Reaction

Author: angel17712

Date: 12/29/06

A/N- sorry that it's taken so long guys! College is starting back up, so I'm not sure as to how often I'll get to update, but I'll try to do so fairly frequently. Enjoy!

Nick's POV

I can't believe that they could say that I stole money from Toby! They'd somehow misplaced it, so they blamed the one person that they couldn't really trust-me. They surrounded me and I felt as though I was being put on trial for something that I didn't even do. I was waiting to hear them condemn me and it never came. I looked at Madison, wondering how she could be accusing me of this. All of a sudden, it didn't matter. I hadn't done anything wrong, and yet, they were calling in for a verdict. Having Koragg's voice in my head didn't help matters any either. That only served to make me believe that they didn't trust me, but that they couldn't be trusted either. What kind of friends do that? I know that I sure don't place blame on people that I barely know. After everything happened, we finally cleared the air and apologized to each other. Madison looked at me with tears in her eyes, and I knew that they were sorry for accusing me.

Madison's POV

When Xander first told me that he thought that Nick had stolen the money from the record shop, my first instinct was to defend him and ask Xander how he could just go and accuse Nick like that. Nick had never given us any reason to think that he would steal anything from anyone, much less a thousand dollars from Toby. I didn't even want to be a part of Xander's jury that was trying to incriminate Nick, but even as Xander explained his reasoning, there was a large part of me that knew that Nick would never do that. Vida, Chip and Xander had looked at me, wanting my support in this. Instead of saying 'How can you do that to Nick? He's our friend, and you're so quick to place the blame on him when you only think that he might have stolen the money!' , I didn't say a word and let myself be pulled into their jury. When I explained the situation to Nick about how they believed that he had stolen the money, I knew that I would never forget the look of betrayal that crossed his face as he stared at us. Xander said that Nick didn't even try to deny what we had accused him of, but why should he have? He wasn't guilty; he was one hundred percent innocent. After we found out from Toby that he had found the money, I felt relief beyond anything. Although I had been in Xander's "jury", I was right about thinking that Nick hadn't stolen the money. We said our apologies to each other as a group, but I needed to talk to him privately, if anything to make my conscience leave me alone.

Author's POV

Madison stuck her hands in her pockets and took a deep breath before crossing the street to where Nick was fixing his motorcycle. She hated confrontations, but she knew that they needed to talk this over. "Hey."

Nick stopped what he was doing to look up and see Madison standing there. A feeling of nostalgia swept over Nick as he remembered back to when they had talked to each other alone for the first time. "Hey. Is everything going all right at the shop? No more missing money?"

Madison cringed at his words, knowing that he needed to vent his frustration at having been accused. "No, there's no more missing money. About that, listen; I owe you an apology."

"An apology? What for?" Nick questioned.

"There was a big part of me that didn't think that you'd stolen the money, but Xander and the rest of them approached me. So rather than defend you, I went along with what they thought, and for that, I'm sorry."

Nick stood up and looked into Madison's eyes, seeing them filled with shame and regret. He sighed, knowing that it was his turn. "I owe you an apology. I should have defended myself instead of running away from my problems, and I should have told you guys that I was hearing Koragg talk to me."

"So you're sorry, and I'm sorry. Are we okay now, or is there more?" Madison chuckled slightly.

Nick laughed, knowing what she meant. "No, I think we're good."

"Good," Madison nodded her head. She turned to head back to the record shop before turning to face him. "Hey, Nick?"

"Yeah, Madison?"

"Just talk to us about something the next time it's bothering you, okay?"

Nick smiled at her. "You can count on it."

Madison smiled back at him and kept walking. For now, everything was all right between the two of them and the rest of the team. Hopefully, the next time there was a problem, instead of everyone having the wrong reaction, they would discuss it and figure out what was going on.