Alleyway Assurances

Lady kept her back pressed to the fence wanting nothing more than to disappear into it. She couldn't stop shaking. Her heart hammered loudly in her ears as her adrenaline rush steadily began to drop. She wanted to curl into a ball, cry and forget everything that had happened.

"Hey, Pidge what are you doing on this side of the tracks?"

Lady looked up at her savior fighting the moisture in her eyes. It was the boy that had walked uninvited on her lawn just couple months ago. He stood a few feet in front of her, panting and sporting a large bruise on his left eye. The boy turned to look at her and though he chuffed heavily a crooked smile graced his lips, as if he hadn't just tussled with three men on his own and sent them running.

The alley behind him was so unfamiliar to her Lady wondered that she was even in the same city she'd lived in for the past ten years. The buildings surrounding it were a sorry excuse for brick- red and looked like they'd all been abandoned years ago, if it weren't for the handful of carriages and barrels that sat in the street next to them. The uneven cobblestones of the street were riddled with murky puddles from the previous night's rain, reflecting the nebulous October sky.

"I-I don't know." Lady stammered. "I just had to get away…I couldn't stay there." Her will not to cry crumbling as she spoke.

The boy with the gray hair and the black eyes attempted to brush some of the mud off his shoulders from the scuffle and started to walk closer to her. Lady pressed herself even closer to the fence, recoiling. Just because she had seen him a couple months ago didn't mean she could trust him anymore then the men who'd just tried to harm her.

"You get sick of the Ritz that fast?" He joked. Though his words were playful his eyes were serious and her flinch didn't go unnoticed. He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

"No, don't come any closer!"

His smile faded a bit and he stopped walking when her voice rose in pitch. "Easy, there. I'm not gonna hurt you."

Lady shook her head profusely, rubbing it against the wood grain of the fence behind her. The fear she'd felt seeing the violence the men had just displayed coloring her judgment. "Stay away from me!"

"It's alright, they're gone now. You're safe." The boy soothed.

Lady started crying her vision swimming, making the dingy alley and the boy vacillate before her. She wanted to be home, she wanted Jim and Darling to be home. How had things gone so wrong so fast after they'd left?

"Whoa, whoa Pidge what happened?"

She kept crying and numbly replied. "They just started chasing after me—"

"No, I mean what happened?" He interrupted looking pointedly down at her wrist, to the handcuffs that hung limply from it. She felt the urge to hide it behind her back. She felt like she was tainted as if the metallic shine of the cuffs proclaimed to the world she was, as her parents called it, a delinquent. Aunt Sara would be more then happy to agree with that. Lady could picture her smug, grimace of a smile and it made her sick.

Instead of answering the boy she buried her tear ridden face in her hands and let out a sob. It wasn't fair, no matter what she did Aunt Sara's voice was going to be heard over hers. She couldn't bear the thought of Darling and Jim being told what had happened from Aunt Sara's sour mouth, telling them what a horrible daughter she was. It just wasn't fair. She felt she'd worked hard to be a part of her foster parent's home and act as they did. This was not going to be easy to explain, regardless if they believed their abhorrent relative or not.

That on top of having to run from the police, the police, she had nearly been hit by multiple carriages after she'd run blindly into the road, only to be welcomed by three large street thugs. But the fact that she'd just barely gotten away from them unscathed, on the sheer coincidence that the gray haired boy recognized her and decided to help pushed her over the edge. Lady didn't know what the boy must have been thinking of her, sobbing like a child after not lifting a finger to protect herself. Surely that she was someone to take advantage of or just plain pathetic.

"Ah, you poor kid." The boy said gently. "We gotta get those off first things first. Then you can tell me what happened."

Surprised, Lady peered at him through her fingers and sniffed swallowing another sob that threatened to escape her. She lifter her hands away from her face, the cuffs clanking together. She looked at him thoroughly this time. He stood where he'd frozen after her delirious request, his hands still raised. The look he wore made Lady feel like she was made of porcelain and could shatter at any moment. And that made her remember herself, she was a well-trained woman. Despite the less then desirable location she couldn't be falling apart in front of strangers.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you." She said quietly, wiping her tears with her sleeve. "I was just scared. But I don't understand, you're willing to help me just like that?"

The boy gave her a bemused expression. "Ah don't worry about it, Pidge. " He said, dropping his hands and Lady saw his shoulders lower significantly. "And yeah, just like that! Who knows what other people out there would do to a classy girl like you. Besides I got nothing better to do then to save damsels." He said, his thick eyebrows arching with good humor.

Lady felt some of her tears and misery leave her, making her chest grow lighter. "Really?"

"Better believe it! You've got your self a bona fide guide through the treacherous land of the east slums." He said, taking an overly dramatic, deep bow.

As he did Lady got a good look at the top of head and his odd colored hair. It wasn't all gray like she originally thought it also had black, silver and even some white mixed throughout his thick, disheveled tufts. For some reason that made her feel better about him, made her think that maybe, he himself was like his hair: different then at first glance. As he pulled himself upright the same roughish smile, she recognized from those months ago on the lawn, adorned his face.

She looked into his black eyes fully and hoped beyond all hopes that she was making the right decision. Breathing in to steady herself she spoke. "Thank you. But what's your name, sir?"

His triumphant smile deepened so his cheeks dimpled.

"Call me Tramp, Pigeon."

"My name isn't Pigeon by the way. It's Lady."

"Nah, I like Pidge better."