from thin clifftop grasses, and could not conceal the distant roar of the sea.
They strode at a casual pace up shallow marble steps and across a vast courtyard guarded by a well-patina'd The Thinker, contemplating universal truths atop a perfect pedestal.
Mab craned her head in every direction, trying to take in every detail but finding each successive moment nearly too much to bear.
Steve had to remind her of a few steps between them and the front gate so she wouldn't stumble, and in her overwhelmed state Mab didn't even comment. He was more than a little concerned that he'd made some strange misstep - that he'd made a wrong move, but couldn't explain exactly how it had ruined their dynamic.
"Two, please," he asked the attendant, and something on the counter caught Mab's attention.
"Is that a scavenger hunt?" She asked, reaching for the stack of brightly colored half-sheets.
"It's meant for children ten and under-" the attendant started to say, but Mab was not to be deterred.
She nodded, ignoring the age recommendation. "Do you have the little…" she made a scribbling motion in the air with her fingers, then spotted the tray of mini golf pencils. "Yep, thanks!"
Steve grinned and shrugged at the confused attendant in a 'what are you gonna do?' and trailed after a heavily-distracted Mab.
"Scavenger hunt?" He asked, holding out her entry pass.
She held up the half-sheet proudly. "They're great, just you wait. And look! If we find all ten items we win a sticker!" Mab stopped just inside the entry hall, basking in the right ambience. "You must think I'm silly," she admitted, "getting this worked-up over an art museum."
"No, I-"
"And I get it, because I mean - who picks up scavenger hunts for kids in an art museum," she rambled.
Steve frowned. "Just-"
She flapped the paper in one hand as she swung her cane in stride a little haphazardly. "And if that's a problem, I-"
"Mab," Steve interrupted her, seizing her flapping arm as gently as he could. "Relax." He could feel the tension in her wrist, a shaking fury that she was building like a defensive wall. "I get it. You don't have to justify it." He took the scavenger hunt out of her hand, scanning the page. "Where should we start?"
Mab relaxed. Or rather, the wall she was building went unfinished. There was still a little tension in her frame - a disbelief or hesitation to trust, maybe - but it wasn't quite so sharp. "How about 'a statue playing a game'? We can start in the sculpture hall."
"Okay," Steve agreed, giving back the page. "Lead the way."
Brick by brick by painting by painting, the wall came back down. Steve could almost hear the unspoken apology in the air; withheld only for the understanding already established. Steve could almost hear the story that would be associated with such defensiveness; a frustrating moment repeated too-often and always defeating. In the air, it rang clearly, the wish that maybe this time would be different and the fear that it might not be.
They crossed off the boxes in their scavenger hunt as they moved slowly through the museum. Steve could see why she liked them - it made for a different kind of path through the exhibits. Different from their meanderings through the Met when she'd revealed she knew his secret - had that really only been a few days ago - Mab would read the clue and they'd puzzle out the best hall to hunt through.
"Ah yes, the renaissance painter says to his patron," Mab declared, gesturing at a painting as they strode past, "I absolutely know what a dolphin looks like. No, no problem at all."
"Is that what those are?" Steve glanced at the placard.
Mab gestured with her striped cane at another painting. "Those and 'I have totally seen a baby before' portraits of baby Jesus are just the best. What's next?" she asked.
He checked. "This one is interesting: 'not a high five, not a handshake'."
She considered it for a moment. "I think I know what that one is. We have to go back to the sculpture hall."
The scavenger hunt was clearly designed to tire out over-eager children, leading them to and fro in the large building, up and down stairs repeatedly, and back through well-trod halls. It was a mounting concern in the back of Steve's mind that all of this would be too much for his companion as she had begun to lean more heavily on her striped cane.
"I've been meaning to ask," Mab began, leaning in to keep from disturbing other guests. It was hardly necessary; the museum was mostly empty, the spacious halls giving great weight to the dappled paintings and lonely statues. "What exactly was your plan for today? I kind of hijacked it with the scavenger hunt."
"Well," Steve began, trailing off into a thoughtful hum. It had seemed the perfect thought in the moment, staring off over the sea at distant cities and futures. He'd looked up the museum she'd mentioned on the phone idly one afternoon, and the coincidence of presence had been too coincidental to ignore. He'd needed to bring her here - a place she'd dreamt of and had longed to go.
