The halls of the barracks were a-flurry with a hushed rumble of noise and voices, trained mercenaries turning into tittering school-girls in the span of a few brief hours. Sprinting full speed through the halls was all Scout could do to satiate his jumbled need to see the cause of all the commotion again - to make sure she was blood and bones, that this all wasn't just an insane delusion brought on by his umpteenth year of haphazard imprisonment. He dared a quick glance into the mess hall as he darted past and found a cluster of his teammates gathered round the dining table, heads pushed together in a pow-wow of thoughts and chatter, undeniably about the sudden and strange appearance of a sudden and strange girl, and voices caught his ear amidst the low pool of conversations, sharp American drawls debating whether or not she could be trusted while Scottish accents recounted her notorious beat-down in the intel room. With a disgusted shake of his head Scout quickened his pace to hurry past. They were suspicious of her - some of them were honestly and truly suspicious. He had seen her with his own eyes, touched her, talked to her, and the girl was as innocent as apple pie as far as he was concerned, but he applauded his teammates' thinking ahead. Now if only the assholes would actually put that thinking to good use and use it on the damn battlefield instead of on the home front.
The run, he found, usually a head-clearing experience, did nothing to settle the plague of thoughts assailing his still-fragile mind in regards to that silly girl that had broken his senses with a wink and a smile. Had she been hurt? What if that Heavy she tackled had lived? Did the BLU's now know about their lone lamb amongst lions, and even worse, if they did what did they plan to do about her? Such baby-faced collateral would be the perfect leverage to gain their intel, or maybe they thought she herself knew about its contents and planned to do whatever it takes to gain that knowledge themselves, even if it meant...
He gulped hard and picked up his pace to a reckless sprint, leaving such horror-struck thoughts of maybes and could-of's trailing behind. Instead he willed his mind to focus on breathing, on propelling his still-aching muscles forward at top speed, and hopping down the stairs with one quick jump he continued on his way, rounding the corner towards the base's expansive yet much disused laundry room with a skid. A sudden hum of song met his ears, a gentle childish soprano winding quietly down the halls, and as his heartbeat quickened to an unruly foxtrot he willed his step to slow, listening to the innocently girlish hum with surprisingly flushed cheeks. He strained to make out the words to her soft tune of a song, each line becoming more and more clear as he approached the red-laquered door with "WASH," printed on it, "etc." added on as a hasty afterthought in dribbling white paint, and by the time his fingertips touched the doorknob the lyrics were crystal clear.
"Wouldn't it be nice if we could wake up in the morning when the day is new; and after having spent the day together, hold each other close the whole night through..."
He finally found it in himself to halt completely, his legs freezing underneath him in a sudden atrophy, and as her falsetto words sunk in so did an accompanying bittersweet shudder. A love song. Even after seeing men's lives drip away right before her eyes, after watching helplessly as one tried in cold blood to take her own, she could still sit down at the end of the day and hum a love song with sweet surrender. Only then, in that silly pop song, did he realize what the team now had before them - someone from outside of their cold and callous world of automatic head shots and occupational hazards stepped through the looking glass but retained her curiously unfazed perspective from the other side, and with a flash of remarkably deep insight Scout suddenly realized how akin to them she really was. In a strange sense they were all professionals, them at doing what they were told, whether it be recon, defense, or even murder, and her at doing whatever she could, adapting to the hazards and missteps she was thrown into with a quick pirouette.
His heart quickened back to a crooked gallop and the urge to see her surged back to life inside of him, devouring his sense with one quick, messy bite. He swung open the door and pushed his way in, calling out her name in a sudden burst of need - the need to make sure she was okay, to protect her if she wasn't, to make sure she was even real.
She stood over one of the room's industrial-sized sinks with an unflinchingly sprightly air, one of Scout's own t-shirts hanging loosely over her tiny frame in a kind of make-shift garment, and as steam rose around her in a hazy effervescent halo she scrubbed tirelessly at the Rorschach blots of blood spotted on her dress. As he called out her name she turned with a quick fright, tugging tightly on the hem of his shirt in a measly attempt to cover her exposed thighs, yet it only took a brief glimpse of her semi-indecency before Scout swung around on his heels with a start, shielding his eyes with both hands in a less-than-gentlemanly show of automatic modesty.
"Whoa, whoa - Oh fuck, I'm so sorry! I didn't know you were actually doin' laundry! I swear I didn't see anything!" Eyes still covered, he grappled blindly to find the doorknob, hitting the wall instead in a series of awkward knocks. "I'll, uh..."
"Oh! Don't be silly," she cut in, wiping the splashed water from her face. "I'm decent. Now turn around before you make me feel like a nudist."
"You sure?" He shot weakly, a hand still plastered against his face.
"Of course I'm sure." Pausing, he slowly peeled his hand away and swung it back to his side, turning to face her with a shy kind of shuffle. She was decent in the basic sense of the world, his shirt falling precariously to her upper thighs, and she met him with a nonchalant smile despite her lack of formal pants.
