Neither of them expected the other to be at the door. Even coming to his apartment Michelle had not expected David to be inside, he should be out celebrating. And obviously David hadn't expected her, let alone any visitors.
"I um, owe you a thank you for the free publicity. I just thought I'd drop off a note." She smiled at him with a genuine smile but shifted on her feet a little under his gaze.
"So you hoped I wouldn't be home?" he asked with a small smile. It made both of them laugh a little, but the laughter petered off awkwardly.
Michelle directed the conversation back to David. "You know this treaty is half your doing, you really should be out celebrating," she said, echoing her thoughts of a few moments before. At the look on David's face Michelle was confused. "You haven't seen? Well turn on your T.V." David turned his body to let her have a good view of his Spartan room. "Oh, you don't have a T.V. Well what do you think all that noise is outside?"
David looked at her and said, "I just thought that was the city." Michelle didn't know if he was joking.
"Oh, alright. Come on. Come on, we're going." She ushered him out of the apartment and on to the streets crowded with all of Shiloh rejoicing. People were waving flags, setting off fireworks, making noise on anything that could be constituted as an instrument. But Michelle led David through the crowds as he absorbed all of the joyful noise.
She led him to a little alcove where she could show him the celebrating that he had helped put in motion. "Here," she said, throwing out an arm, showing him the ocean of revelers. The confetti seemed to rain down from the sky like the first snow fall of the season and, just like that first snow fall, it drove people in to the streets.
"Wow."
"Beautiful isn't it." But David doesn't need to respond and Michelle doesn't want him to. "Do you remember the inauguration of Shiloh? When we moved to the capitol, the celebration?"
"Of course. I watched it with my family." And Michelle could picture it. David and his brothers crowded in front of the television watching the proceedings.
"Well, we were on our way to it all, driving. And my dad sees this truck." Michelle can remember every detail of the day. And not because of the momentous occasion, but because of how touched her father was by the smallest sign of hope. "And he stops the entire cavalcade. He just can't get over it, this ice cream truck, here, where there was nothing before someone dreamt it. Just ashes and ruin. He hugged me to hide that he was crying, nobody else saw. But its like it wasn't real to him until that moment. It was freezing out and he bought us all rocket pops."
Michelle draws herself out of the memory. Turning to David she smiles and said, "That's when I realized that the human will can take ashes and turn it in to ice cream. This city is about progress. This is what we've been fighting for this entire time." Michelle had been ready to make a speech that would have rivaled one of her father's but was stopped by David's gentle hand on her face.
For what could have been anywhere from a few seconds to minutes the two stared at each other. They both leaned in, slowly and hesitantly at first. It was no more than a light touch to begin with. The kiss quickly developed in to something less shy, Michelle's hands running along David's back, and his hand caressing her cheek.
It was a mutual need for air that disengaged the two. They looked at each other, foreheads touching and both breathing a little raggedly. Neither spoke, but they didn't have to. They looked, for all the world, like a couple in a snow globe. The confetti continued to fall around them but David and Michelle were in their own world.
Alright so no one pegged anyone in this chapter but I thought that would have been a little wrong to destroy the moment. I'll let them have their moment of bliss.