Mab didn't press him for a plan. He could see the understanding in her face, and she nodded slightly.
She directed their path to a large sculpture stationed in the middle of the room of two hands, somehow intertwined without even touching, making a cupped space between them. Not a high five, not a handshake. Steve watched as Mab checked off the box.
"I've only seen reproductions of this piece," Mab said. "It's funny." Mab tucked her cane under one arm to cradle her hands, imitating the piece. "In all the miniatures, the hands are touching at the apex like a perfect delicate arch. But this one…" she separated her hands slightly. "They just barely miss each other. It's…" she let her hands drop, leaving the thought incomplete.
"I think we'll have to avoid coming back here if we want to finish a thought ever again," Steve said as an easy joke.
Thankfully, Mab laughed under her breath. "Right? Last time you couldn't get me to shut up, now I just trail off into nothing all the time."
"Jet lag," Steve said helpfully.
"And what's your excuse?"
"Give me a few minutes, I'll come up with something."
Mab's lips twitched in a smile, but she seemed to be still yet entranced by the sculpture. The Cathedral, its respective placard read. "It bothers me, a little, the way they reduced it in the hunt. This piece isn't something so simple. It's full of longing and this… indescribable sadness." She paused for a moment. "That feeling of just barely missing something."
Silence bore down on them, the air heavy with implied stories. Mab turned away from The Cathedral. "Let's take a break in the sun. All this symbolism is starting to get to me."
"Why can't a lighthouse just be a lighthouse?" Steve asked, gesturing to a painting with one as they passed.
"I guess it could be, but no one ever leaves anything like that alone when a painting can be worth ten bucks as a lighthouse, or ten million as The Lighthouse." Mab smed wryly. "After the artist is dead."
Manicured lawns and winding paths surrounded the museum, feeling somehow rugged and wild when compared to the pristine white marble of the museum's ancient residents. In the breeze, the green neighboring cypress trees swayed and danced, bridging the sea-salted air and the richly tailored earth.
"But anything can be a symbol," Mab said, picking out a perfect spot on the lawn and sprawling out in the shade. "I mean isn't that what heroes are? Sure, there are the one or two instances where you truly just do things that we just can't - the Incident, for example - but on any given Tuesday what are you even up to? Kissing babies and selling war bonds?"
She made a good point. And she definitely wasn't wrong. Now more than ever, Steve was feeling the weight of that symbolism settling around his shoulders like dust on a forgotten heirloom.
"That was the original idea, I think, but it just didn't sit right with me. The thought of just sitting… or being used as a dancing, smiling monkey; it felt like such a waste. People died so that I could be like this." He paused. "And because of it."
The weight of that thought nearly ruined the sunshine. Mab ran her hands across the grass. She picked up a leaf and examined it, tracing the veins with her fingers like roads in a map that all branches from a single origin. Or led to an inevitable destination.
"It's kind of crazy, if you think about it." Mab twirled the leaf between her fingers. "I think almost all the stories I've heard about you and the others… they all happen over like… three or four really bad days, just spread out over a few years. Like… once a year you have a day that just sucks, but you power through and bam- you're a hero." She spun the leaf in her hands, strikingly reminiscent of the flickering tail at the end of a film reel. "But what's it all for? Those bad days, they stick with you. Give you nightmares. Give you scars. What makes it worth it?"
Steve didn't need time to think. "This," he said.
Mab stopped twirling the leaf. "We're not doing anything."
A warm breeze played through the tall evergreens, bringing with it the faint hint of salt from the sea and a strong indication of jasmine and orange blossom. Somewhere in the distance, children were laughing as they ran along well-maintained paths. A boat was turning into the bay. A bird called above.
"Yeah you are. You're laying in the shade, playing with leaves, and thinking deep thoughts about what it means to be a hero, all while deeply contemplating a need for ice cream."
Mab propped herself up on her elbows. "You're right. We are in dire need of ice cream. And cookies. Help up?" She asked, reaching for a hand to assist up from the grass.