"I hope you don't mind about the shirt - I didn't mean to take it without asking." With an embarrassed sigh she leaned back against the sink, tugging at it to show off the dark splotches of water. "The guy in the overalls gave me some of your extra clothes to wear while I cleaned up." Scout took a few more steps forward into the unkempt junkyard of a room, kicking an empty bottle of beer out of the way with a wistful clink. "He said that you were the closest to my size." She added as a light afterthought.
"N-no problem at all," he mumbled, crossing his arms low across his chest. "You can keep it. You know, if you wanna." He swung his eyes up to meet hers with a light blush, but she only smiled and turned back to her laundry. How could she make him feel like this with something as little as a smile? He felt like a chocolate bar left outside in the sun when he was around her, warm and uncharacteristically sloppy in all ways, and part of him wondered if all girls could break him down in such a precise and calculated way. He hardly knew her yet his ears grew hot and something in his chest fizzed like a freshly opened can of pop just being near. Swaying his weight from one foot to another, he gave his arm a nervous rub before promptly changing the subject. "What were you singing?" Penny froze mid-scrub, looking back at him with a crooked expression of embarrassment.
"The Beach Boys," she purred modestly. "You've never heard that song? It's a new hit - all over the radio all day and all night."
"There's no radio here, dahlin'. Believe me, we've tried every crackpot trick in the book to rig one up, but even Engie with his eleven doctorates or whatever can't find enough parts to make one work." She whistled low, giving her forehead another quick wipe.
"No radio, no music," she swung around with a dramatic swipe, motioning towards the unsettling mess of a room around her. Despite being labeled "wash", there wasn't a single washing apparatus in sight - instead only broken sentries and dusty gym equipment cluttered up the floor, pushed in among other strange and abandoned treasures. "No washing machines." She continued, "This place wasn't meant for long term residents, was it?" She tilted back to face him with a knowing grin. "It's a wonderful song, though." Scout brushed off a thin layer of dust from one of the nearby bench presses, a dramatic knife wound ripped through its padding from what could only be assumed was a routine scrimmage between the boys, and sat down with a sigh. Contrary to popular belief, his battle-bruised muscles weren't fully in the clear and the impetuous run over here had reminded him of why he really should start listening to Sniper.
"Sure sounded like it." He whistled with a brief pause, rubbing the back of his neck in an uncomfortable stretch. He found himself doing a lot of that lately, actually, and his own awkwardness was beginning to poke a hole in his already bruised ego. Things sure were changing fast, he mused. "You should sing it again sometime. You know, give me a rundown of the Billboard chart back home." Penny faltered for a brief moment before throwing herself back into her work, scrubbing at her dress even harder in hopes of hiding her mystified grin.
"I'm not much of a singer." She cooed wistfully. With a cry of disbelief Scout rushed to her side, hanging over the side of the sink languidly while she continued to scrub.
"What are ya talkin' about? You've got some pipes on ya! Nobody else here can sing - not well, anyway. Pyro tries but that…well, that's just a real fuckin' mess." She laughed sweetly but seemed genuinely unconvinced of his complements in the way girls often are.
"Shame I'm such a modest lady, then, huh?" He raised an eyebrow swiftly and gave a bemused nod towards her current attire which she met with a smug shuffle, yanking her shirt down even further. "My point, mister etiquette, is that you guys could use a little song and dance around here." And it took only a moment for it to sink in just how right she was. Once off the battlefield everyone seemed to slink into a languid state of boredom, keeping busy with menial tasks just as a way to pass the time between missions, and even the rowdy and carefree moments that struck here and there still seemed placated by a looming sense of apathy. Behind the job titles and the histories and the roaring call to arms, they were still just prisoners, abandoned and forgotten about after each ceasefire tolled.
With a heaving sigh he pulled his baseball cap off and ran a hand through his hair, pushing his bangs forward into a smooth tousle, and pausing dramatically he mustered up the courage to speak. "I'm gonna tell you a secret," Penny let her laundry slip back into the sink with an intrigued glance, looking over at him with her full attention. "But you gotta promise not to laugh." He finished, a finger held out for emphasis. "And I mean promise." She sketched a thumb across her chest in a dramatic X, marking the spot.
"Cross my heart." Scout let out another stressful heave, as if knowing that what he was about to say went against his character in every way imaginable, and Penny too recognized that he had promised himself to never tell anyone the words lingering on his tongue. He ran a thumb across his eyebrow out of habit, averting his eyes from hers.
"Back home my Ma used to play these old jazz records all the time, over and over again practically every night until the damn things warped so bad they were only good for holding butterscotch for company. Well, my brothers and I could do whatever we wanted during the week, but every Saturday night when we were kids she made us dress up in our Sunday best and parade around the living room, taking turns dancing with her. She said it would make us gentlemen in the end, but we all felt like total dopes. I mean, all we wanted to do was read comics or shoot our BB guns or go out and play baseball and there we were stuck inside slow dancin' with our Ma." Penny smiled lightly, resting her chin on the palm of her hand while Scout reminisced, his eyes only meeting hers once or twice. "Anyway, every single Saturday when it was my turn to dance she would put on the exact same record and played the same damn song - 'Anything Goes'."