Steve hadn't been quite prepared for the intensity of Mab's undivided attention. The sweet laughter, the bawdy smile, all those things seemed familiar. But the piercing analysis of the world around her to slice apart neatly adhered understandings was distinctly uncomfortable. It felt too much like being analyzed by Natasha with nowhere to hide; like getting a dressing-down from Bucky after a back-alley beating; like being nearly bitten by Alice for slighting her sense of honor.
Mab seemed to be made of all the things in his life that refused to be ignored or smoothed over in a prettier way. Uncomfortable, like stepping into cold water. Uncomfortable, like a sudden shot of sunlight from the dawn. Uncomfortable, like being alive.
Steve couldn't bear to ask her to stop.
A whirlwind of topics, of feelings, subjects and tones; it took all of his focus to keep up. Refreshing, in that it absorbed his attention in a way that limited the grabbing reach of the outside world. Pulled him out of the suit and away from the shield and kept his shoes on the polished floor.
But as the act of her presence drew him to normalcy, even just waiting in line for snacks Steve could feel the judging eye of the world settle on Mab.
She ignored it, seemingly indifferent to the stares at her garishly-striped cane and the sidelong glances following her wobbly steps. If anything could be a symbol, as she had so simply stated, what kind did the cane represent?
They chose a table and garden chairs out in the open air of the museum's cafe, scaring off a couple of birds searching for lingering crumbs. Mab leaned the cane against the armrest of her seat as she sat down, pulling her selection of sugary snacks close while leaving the incomplete scavenger hunt on the table between them, tucked partially under the plastic tray they'd carried their food in to protect it from being blown away in the wind.
"So," Steve asked, pulling open the cheap plastic packaging around his institutional cookie, "what's the story behind the stripes, anyway?"
"Fhtripes?" Mab mumbled around a mouthful of cookie.
Steve nodded to her cane, and her eyes lit up.
"Oh my gosh, I forgot I said I'd tell you that story!" She patted crumbs off her hands. "Alright, so please don't make too much fun of me."
"Cross my heart."
Mab seemed amusedly dubious, but launched into a story. "So… I'm terrified of bees."
Steve's eyebrows shot up.
She waved her hands mildly, smiling at herself. "I know, just… so anyway; I'm terrified of bees, and I was downright phobic when I was younger, so when I got my first wheelchair my mom painted it in yellow and black stripes, which I instantly hated for obvious reasons."
"So I said 'what gives, mom? Are you trying to scare me to death?', and she said…" Mab smiled at the memory, "she said 'bees won't sting one of their own'."
Steve had to cover his mouth with a hand to keep from laughing out loud. Once he'd composed himself he put his hand down. "That's very sweet."
"It's very 'please stop crying about the little bug that won't kill you' of a mom to try. But it worked!" Mab broke off another piece of her cookie, contemplating it.
Mab started suddenly, jerking back in her seat. "Is it-?" She held out a hand, catching the next raindrop in her hand instead of on her nose.
And then the heavens opened up above them, from single drops to a torrential downpour. Mab shrieked as ice-cold water drenched her in an instant, blasting away any lingering warmth from the sun.
"I've got it!" Steve called as he collected their already-soggy scraps of food and waste, "you get under cover!"
Mab didn't try to argue, just ran for the overhang with one hand uselessly over her head and the other clutching her bumblebee cane.
Steve snatched the scavenger hunt from under the tray and stuffed it in his pocket for safekeeping. The rest of their food was completely ruined by the downpour, so it wasn't worth trying to salvage it.
A quick pile on the tray and a hasty retreat to cover still left Steve's jacket soaked through. He dumped the soggy garbage in the trash can immediately inside, feeling wasteful but left no other option.
"Well, sir" Mab remarked, giggling manically and twisting water from her hair, "here we are again."
"Here we are again," Steve agreed, shaking water from his jacket.
The other museum visitors who'd been caught in the sudden rainstorm seemed either as amused as the two of them, or furiously upset by the situation.
A disembodied voice spoke from an array of speakers in the ceiling. "Ladies and gentlemen; would those attending this afternoon's performance please make their way to the rotunda, thank you."
"That's us," Steve said, turning and offering her his still slightly soggy arm.
Man took it without question. "It is? What's the performance?"
Steve tilted his head to the side a little. "Where are we again?"
"We're…" Mab paused in place. Her head snapped up, eyes bright. "Oh!" She let go of his arm to flap her hand wildly in excitement. Her energy returned in spades, and any shake in her step evaporated with a wave of excitement that radiated from her like sunshine. "Really?" she asked, her stride nearly a jog.
"Yes, really," Steve laughed. "It's what you wanted to come here for, isn't it?"
Mab laughed giddily, on the verge of euphoric hysteria. "Yes." Steve could read her smile from head to quick-walking toe.
That was it. That was what he'd brought her here to do. That was the plan, the purpose, the meaning.
Mab practically vibrated in her folding chair as the large hall filled with other concert-goers. The organ stand sitting flush against the wall didn't look nearly impressive enough to make the music that inspired Mab to dream of traveling cross-country, but Mab had already revealed its spectacular secret to him.
"Good afternoon, everyone," a museum curator addressed the gathered audience, silencing low chatter. "I want to thank you for joining us for our concert series, and please thank you for taking this moment to silence your cell phones and small children." The crowd laughed.
"While our little setup here may not look like your typical church organ, let me assure you…" the curator dove into the instrument's secrets.
The stucco walls of the exhibit hall were in fact, not stucco. They were thin fabric covering pipes ranging in length from half an inch to thirty-two feet, powered by lungs running on forty-eight horsepower and designed to awe.
"First for our pieces today, we ease you into the grandeur of our organ with a piece by Bach: Come, Sweet Death."
The organist nodded at the cue from the curator, spun on the bench, and rested old fingers on older polished ivory and ebony keys.
The room held its breath, and then the room began to sing.
Gently at first - barely a whisper that even Steve strained to hear - the music rose like light sinking deeply into dark waters and straining to reach the seafloor. Sadly, tragic like lost toys in childhood and lost love in old age, the room sang with regret.
Deeper tones began to rise from that dark watery place where light struggled to illuminate. Ancient agony, sharp and biting like a hundred-year wound that still bled freely.
The organ's music swelled into something terrible and great. Steve could feel the pressure against his chest, the extra effort it took to breathe when the music was moving through him. Those thirty-two foot pipes shook the air around them in a song so deep it wasn't audible but tangible; an inflicted sorrow.
He glanced at Mab, her hand on her chest and clearly feeling the same resistance. He moved to put a hand on her arm - to check on her, to ask quietly if she could breathe alright - but she caught it in the air.
She caught his hand, squeezing it fiercely, holding it and silently begging him not to speak. Steve lowered his hand but Mab continued to hold on.
The cutting sadness in the air trailed off. No fantastic resolution saved them, no cheery chord, just a drifting away. A surrender to sorrow. Peace in the dark. Acceptance.
The organist lifted his hands from the keys, letting the air settle into stillness.
Thunder rumbled overhead as the rainstorm outside continued.
"The best compliment I could hope for!" the organist proclaimed. The audience laughed.
"We move now to-" the curator described the next piece of music, and the organist played, and the cycle continued. Beautiful harmonies or dissonance, terrible authority over sound and air, and lingering feelings sitting in the spaces between the end of a piece and enthusiastic applause.
Some of it sounded familiar - surely something played at church, or at least written by the same composer - but so far back in Steve's memory he would have struggled to place it exactly. It would have been in his time before.
The music carried him back and forth through time without ever settling him ashore on specific memories. He would catch sight of them, almost like a mirage on the horizon or shapes in rain, leaving him with the wistful sensation of nostalgia before carrying him over the crest of a wave into a new moment.
Again and again and cresting ceaselessly into new moments, he held Mab's hand as she held his like a storm-tossed sailor fixing their eye upon the lighthouse ahead.
And then it was over. The curator gesture to the organist who bowed slowly at the waist and the audience applauded heartily. The audience was reminded of the location of the museum's gift shop, and that donations and sponsorships were always welcome. It was over, but Steve didn't really notice until Mab let go of his hand.
She sat in silence, staring at the pipe organ sitting so innocuously against the wall, barely larger than an upright piano. The audience around them stood and left in waves, but Mab stayed seated, just looking at the instrument.