"Cole Porter." She chimed in. Scout met her gaze with a look of stupefied marvel.
"Yeah, exactly. Well, I hated that song with such a passion that I swore I would never listen to it ever again - I'd rather go to an early grave than even hear the first of it. But now, and you're not allowed to repeat this to anyone, especially not any of my brothers should you meet 'em on the street, but now I kind of...miss it. It's been so long since I've seen Ma or heard any real music for that matter that it would...kind of be nice to hear again, ya know?" He finished with a sigh, scratching his cheek in embarrassment, but Penny seemed entirely sincere in her understanding. She tapped her fingers against the rim of the sink in slow contemplation, shooting him a scheming glance, then in one fell swoop took him by the shoulders and led him back to the other side of the room, leaving him facing the washroom door like a child in time-out.
"You're not allowed to look," she explained, sashaying back to the sink with a childish prance. She braced her hands on each side of the basin and gave him one last glance. "And no laughing! Not even a smile or I'll stop!" Scout stood stupefied, curious but too afraid of breaking her sudden burst of confidence to turn around. Instead, he simply stood staring down the chipped paint of the door before him, leaning a hand against the cold metal of the doorframe.
From the other side of the room she took a breath, shaking out her head in disbelief of her own gaul, but, nevertheless, began.
"Times have changed, and we've often re-wound the clock since the Puritans got a shock when they landed on Plymouth Rock. If today any shock they should try to stem, 'stead of landing on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock would land on them."
Scout felt his heart swell up like an overfilled water balloon, the warm water bubbling up in his chest like a reverse waterfall. He froze in a mystified surprise, arms letting loose the slightest unnoticeable tremble, and, staring emptily at the wall before him, he listened with a heavy heart. Penny's voice, sweetly soft in comparison to the sultry tones he remembered of the woman singer on his Ma's record, swelled into a rhythmic swing.
"In olden days a glimpse of stockings was looked on as something shocking, now heaven knows - Anything Goes."
His mind shot back to those living room ball dances - Saturday nights spent in pint-sized suits with neatly combed hair, and how his mother would pick him from the fray of his older brothers, each pushing and shoving in the way that children often do when they can't quite seem to sit still.
"Good authors, too, who once knew better words now only use four letter words writing prose - Anything Goes."
She would straighten the crinkled folds from his coat, leading him gently by the hand to the center of the living room rug, a record already spinning on its turntable, and there he would sway uncomfortably along with her as the bandstand picked up with a swingin' beat, Ella Fitzgerald's voice reverberating through their cramped living room with a vibrato hum. His brothers would hiss and chatter, mumbling jokes and insults as he quite literally faced the music, but with a whisper of his name his mother could always pull his attention away from the fray.
"One day," she whispered one night in her sweetly burlesque voice, humming low so only he could hear. "You're going to do this with a girl you love. And you may hate it now, but that night will make you feel like you're on top of the world."
"The world has gone mad today and good's bad today and black's white today and day's night today, when most guys today that women prize today are just silly gigolos."
With a quiet peek he turned from his place against the door, glancing slowly at the girl behind him singing her heart out. Eyes closed in a concentrated bliss she still hung over the sink, hips swinging back and forth ever so slightly to keep the song's beat, and slowly, quietly he broke his promise completely, cracking a soft smile as he took three slow paces behind her. With a steady hand he took her by the hips, picking up her hand from its place on the sink, and he watched on gently as her eyes flickered open in a chirp of surprise. His solemn smile told her to keep singing as they began to sway.
"So though I'm not a great romancer I know that I'm bound to answer when you propose - Anything Goes."
She met his gaze with a giddy chuckle as they swayed their way through their makeshift ballroom, sharing wild smiles and persistent laughs at such shameless late-night slow dances, and as they spun her voice reverberated against the room's cracked white tile giving her number the sound of a jazz-club ballad.
"The world has gone mad today and good's bad today and black's white today and day's night today, when most guys today that women prize today are just silly gigolos."
Scout swung her out gently, all reservations melting away in a sudden fizz of childish thrills, and as she kept singing, making her own version of that radio that Engie just couldn't quite crack, he suddenly knew in an unexpected flash that his mother, as she often is, had been right all along. Penny looked up at him with that same enigmatic smile that seemed a permanent part of her visage, and with locked eyes she quieted her singing to a soft hum.
"So though I'm not a great romancer I know that I'm bound to answer when you propose,"
Before he knew it she was up on her toes, her face so close to his that he could smell that same strawberry perfume that lapped at his senses sweetly before, and with a slow sway she leaned in close to his ear. He stood frozen and flushed, listening to his own heartbeat in its fluttering frenzy as it pounded in his ears, and with a rush of warm breath that kissed his neck with heat she slowly, softly, whispered a line that years ago would have made him shake with fury. Now, just like Ma said, all he felt was the shudder of first love.
"Anything Goes."