It wasn't until they were all but alone in the large hall - guests having moved in the discussing statues in respectfully low voices, and some crew beginning to take down the collection of chairs from the concert - that Steve decided to interrupt Mab's moment.
"What did you think?" he asked.
"I think…" Mab breathed, "I think I'm really tired."
Not quite the reaction he was hoping for. "Okay," Steve said, "let's head to the airport. Do you want me to get your chair?"
"No," she shook her head, "I can make it to the car." She stood, somewhat shakily, accepting the offer of Steve's arm for additional balance. "Let's just go slow."
And slowly they went. Mab was doing her best to hide it, but she was clearly exhausted. A pang of guilt ran through him. Steve knew very well about accidentally over-exerting one's self but not wanting to bother anyone about it. He could've kicked himself.
"How long is the drive back down?" Mab asked, derailing his self-flagellating thoughts.
Steve checked his watch. "The plane should've transferred to SFO by now.
"What, by itself?"
"So I'm told."
Mab shook her head. "Superheroes."
Steve grinned, and so did Mab. He felt a little better.
The bad feelings returned when they reached the car, sitting in the parking lot with the top still down. They stared at the rain-soaked interior together.
Mab spoke first. "Whoops."
"Shit…" Steve sighed.
Mab used a hand to wipe water off of the leather headrest of the passenger seat. "Superheroes know people, right? I'm sure Happy knows a detail shop that can get this fixed up."
Steve sure hoped so. "I think there's some shop cloth in the flat kit in the trunk."
The expensive leather interior of the car definitely seemed ruined. Water sluiced out of darkly-stained seams and panels on the seats and Steve was seriously concerned that the car wouldn't even start. Newer technology seemed to be irreversibly damaged by even the briefest contact with water.
Steve was still patting down the seats and almost missed Mab's comment, offered conversationally as he worked.
"I didn't want it to be over," she said.
Steve looked up at her. "What?"
She waved a hand across the parking lot to the museum. "The concert. I didn't want it to end. I kept hoping that there would always be a next piece, and I could just… sit there forever."
"I'm glad," he said, "I was worried I'd upset you."
"Why?" Mab asked.
"Well," Steve waffled, "the statue, the concert-"
"Ah," Mab sighed, seeming to understand the reference being made to the seriousness of her demeanor. "I'm afraid that for someone so invested in words, that I am absolutely terrible at remembering to use them. As a result," she shrugged, "I'm told I can seem… cold."
"I wouldn't say that," Steve tried to backtrack, but Mab waved it off.
"I know how I come across. It's something I'm working on but clearly I need more practice." She tilted her head as she leaned in the cane, smiling at Steve in a way that seemed happy, but also so very sad. "I promise I'll be more verbal about it once I've had time to process, but I don't know how to begin to thank you for this weekend," Mab said.
"It's nothing," Steve said, folding up the damp towels and throwing them into the car's open trunk. Hopefully he'd been able to get enough standing water out to prevent them from arriving at the airport more damp than when they had left.
Steve opened her door for her but Mab paused for a moment. "It's not nothing - it was… it was everything." She looked up at him with something beyond simple earnest meaning in her eyes. "You have to know that, don't you?"
She broke off the intense eye contact to slide into the car, making no mention of whether or not her seat was fully dry. She let the question hang in the air, more pointed than Steve was prepared for.
But that was what time with Mab seemed to cost. It cost him that comfort of familiarity; of hiding in the stereotypical pleasantries and repetitive social niceties. Mab cut right to the quick without drawing blood.
The hum of the car's ridiculously overbuilt engine saved him from needing to immediately reply. By the time he had gathered his thoughts Mab was fast asleep in her seat.
A/N: I want to thank everyone for your incredible patience while I wrote this. I hit a big stumbling block with content and what I wanted to get out of this chapter, and then on top of it all I had some very interesting pregnancy complications, but now I've got a newborn! She's real cute, and already way too smart for me and her father.
I've been pecking away at this chapter sentence by sentence on Google docs, typing with one hand on my phone while rocking the baby in the other. Most productive I've been in months, weirdly enough.
I know this chapter is a bit all over the place, but I think it's about as good as it's going to get, and honestly? I just want to move on in the story.
I love my reviewers! Thanks for your patience while I built a human.
PLEASE REVIEW!